Every single step that is taken on the way to the outcome to me is part of the story and yes, part of how I feel about the situation. If its part of a pattern of neglectful and irresponsible choices that is very different from one accident. It just is....
Life is not black and white, its all varying shades of grey.
I absolutely agree. I read the article from the first post at work today and it took nearly the entirety of my lunch break to do so. That said, it was an excellent read and brings light to the emotional reality of the situation. I am very glad that I read it.
I just finished a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and if there is one huge takeaway message to relay, I suppose one might say that humans are biological organisms, not computers. Humans make mistakes. Do certain mistakes need to bear consequences? Absolutely. But as it has been reiterated time and time again, the whole story matters. Not just bits and pieces. Not just the conclusion.
This is an aside from the point, but I think that it will illustrate my overall opinion quite nicely. In a class that I took on cognitive psychology, we learned about differing errors in attention. One particular error, dubbed an “error of omission,†occurs when a person is engaged in a task, gets distracted, and then inadvertently jumps ahead several steps in the task when they return to it instead of returning to the appropriate step. I was reminded of this error in a trivial situation that happened to me just the other day. I was at work and had gone to take a bathroom break. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my bathroom routine is typically pretty consistent and I’ve been practicing it for a few decades now. Pee, wipe, pull up pants, flush, wash hands, leave bathroom. I’m a pretty good bathroom goer, mind you. Expert, you might say.
But the other day my phone rang in my purse after re-pantsing myself! Call me gross, but I grabbed my phone to see who the caller was. Turns out it was no one interesting and the next thing I knew, I was at the door to the bathroom, ready to exit. As I was leaving, it dawned on me that I had neither washed my hands, nor flushed the toilet so I had to return to do so.
One might argue that forgetting to flush and forgetting a child in a car on a hot day are two entirely different situations. That person would be correct. The underlying psychology of the brain and the error in attention that occurs however is not so very different. Factor in a lack of sleep, stressors, and a busy schedule, and errors in attention will occur. Rather than pointing fingers with the assumption that someone needs to be blamed, care is needed to look at how to remedy the situation.
As was mentioned briefly in the article, punishing the “guilty†party might make some feel as though justice has been served, but will do little to prevent the cases of true forgetfulness. If a parent never intended to leave their child in the car, then the knowledge that they might be severely punished for doing so (not to mention losing a child, which I can only imagine must be the worst punishment of all) will do nothing to prevent the situation. So why do we insist on placing blame? Is there an inherent need for blame to be placed? In my mind, the primary motive of the justice system should be to create a safer society, not just to get revenge on the bad guy. Rather, couldn’t we be much more productive by creating legislation that requires cars to sound alarms if it detects motion and a hot temperature? Or maybe if the weight of a child is still on the seat when the car is turned off? Or could we not push for car seats that have built in weight sensors and do the same thing? I truly believe that in this case, being proactive is the only effective way to save lives.
One might argue that parents just need to be “more careful.†One might say that this could never happen to them or that they are a good parent. The fact of the matter is that this has nothing to do with being a good or a bad parent. It has to do with the fact that the human mind is not infallible. I urge you to read a book by Daniel Kahneman titled “Thinking Fast and Slow.†Personally, I think it gives great insight into the systems of human thought processes and how we, as living organisms, are hardwired to be “lazy†in our thought. That is, when we are able to go on autopilot, we (inadvertently) do so. When we are able to use heuristics to solve problems, we do so. This is no fault of anyone. This is a fault of human nature.
Personally, I do believe that some accidents should be punishable by virtue of the level of safety of the events that led up to the accident. A drunk driver may not intend to kill anyone. But by virtue of making a bad decision, he or she has created a situation for failure. A parent who gets drunk or high (even accidentally) in a time when he or she should be managing a child has created an unnecessary recipe for disaster. A parent who becomes sleep deprived or extremely stressed may or may not be in the same position. In certain instances, I would argue that our society allows for nothing different. That is, in some instances, it may be that in order to do right by one’s child, one must put himself into a position that may cause sleep deprivation or stress. If there was a real choice in the matter and the dangerous situation was created at the free will of the parent, then the situation may be different.
Life is not simple. I Again, as the quoted poster said, it’s all a gray area.
I keep coming in my mind to a situation in which someone accidentally leaves the stove on which results in a house fire. Sure, that person was technically the guilty party, but do they deserve to be guilty of manslaughter if they happen to survive and the rest of the family does not? I tend to think no. There is an infinite list of possible scenarios. I don’t think that a single blanket statement could cover them all. But in the case of a true accident, I do not think that any parent deserves to serve jail time for forgetting about a child.