Two children in Texas have died after they were locked in a hot car Friday as temperatures soared to 96 degrees, according to police.
The children were young — 16 months and 2 years old — and the deaths are under investigation. But police said,
The children’s mother told police that they “took off.” After searching for them on the property, she found them inside a small four-door vehicle, where they had somehow locked themselves inside, police said.
The mother then broke one of the windows and found the children unresponsive, police said. They were pronounced dead at 4:33 p.m.
This is all we know, but it hasn’t stopped the outrage on social media. A friend, for instance, responded this way:
What the hell kind of mother says her babies “took off?!”
Lock HER up.
Elsewhere, we have this
2 children found dead in hot car https://t.co/oWU1Xu28xE Mother is a liar! Lock her in a car in high heat! #rt #wtf #BULLSHIT— Hella (@Hella_Chick) May 27, 2017
and this
The two children found dead in the car. My personal opinion, I believe that they were murdered. Sounds suspicious to me.— Mark Allen (@MarkAll95600234) May 27, 2017
The reports I’ve read have not cast doubt on the mother’s story, saying only that the deaths remain under investigation. But the tenor of the response is fairly consistent with earlier tragedies — such as the child killed by an alligator in Florida or the child who fell into the gorilla cage in Cincinnati a year ago today. We assume that the mother — always the mother — has failed, and our outrage meters turn to 10. We immediately judge, failing to grasp the unpredictability of these situations.
Basically, children are unpredictable. They run off. They wander. No matter how careful a parent might be, a child can get away. It’s happened to me — with my nephews Joe and Dan (separately), with my niece Kim, with me when I was a kid.
When Joe was 3, for instance, he got away from us at the Quakerbridge Mall. He was teasing my mom, hiding in clothes racks and then jumping out. Until he didn’t. Suddenly we were in a mass panic — what happened, where was he? We contacted security, they locked down the mall, while we fanned out. We found him at the other end of the mall playing with a Spider-Man toy, so it all ended well.
But it could have gone the other way. Those lost seconds, the quickness with which he was able to get away — it could have meant tragedy.
I think most of us understand this and, if we are willing to be honest with ourselves, have experienced this on some level. There is a gender component to this — the judgment always targets the mother — but it is more than that. We judge because we think it makes us better by comparison.
When I read my friend’s post — and some of the responses to it on Facebook. I found myself getting angry. My response:
I love how judgmental we all are. It’s as if none of us has had a kid get away from us. I know it’s happened with my nephews — and it can happen to any of us. If you don’t believe that, you’re either delusional or full of crap.
Send me an e-mail.
Hank Kalet 