Ms. Harding.

We're not just hanging by threads, but each of us is also spinning with a paring knife.

A couple times when I was a kid, my parents forgot to pick up me and my sister. Once the driver of our carpool wound up going home without any of us because we were a few minutes late. She had a forty-five minute drive yet somehow managed to make it without realizing there weren't any kids in the car.

I know plenty of parents, who are not abusive, but who have forgotten to pick up or bring their kids home at least once. I'd chalk it up to stress, lack of sleep, other things on their mind, anything but the fact that they're abusive people.

or really willful negligence - like driving drunk.

We have been criminalizing mistakes for some time now. No parent wants to kill their child. Most of what I've seen has been cases where the behavior is harmless 99.99% of the time but this time everything fell the wrong way and a child died. That's already a life sentence. I was in a car pool with two other guys years ago and I noticed that one of them (who was my landlord) was a bit odd about some things. The other guy confided in me that Steve had lost a son to a lightening strike 20 years earlier and had never been the same since.

I don't know what our harsh criminal system thinks it's doing but providing justice isn't one of them.

During my busiest years (two children born 14 months apart), I was constantly reminding myself to stay in the moment, and eternally grateful that none of the mistakes I made hurt my children. I'm devastated when I hear these stories (and those of people who accidentally back their cars over a child in their driveway).

These things can happen to anyone, and I don't know how these individuals survive their grief and guilt. Every time I hear a story like this, I remind myself to slow my day down and be sure that my own absence of mind does not precipitate disaster.

I feel only pity for these parents, and I pray for them, but I also feel pity for anyone ignorant enough to think this could never happen to them.

I think one of the reasons these babies-forgotten stories have haunted me since I had my first child is that even though I have always denied to myself it could happen to me, deep down I can imagine it. I remember being so tired when my second son was about 8 months old and I was working full-time that a couple of times I literally forgot where I was driving and had to pull over for a minute to let my brain reset.

And it's not just exhaustion that can do it - it's the task overload. The human brain is only set up to do so much at one time. I feel such grief for those poor children and their parents. And I hope that I'm one of the fortunate people whose momentary inattention (while driving, cooking, or any other normal activity) doesn't end up causing any harm to my loved ones. I can hardly imagine the crushing burden on those poor souls.

If you are the type of person who is constantly, incessantly, unstoppably investigating your child every minute or so, you probably won't accidentally leave him/her in the car, but you probably aren't the best choice to have a kid. And if you're not that type of person, then there is a small but finite chance that you will someday forget the kid.

one sad fucking article.

My heart goes out to those poor people who made such tragic mistakes, and of course, to the poor children lost.

I don't see how they go on.

It seems to me that the intense hatred and lack of compassion these stories provoke extend directly from these people's hatred of the knowledge that they very well *might* do the same thing. I also think much outrage toward people like Susan Smith, etc. has to do with people having had fantasies of doing violence to their own children, and needing to "other" that side of themselves as completely and drastically as possible.

It is horrible that this happens, but instead of placing blame, shouldn't we look into ways to make sure it doesn't happen as often? How about "intelligent" car seats that can send a message to parents or some sort of monitoring station if there is a child in the carseat and the temp goes out of some range? I'm sure that someone can come up with a solution here, this is not rock science.

Carseats save lives, but they also make it easy to forget about a sleeping baby in the back seat. Additionally, toddlers who could probably open a door and escape are trapped by the seatbelts. I feel nothing but pity for these poor parents and the poor, poor children.

I always peek into cars to see if there are babies or dogs unattended on hot or very cold days. So far I've spotted a few dogs, and the stores already had a protocol for dealing with it. I know that at least two cases I have heard of involved parents who didn't realize how fast a child can overheat in a car, and left them deliberately, so education can help in those cases. Another safeguard: the other parent can call and check that the dropoff went smoothly.

I live in Texas and read these sad stories every summer.

While my son was in a rear-facing car seat, I put my purse in the back seat and his diaper bag in the front with me.

How about allowing car seats in the front seat?

Have air bags that turn off if need be. When a "safety device" is putting a substantial portion of the population at risk (i.e. anyone under 4' tall) it's time for them to stop being mandatory.

Forcing sleep deprived parents to keep car seats out of sight, especially now that all cars seem to have shaded windows, is a recipe for disaster.