Every year I read at least one story about a parent leaving a child in a car for an extended period of time and then that child dying of heat exhaustion. In Japan this only seems to be a problem in the summer and I've just read of the latest case where the father (a school teacher) just forgot he should have dropped his daughter off at a day-care centre and left her in the car. This was in the south of Japan (the same island I was on yesterday) where summer still rages. The 2-year-old girl died of heatstroke. I thought that was bad enough, until I followed the discussion on that link and got taken to a website in America which lists more than 30 (sic) similar cases that have happened this year alone Stateside. My wife says she would have divorced me if I'd put the boys through anything like that. I think I would have divorced me.
Posted by Joe at September 18, 2003 08:27 PMThese types of cases are awful for a parent to read about. We obviously feel awful for the children. But I also find myself feeling for the parents -- not any kind of empathy for their idiotic actions, but for the terrible pain they must endure for the rest of their lives after making such a tragic mistake.
Posted by: Vaneta at September 19, 2003 08:52 AMIn this particular Japanese case one could possibly make out extenuating circumstances and one can certainly understand his pain. BUT, usually here it is a case of a parent (and more often than not the mother) having left the child in the car while going off to play pachinko - a kind of pinball game which is a mild form of gambling. One just can't empathise in any way with that sort of person.
Posted by: Joe at September 19, 2003 04:54 PMThen there was the one who left the infant in the train station locker while she went out clubbing. Fortunately in this case the baby's crying alerted the authorities, and no major harm came to the child.
Posted by: DJ at September 19, 2003 10:00 PMI was going to say "you can't be serious", but that's not the sort of story one makes up or forgets.
Posted by: Joe at September 19, 2003 10:56 PM