A tragedy

[pegkerr]

This story--and especially the picture of the father--absolutely broke my heart.

I can't give the family anything but heartfelt sympathy. Every parent knows how thin the line is that we walk between life as usual and making a mistake that has consequences you will never recover from.

I hope that their family stays intact after this tragedy, and may God be with them as they mourn their loss.

Edited to add: I cross posted this in badparents here and it has generated a large amount of comments, if people would like to see what others are saying.

Comments

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Having kids is a huge responsibility and, like I said, I've never been a parent. I've been a nanny, and have often babysat for my cousins so that they could get a nap. I've run errands for them, when they were too tired to even function. I don't think he should have stayed home and gone on welfare; of course not. It's just that all of the parents I know have said there's no way they could forget the baby--quite a few of them put post-it notes on the steering wheel whenever there was a change in the routine. I feel sorry for the family--no matter what, the fact remains that this is a tragedy.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Bless you for having helped out tired parents. A lot of people who don't have kids never think of it.

It's just that all of the parents I know have said there's no way they could forget the baby

People say there's no way they could do a lot of things, but sometimes we just don't want to think that we could, don't want to imagine the possibility. In these comments alone there are at least two experienced parents (pegkerr and I) who say we can imagine how this could happen. Humans are human, and that doesn't change because they're parents.

The Post-its are a great idea.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine how much responsibility it is to be a parent. To be responsible for a life--I have cats, yes, and they are my kids, but they also aren't totally dependent on me as a baby would be. Being a parent is scary, and you have to admire it.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, being a parent is scary, but we forget that most of the time, which is probably a good thing for the species, or we'd never manage to reproduce and raise the next generation.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I think that most humans forget most of the time just how fragile life is. We couldn't function otherwise.