How can this be....

Letter to the editor

7:13 p.m. EDT, July 12, 2014
Most parents would tell you that their children's safety is their No. 1 priority. They would also tell you that they would never, ever forget their children are in the car with them.

Well, this occurred 44 times in 2013. Most recently, a father who was supposed to be bringing his kid to day care apparently forgot he was in the car and went to work, leaving him to die in the back seat [July 10, Page 1, "Police: Father Left Boy In Car”].
I can understand this happening once or twice a year, but 44 times? This makes our society look atrocious. But as officials try to create tips to prevent these incidents, an even sadder truth about society emerges.

I was appalled to read that Kevin Borrup of Connecticut Children’s Medical Center advised parents to leave "valuable” items such as their phone in the back of their cars beside their children to remind them their child is with them. Well, what is more valuable than your child? How is it possible that people would think of their phones before their children?

Your phone has nothing in common with you. You can’t have a real conversation with it. It doesn’t make you laugh as you are driving around. The suggestion of a phone as a "valuable” to remind people of their children’s presence is about the most disappointing thing I have ever heard from our society.

My advice is this: Forget your phone; talk to your child in the car, even if your child is a little baby. Maybe that will be enough to remind you they are there and they are the most valuable thing in your car.

Emily DiSalvo, Portland
The writer is 13.
_________________________

I was just as appalled by the suggestion as this girl was. How heartbreaking is it that as parents there are those who are so busy, and preoccupied with "stuff" that they would actually remember their cell phone before they would remember if they had dropped off their child at day care or not????

Maybe its time as this girl suggested to put the cell phones down and talk and spend time with our children instead. Maybe its time to slow down and really understand what is truly important in our lives...

God bless
maryjane

Forget your phone...

The number of incidents should rise as more and more people become saturated by the increasing number of cell towers accompanied by the increasing strengths of the signals.

Heart song

I'm not blaming cell phones for what happened. Parents and people need to look at what matters most. Children are a
wonderful gift to us by GOD. Life has value but people are so caught up in there stuff that they don't value the real important things in their lives like they should.

God bless
Maryjane

It is not a matter of "blame" - it is cause and effect. The loss of short term memory happened to me. They erected three cell phone towers less than a half a mile from my house. I could not remember from one room to the next what I was going there to get. No matter how hard I tried, I could not remember. I even left my poor dog out in the cold. The same thing happened to my husband.

And it is not just a matter of getting older as the LORD has showed me how to reverse the effects by replacing depleted vitamins and minerals (this after moving away from the antennas) so that my "connectors" work again - and my short term memory has returned.

But then again, maybe the cell phones are "to blame" as for many they have become idols, and that is just where Satan enters.

Well, actually the cell phones themselves are not to blame, but rather those that choose to be possessed by them.

A long time ago, prior to cell phones, (drum roll please).... I forgot to do something.

Regardless of what some people think about cell phones, they are not really the topic here. Cell phones are not the issue, the issue is that as a society little children are dying because parents are to busy, to distracted in their lives to do what they are suppose to and care for their children. In these cases when little ones are left in the car the adult caring for them is distracted for some reason when the child should be their number one priority. The truly sad thing in this issue is that a professional suggested leaving something of value near the baby so the parent wouldn't forget their own child. Have we really come to a place that a piece of electronic equipment, or some other object is more valuable, more on our minds then a human life....

Sadly I already know the answer to my last question and it breaks my heart.

God bless
maryjane

MJ,
unfortunately you are right and the answer to your last question is yes.
As a Family Support worker I constantly supervise children or families and also go to places where I can observe other parents with their children. It breaks my heart how many mothers and fathers are so preoccupied with their phones they do not even acknowledge their little ones tugging on their sleeve. I have watched parents sit in a play place for an hour without putting the phone out of their hand and without giving their child a single look, unless they scream at the top of their lungs or try to choke their little brother. Often they answer the child's questions without taking their eyes of the screen. I find this is particularly bad on indoor playgrounds where there is nothing else to do than to play with your child or to observe them. The message a child gets from this is that their parents don't really care about them. It is a form of neglect that will have consequences on the child's emotional development.
It's so easy to do better and entirely free: Look up and give him a smile. Look her in the eyes and care while she tells you what is important to her. Stoop to his level. Touch slightly while you talk together. One of my teachers used to say: Every child needs one person in their life whose face lights up when they enter the room.