Humor columnist Gene Weingarten wrote a powerful piece for the Washington Post about children who are accidentally left in car seats by their parents. From his article:

What kind of person forgets a baby?

The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.

Last year it happened three times in one day, the worst day so far in the worst year so far in a phenomenon that gives no sign of abating.

The facts in each case differ a little, but always there is the terrible moment when the parent realizes what he or she has done, often through a phone call from a spouse or caregiver. This is followed by a frantic sprint to the car. What awaits there is the worst thing in the world.

Weingarten also moderated a chat on the topic on the newspaper's website, where he opened with his own story of a near-miss:

One day I turned left, made another left, as customary, and pulled into the Miami Herald parking lot. As I searched for a space, from the back seat, Molly said something. She was almost three. Until that moment, I'd had no memory at all that she was in that car.

I can't recall if, like many of the parents in my article, I was particularly stressed that morning, or mentally lost in some problem from work. I know there was no distracting cellphone conversation, because cellphones hadn't been invented. What I retain of that moment is the indelible memory of staring slack-jawed at the little girl in the backseat, and feeling a powerful rush of physical nausea. This was Miami in the summer. Molly would not have survived fifteen minutes in that car.

It may be hard for those who have not had such experiences to understand, but the number of such incidents - 15 to 25 a year - and the seeming randomness of those it touches are enough to suggest that legal consequences for parents are not a solution that works, neither socially (as a deterrent) or ethically (as punishment for an act the parent "should have" prevented from happening).

As I read Weingarten's excellent reporting and discussions of the topic (led there by a fortuitous post on Geekdad, where I also occasionally contribute), I was reminded of the blogger who first made the case, for me, that these were not isolated occurrences that could be chalked up to mental illness at best or malice at worst on the part of parents. The campaign for a safety-oriented solution were well-established by that time, but sometimes someone's personal stand on an issue at a time when public outrage is running high makes a big impression on a reader. That's what Thingamababy's Andrew Jones did for me, and when I searched his blog to find those statements I still remember today, I realized it was way back in July of 2007, which is the equivalent of about ten blog years. Turns out, he made his case fairly quickly in his two blog posts on the topic - here's the first, and here's the second - but what I remember best is what he wrote in the comments, in response to a reader who (with perfectly legitimate logic of her own) questioned how we can not blame parents for these incidents. Here's what AJ wrote, which I'm going to ask for forgiveness for excerpting liberally here.

If we do not need a child-in-car reminder, then we do not need ANY home babyproofing gear. We don’t need outlet covers or oven protection knobs or baby gates or any of the other devices that are really about addressing lapses in parental supervision.

Couple those issues with entrenched routine (say, a decade or more of doing the same thing every day), and just this one time, on only a few hours sleep, you lapse and forget to drop the kid off at daycare, then think you already did. The baby is quiet, so there’s no reminder there to alert you.

I’ve had that type of situation happen when driving my wife to work. I forget to take a freeway offramp, and wham, my mind has me thinking I’m going somewhere else. My wife slaps me upside the head. Swap out my wife for a quiet baby, and if I don’t catch myself, maybe I have a tragedy on my hands.

There is no evidence to suggest implementing this technology will cost millions of dollars (the devices are already largely developed), and the extra cost to the consumer could be insignificant.

As for the 133 lives figure, 133 annual child deaths is enough to launch nationwide campaigns for pool safety, gun safety, you name it. Why hasn’t that happened yet for car seats? I’ll give you a good guess. When a kid dies unattended in a car seat, the car seat manufacturer doesn’t get sued. Lawsuits drive all sorts of things, including safety campaigns. If money were a motivator, we’d see everyone pushing for safer car seats. Instead, we blame the parent, ignore the problem and allow more kids to die. ...

We’re dealing with a complete mental lapse that has nothing to do with the value of the thing being forgotten. I’ve read more than one story about star musicians leaving multi-million dollar instruments in the backseat of cabs - instruments that were sitting right next to them in plain view. If we had millions of star musicians carrying multimillion dollar instruments in America, I imagine we’d have 133 lost instrument news reports every year. Importance and value are not even a consideration when someone experiences a mental lapse.

You can read the full conversation on Thingamababy. And if you aren't following Thinga, you should be - honest and intelligent bloggers like AJ are a crucial part of the early warning system for parenting issues that percolate up into our shared consciousness.

Over at the Tranquil Parent, we've posted some tips to help make sure you don't forget your own child in their car seat. Take a look and please add your own thoughts in the comments if you have any tips or personal stories to share.