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Y! MyWebMary McCarty: How can we protect kids from careless mothers?
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Will the Oprah factor make it harder for the state to punish parents who leave their kids in cars?
Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby told a very sympathetic Oprah Winfrey about the day she became, in her words, "the most hated mom in America." On Aug. 23 of last year — a day that temperatures reached nearly 100 degrees — she left her 2-year-old daughter, Cecilia, in a hot SUV for eight hours. "When you're a mother who loves her children, you try to protect them from the world and I couldn't protect her from myself," she told Oprah.
Wrenching words, no doubt, and I can't imagine anything more excruciating than the guilt she must feel. But the Clermont County mother's appearance on "Oprah" last week failed to address, in any practical sense, what can be done to prevent future tragedies. The show's theme was that overwhelmed mothers should "slow down." A more useful message would have been, "Don't leave your kids in your car. Ever. Not for a second."
The public outcry over Cecilia's death prompted state Sen. Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, to ask Clermont County Prosecutor Don White, "Do we need to change the law?"
White said he felt powerless to press the child endangerment charges recommended by Union Twp. police. Under state law, such charges require an act of recklessness — strictly defined as an intentional act of putting a child at risk. After speaking with Niehaus, White took the matter to the 25-member executive committee of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. They unanimously passed a resolution calling for a law that would make it a minor misdemeanor for anyone to leave a child under the age of 5 in a motor vehicle.
White said he doesn't think the "Oprah" show will diminish the bill's chances of passing. He has taken a few calls since the show, but nothing like last summer's groundswell.
Another child, 11-month-old Jenna Edwards, died Aug. 20 when her mother, Jodie, left her in the car for eight hours while she worked at Cincinnati Christian University. Niehaus called the circumstances "eerily similar" to the Slaby case. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters didn't press charges against Edwards — and he doesn't believe a change in the law is necessary. "Do you want to criminally punish someone who makes a mistake, who accidentally forgets the child?" he asked.
Niehaus acknowledges these are tough cases that demand sympathy as well as scrutiny. He introduced the bill, he said, "because it's important to have the debate."
The issue certainly demands more than the soft-focus "busy mom" treatment with Winfrey lecturing her audience, "What happened to my guest today could have happened to any one of you."
Nesselroad-Slaby brushed off Winfrey's too-gentle questions about her habit of leaving Cecilia unattended in the car for short periods of time. She persisted in the practice even though day-care providers for her 5-year-old daughter Allison warned her not to do it. According to police reports, she left Cecilia alone in the car on both days prior to her death as well as the morning she died, when she stopped to buy doughnuts at Busken Bakery. Yet Nesselroad-Slaby told Winfrey that Cecilia died because she was trying too hard to be "the perfect mom."
This was a perfect opportunity for a national teaching moment warning other parents not to make the same mistake.
Instead, Nesselroad-Slaby became a poster for busy moms.
She very well might have been busy, but let's be honest about why this tragedy occurred. Cecilia's mother had gotten in the habit of being careless.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDaily
News.com.
