Some years ago I took the baby with me on business in downtown Denver. When I’d completed it, I crossed the street to my car, pushing the baby in the stroller. After putting the little guy in his car seat, I drove off. Minus the stroller.

I didn’t even think about the stroller until I’d arrived home. Too bad. It wasn’t there when I got back.

But good God, at least I didn’t leave the baby in it!  Nineteen-year-old Catalina Clauser, the Arizona mom who reportely drove off recently with her one-month-old strapped in his infant seat on the roof of the car, must have been on another planet.

She admittedly had smoked pot with her boyfriend in the park, and after their little family outing, the two went to buy beer.

I always thought kids were entertaining enough. Who needs beer or pot when you have babies making faces at you, blowing bubbles and speaking in tongues?

The boyfriend apparently had a little trouble driving because the police arrested him for DUI. Bummer.

Angered over his irresponsible behavior, or maybe just the fact that he got caught, Catalina decided to visit a friend and smoke a little more pot.

The news stated the mom left around midnight, but I don’t think she took her brain with her. She had left the baby on top of her car, strapped in his safety seat, and didn’t realize there was a problem. Stoned, angry and oblivious – she kept on going.

Imagine her shock and horror when she discovered the baby had landed in the middle of an intersection. I only hope the near-disaster shocked her into sanity.

Witnesses in the residential area who came to the baby’s rescue  found him uninjured. Miraculously, the car seat landed on its side.

Now the kid is in state custody. The mom’s in jail, arrested on child abuse and aggrevated assault charges,  and the saga begins.

A 19 year-old mom. Boyfriend. Drugs. Alcohol. Where does a child stand a chance in this equation?

To me, the irony in the story is that in the course of events, this baby has gotten himself noticed, and perhaps – one can only hope – the help he will need to survive.

But what happens to all the kids whose parents don’t get caught? The ones whose parents drink or drug or become catatonic playing one video game after another? Or the ones whose parents argue and scream with no regard for their baby’s sensitivities? Or the ones who get handed off to other oblivious “adults,” because mom or dad had something more urgent they had to attend to, like meet a friend at the bar… or a convenience store?

I remember an emotional news story about an Ohio mom who left her babies behind in their cribs while she slipped out to meet her friends at 7-11. The electricity in their apartment had been turned off for non-payment, and she thought it would be all right to leave them alone with lighted candles.

It wasn’t all right and her babies – two, I think – died in the fire. What sticks with me to this day is the look of utter desperation on the mother’s face. They had to put her on suicide watch.

A child’s will to live is formidable. Ask any parent of a premie, or the adoptive parent of  a child who had been previously neglected or abused.

As newborns, children must have human interaction, protection, loving touch and sustaining nourishment. The lack of these basic things over time causes severe stress reactions in children, eventually resulting in their need to control and manipulate their world. They cannot trust.

I am at the point in my life when I do not care as much about parents’ rights as I do the rights of children. For years I read about the selfish nature of children, how they must learn not only to fit into the adult world, but understand why they must do so. Parents pay good money to attend workshops where experts tell them first-hand how to make their kids comply with their adult needs, desires and schedules by phrasing requests or admonishments in just the right way. Not only that, parents can pay for books and workshops that will tell them they shouldn’t feel guilty about not meeting their kids’ needs. I don’t buy it.

What parents should be paying for is education on how to meet their children’s developmental needs, especially those essential for emotional and cognitive growth. As long as parents continue to ignore the issue, there will be another generation caught in the cycle.

Somehow we have to switch our sights and make meeting children’s needs our priority – instead of the focusing on the needs of parents. How can that happen?

The conundrum reminds me of a black and white design I once saw hanging on the wall of a doctor’s office. If you relaxed and allowed your eyes to take in the negative space – the white portion of the paper – an image of Jesus Christ appeared. But if you concentrated on the dark positive space, where people usually focus, you missed the image completely.  FFG

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