On Tuesday, a 22-year-old woman was arrested after allegedly leaving her baby in the car during her seven-hour-waitressing shift at a local Phoenix restaurant. She told authorities she forgot to drop her son off at childcare before heading to work. This situation unfortunately isn't as uncommon in the Valley as people may believe.
Like all controversial issues, there are two distinct and separated reactions. The first, which I think is the less-favored reaction, is the feeling of tragedy, and that people who forget about their kids and leave them to suffocate in a hot car have made a mistake. The other people seem to crucify the parents that leave the kids in the car.
In this story, people are crucifying the mother, Ashly Duchene, for all of the wrong reasons.
Sure, the mother is young — she is 22.
Yes, it is sad that she has a job at Hooters to pay for her and her family.
And of course it is easy to think less of Duchene since she was an "unhappy" mother, working at Hooters to help keep house for her, her child, and her deadbeat boyfriend.
But the crux of this problem isn't that those close to Duchene admitted that she wasn't ready to have a child, or she didn't want to make the 17-month-old boy a priority and she craved freedom. A few days before the toddler died, the father even requested custody of the little one.
The problem with stories like this is the lack of reliable childcare in our country. Unfortunately, the case with Duchene isn't as much a lack of options, but rather a poor thought process. But stories like these shed light on the increasing problem that single mothers face when looking for affordable childcare.
In August, a single mother on the East Coast left her two children in her car, equipped with food, bottles of water, and battery-powered fans, after her babysitter bailed last-minute and the mother needed to get to work in order to keep her job.
When authorities got to the scene, they were puzzled trying to figure out what to charge the woman with, since she seemed to have her children's best interest at heart. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the last thread at her job, which she kept only to pay rent and sustain her family, she sincerely thought she had no other option.
To say her boss felt bad would be an understatement.
The solution to this problem is socialized childcare. It would be easy to think, as most college students without children could, that citizens shouldn't be paying for others' childcare.
Through taxes, Americans already pay for K-12 public education, as well as for public universities. So, why are we leaving out the youngest and most vulnerable and their parents to fend for themselves?
Think how great it would be, at a time when you do have children of your own, to know that whether or not you utilize the services, there would be free childcare for you and your kids.
But instead of thinking socialized childcare is a good idea, I am sure many college students would scoff at the idea of their hard-earned dollars being wasted, not on booze, but on others' tots.
When the time comes for those who disagree with socialized childcare to have kids of their own, all I can hope for is affordable childcare for all who need it.
In the meantime, I'll leave it to the courts to decide how to punish parents who leave their children to die in a hot car.
Reach the reporter at: jacqueline.rovner@asu.edu.
