Motherhood is hard work. I don't care who you are -- parenthood (yep, looking at the dads, too) is tough stuff and we all make mistakes. Okay, so some of those mistakes are really, really bad ones and are more than just mistakes. I'm not going to point fingers, but you know what I'm talking about. But some mistakes are the result of a lack of sleep and a seemingly desperate situation. That's what I think happened with Natalie Akselrod, a mom of 6-month-old twins who was arrested after she left her sleeping babies in the minivan strapped in their car seats so she could run into the drugstore to drop off a prescription.
Her minivan, however, was left in neutral and when she went into the store, it rolled out of its spot and nearly crashed into another car.
The 35-year-old New Jersey mom regrets the incident and says it was a "momentary lapse in judgment." This I understand. Think hard. Haven't you done something, anything, even a little thing, that you realize you shouldn't have done? I think we all have. Though we all haven't had the horrifying outcome that Akselrod had, complete with over eight hours in jail. She says it was the longest she was away from her twins and the difficult ordeal was compounded by the fact she's a breastfeeding mom who couldn't feed her babies.
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"They're my life. I would never put them in danger," she said. But she made a mistake. She knows that. She admits that she should not have left them even for a second. She was dealing with a sick child who had not slept in 22 hours. They were at the emergency room a couple of days before. It was pouring rain and the sick child was finally asleep in the car, along with his twin brother. At the time she thought running in was the best choice.
A sick kid who finally fell asleep. I get it. In her insomnia, the thought of all the unbuckling and buckling was too much. It's clear she wasn't thinking straight. She did leave the car in neutral. And she didn't lock the doors ... which turned out to be a good thing. As the car started to roll away, a passerby managed to get one of the babies out of the car after it nearly hit another car.
Akeselrod's lawyer said she will be pleading not guilty to child endangerment charges: "I think my client has suffered enough. This happens in towns across America. Moms have errands to run. I don’t think we want to put moms in jail for doing what they need to do."
I think she deserves a break, too. Moms know leaving a child in a car is a bad idea for many reasons. But we make mistakes. We have lapses of judgment. She deserves a little more understanding and compassion. I think she learned her lesson and isn't a threat to her children.
What do you think? Should this mom be charged? Have you ever made a poor decision that you regretted but learned from?
Image via mxgirl85/Flickr
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Comments 151
We all have moments of poor judgement. Had her car never rolled away, no one would have been wiser of what she did. I think that her best option would have been to take the prescription to a pharmacy that had a drive thru instead.
Of course I have made poor decisions in my life. I try really hard not to make them with my children though.
She should be charged if she broke the law. Unfortunately you cannot charge someone for a "lapse in judgment" or for just being stupid.
Most pharmacies have drive thrus. If it is a small town pharm with no drive thru (they probably know you), then call in to the store and see if someone will come out to you and get the rx.
It was a poor choice but putting her in jail over night was worse. How was that beneficial to two breastfeeding children. Stupid stupid!!! If she had a history of this stuff it would be different.
I don't think she needs to be in jail, or have her kids taken, but she needs something.
If you're going inside anywhere that puts them out of your line of site, you need to get those kids out of the car.
I have left sleeping kids in the car. 10 feet away from me while I stood in front of my bigger kids' school waiting to pick one of them up. But never to go inside anywhere.
Yes, she should be charged with endangerment- she left 2 infants alone in a car and walked away. They could have been kidnapped or killed as a direct result of her actions.
So what I personally do, isn't illegal.
I live on Long Island in New York and can think of one drive through pharmacy anywhere in my area and it's NOT within "errand running distance" from my house and I live in the land of strip malls and drug stores. I'm guessing that a drive through pharmacy probably wasn't an option for her.
I think that the 8 hours in jail, the horror of knowing that the car rolled with her babies in it, the pain of engorgement from not being able to feed them and the everlasting guilt that this mom will feel is more than enough punishment for the offense that she committed.
I've never had twins and can only imagine what it must be like to care for two wee people at the same time and then have that work quadrupled by one of them being sick. My sister in law once told me, and I completely agree with her, "the work and effort doesn't double with the second child, it's somehow exponential...it's the third one that's a gimme." :) :) And we were talking about an older child and an infant, not two infants!!