Bad Parenting 101

So…I locked my child in the car on Monday.

Picture this: a stressful morning, running late, a screaming toddler who doesn’t want to leave his daddy. I fight, like all good mothers do, to get my toddler into his car seat whilst he alternates between lightning rod straight and wobbly toddler jelly and, at this point, I throw my handbag onto the driver's seat. Toddler safely stowed in car, daddy bid farewell, I close the door, and then the sound that shall haunt me for at least the foreseeable future—"LOCK."

For about thirty seconds I stand there in sheer disbelief, then I start swearing—quite fucking loudly, I might add. I swear at his dad who had not yet left for work, I swear at the neighbour who, until that moment, I had completely ignored; I swear at the car who had FUCKING BETRAYED ME AND MY CHILD. I swear a lot and it does not help the situation.

Our first reaction is to break the window and free him, but the calm neighbour cautions us against it, and instead, daddy dutifully drives to the office where we work to ask for the spare key. In the meantime, the toddler and I re-enact a touching moment from many a daytime movie as we cry for each other with our hands pressed against the glass:

“Free me, mother!”

“I’m trying! I’m trying!”

The alarm chimes in! HONK, HONK, HONK!!

“YES, CAR! WE ARE ALL ALARMED! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

The neighbour full-on thinks I’m crazy and over-reacting by now and is encouraging his son to calm my son down since his mother has clearly lost the fucking plot, and then, randomly, my father-in-law turns up to try and help the situation. He also brings the terrifying news that apparently my spare key has been sent to Birmingham. Fucking BIRMINGHAM?! WHAT GOOD IS A SPARE KEY IN FUCKING BIRMINGHAM???? However, like a pro, my father-in-law announces that we’re just going to break the window and that’s all there is to it.

HONK, HONK, HONK.

“CAR! Seriously, mate, we know you’re stressed, but this is so not about you.”

So firstly, we break the teeny tiny window on the rear passenger side so that the damage is minimal. The neighbour and my father-in-law embody the very definition of teamwork to reach the handle with a hammer—they nail it! Nothing happens.

HONK, HONK, HONK.

The car has dead locked. WHY, UNIVERSE, WHY?!

So they then have to break the rear passenger-side window completely. Glass goes everywhere. I thought that cars were supposed to have safety glass? Look at the unholy mess all over the car and the floor! My child! Glass flew at my child!

HONK, HONK, HONK.

Neighbour—“Right, I’ll just climb through and get the key.”

Me—“No! I must be the one!”

So I do. I climb through the glass to get my child, and fuck, that was a lot of glass. I mean, seriously seat? Did we not foresee this eventuality? I unlock the car, I clamber out and reach for my child who has, in the meantime, been freed by his granddad. I hold my arms out. He doesn’t fucking want me.

Great. I feel special. You’re not the only one who wants a hug, kid.

Fearing for his hearing, we rushed him to A&E and thank fuck I took my father-in-law because the A&E attendants totally did not speak the high pitched, sobbing form of English I was wailing at them.

Nurse—“So what happened?”

Me—“Ahhhh toddler waaaa, carrr!”

Father-in-law—“The car locked with the keys and the toddler inside.”

Nurse—“Has he been OK since?”

Me—“Waaaaa! Why!!!! Car, sob, why!!”

Father-in-law—“Yes, he’s been fine, but could you please check his ears because the alarm was going off for about twenty minutes.”

Fucking alarm.

His ears checked out, the nurse refrained from sending me for psychiatric evaluation, and the toddler even took himself off for a nap when he got in. It had been a stressful morning, after all.

The Insurance department were pretty good with me. The Customer Support centre wanted to know why I hadn’t waited for them.

“Uhhh? Because there was a child TRAPPED IN THE CAR!!”

I refrained from saying ‘moron’ on the end, like all good people do. I even drew the very helpful sketch on the company claim form, which I have included above for your viewing pleasure.

I’ve since been told that this isn’t really what they were after, but no further requests have been made upon my clearly talented hand.

Lots of people have told me that they’ve also done this, and apparently it’s quite common for cars to lock themselves if they’ve been inactive for some time. You can also, apparently, have this feature switched off.

The toddler seems fine. Mummy and daddy were quite traumatised.

But now it’s over. It’s all over…