Ok, so I am going to throw this in here, even if it has nothing to do with it. In the 90's there was a huge push for childcare reform, help for working parents and low income parents and I think the Childcare and Development Fund (CCDF) was enacted. I am not saying that low income or subsidized care means people forgot their babies. What I mean is that the normalcy and expectation that daycare would be included in a child's first five years became VERY acceptable (and subsidized by the government). It progressed the movement that once a child was expected, the parents started looking for care, or other people to watch their baby while they worked. If you were low income, you would get help with that cost, making it more accessible, and if you had money, you could pay for the finest "preschool" in the neighborhood. You could probably afford a nanny, but as Nannyde has pointed out, a nanny is in your home and the kid is still around and it cost a lot more, so I think it was the 90's when people realized they could outsource their parenting to daycare or head start. I think early headstart was in the mid 90s as well. Anyway, I am sure it happened before and was just not reported, but but I DO feel that lack of parental involvement must be in the equation. It certainly cannot be a one size fits all scenario, but I have found that many cases involve a parent not normally having the child, so they forget they are there. For example, if you only have your child on on the weekend, you become trained to having them on the weekend(waking early for pancakes on saturday), and during the week, you allow them out of your mind much more often. They don't factor into your dinner plans or if you need to run errands, you can just go and not think about their needs. (didn't divorce peak in the 90s?) Absence does not make the heart grow fonder, imo. It makes you more comfortable in your solitude. It is also important to note that the internet took hold in the 90's. Chat rooms, video games, ect. And now we have screen ADDICTION. Can you imagine an alcoholic parent giving their child a drink to calm down? But they hand over their smart phone with no issue. Maybe we are seeing the symptoms of a highly addicted screen populace. Anyone watch the movie trainspotting? They get so high out of their minds, they forget the baby in the crib and it is dead when they come back into reality. A recent survey in 2017 said Parents (with kids 8-18) spend an average of 9 hours and 22 minutes a day on a screen (tv, computer, phone). If you factor in 7 hours for sleep, that means that over two thirds of their life (if not more) is spent in a fantasy world. Facebook is fantasy, instagram is fantasy, ect. It is addicting and while I cannot put this all together exactly, I feel there is a pretty large contribution between technology and screen addiction, as well as the normalcy of having kids in daycare 10+hours a day. I mean, we are setting them up to be forgotten.
