DUMMY CLASSES FOR IDIOTS

Gold Coast doctors call for parenting lessons in schools after young mum leaves crying bub in car while she enjoys $35 massage

DOCTORS want parenting lessons to be introduced into schools after a young mother yesterday admitted leaving her two-month-old baby in the car while she had a massage. “There are a whole lot of people who will have children but they don’t know how to look after a child,” doctor Stephen Withers said.

GOLD Coast doctors have called for parenting classes to be introduced in schools after a young mother told a court she locked her two-month-old baby in the car for almost an hour so she could enjoy a massage.

The 26-year-old mother, who cannot be named to protect the child, yesterday pushed the baby in a pram from Southport Magistrates Court after being sentenced to nine months’ probation.

The woman parked under a tree outside the French Beauty Academy in Robina just after midday on August 8 and locked her daughter in her car, with the windows up, as she went for an aromatherapy massage.

Emergency services were called after two passers-by heard a baby crying and saw her in a “distressed state”.

After being unable to contact the mother, firefighters cut the car roof open and pulled the baby out. She was taken to hospital.

The mother’s actions prompted paediatrician and former Gold Coast Medical Association president Stephen Withers to call for high school students to complete parenting classes.

“There needs to be some action and you would hope the lesson is learned,” he said.

“There should be parenting classes in high schools because there are a whole lot of people who will just go and have children but they don’t know how to look after a child, how to make a meal or look after a house. These are not concepts that are intrinsic.

“The problem is we can identify people at risk but support for them very limited. You can say ‘Here is a 16-year-old girl with a baby who is not employed and hasn’t finished school’, but it’s extremely difficult to get resources behind them.”

When asked outside court why she left the child in the car, the mother said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about”.

She told police she had a “complete lack of knowledge of the danger of leaving the child in the car”, the court heard.

Defence lawyer Callan Brown, of Cooper Maloy Legal, said his client was suffering from postnatal depression at the time. Magistrate Kay Philipson was not convinced of the postnatal depression, saying there was no evidence before the court to support it.

The mother will be required

to undertake a parenting course if offered as part of her probation.

Shadow Minister for Child Safety Ros Bates said Queenslanders expect the law to “come down hard” on parents who put their children in danger.

“The message doesn’t seem to be getting through,” the Member for Mudgeeraba said.

“If the laws aren’t meeting community expectations then we should be scrutinising them and making improvements.”

In the past 12 months, 160 children have been rescued from locked cars on the Gold Coast by the RACQ.