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Comment by strozykowski | Hacker News Reader

> Heather picked up her mobile phone and accessed the camera to check on her 10-month-old daughter Emma’s room.

She didn't just walk into her baby's room after hearing a man's voice?

Checking the camera is a reflex you develop after the third time you get up and go to the baby's room seconds after hearing them cry, to find them sleeping.

I mean, we can understand that, but surely when you hear a strange mans voice, that is going to snap you out of the normal reflex actions? I guess if you are always tired you don't always think straight.

Perhaps it's a cultural thing. When my Northern Irish colleague was raising a family in Hong Kong, he would let his baby cry in her cot for five to ten minutes before going into the room.

Nothing unusual, that's generally what we do here. The baby will often settle back to sleep and learn that crying doesn't always result in attention.

But the neighbours in his apartment were aghast and would immediately knock at his door, panicking because his baby was crying and berating him for 'abandoning' her! And the next day they would continue the chastisement; apparently the local custom was to pick up a crying baby immediately.

What if there actually was a man in there? Better to know that in advance.

Personal safety isn't typically something a parent would prioritize over the safety of their child.

In almost all dangerous situations, the child's safety is conditional on the parent's safety because the child is helpless without the parent. This is why, when the oxygen masks drop in an airplane, you put your mask on before helping you child.

And because people are not typically all that rational when their children's lives are in danger on every flight I've ever been on they re-iterate that parents should first help themselves before helping their children.

It's not personal safety, it's sizing up the situation.

maybe her favourite TV show was on

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