When I was a child 70 years ago the primary grades were readily accessible to me at the elementary school almost directly across the street from where I lived with my parents in a rented flat. When our three children first began attending school fifty years later, our modest little house was also across the street from the elementary school they attended. Fast forward almost three decades and our grandchild for whom we were the week-day caregivers from 6 months of age to nine years, was daily bused to her elementary school, about a brisk fifteen-minute walk from where we live.

For all of that time, when she first attended pre-school, graduated to junior kindergarten, then senior kindergarten, and on to the primary grades, she was never allowed to walk on her own. One of her grandparents walked her down the street to the school bus pick-up, and met her when the bus returned after the school day. In fact when she was in junior and then senior kindergarten the bus driver would not permit her to disembark even at the end of our driveway unless one of us was out there, to greet her and take possession of that precious cargo.

Who is it who allows a child attending kindergarten to make their own way across busy intersections in the heart of a city? On Friday, a garbage-truck driver in Toronto accidentally drove his truck into a small group of young children crossing the street en route to their homes after school. Three of four of the group were hit; a five-year old boy and a 12-year-old girl, suffering minor injuries. The third child, a five-year old kindergartner was killed outright.

The father is quoted as saying the loss of his 'baby girl' has devastated him. "She meant everything to me". And he questions the safety issues surrounding young children exiting the confines of the school. "There should be a crosswalk or a crossing guard around here. This could have been prevented." And yes, it could have been, and there should have been a crossing guard. And where is parental responsibility for their young and vulnerable children in all of this?

A week earlier a 25-year-old mother of a 9-month old girl, and her two siblings, 2 and 3 years of age, had been left to their own devices without adult oversight, locked in their home for a full day before neighbours were alerted by the sound of children wailing in fear and distress. That young woman, already in possession of a police record for minor unlawful activities, has been charged with child abandonment, her three little girls taken into protective custody by the Ottawa Children's Aid Society.

In Toronto, yet another unfortunate incident of lack of parental concern and due diligence in the care of their young has resulted in the loss of a very young child to death. That father is right; the dreadful event could have been prevented. But somewhere in the equation between societal responsibility to the young, school administration awareness and public volunteerism there also exists parental responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of their own very precious charges.