Before I became a parent, I pretty much knew everything required to raise well-behaved and respectful children. Screen time at a restaurant? Capri Suns? Melt downs in aisle three? No way. They’d never see the golden arches and would use manners from birth if I had it my way.
And then I became a parent, and realized, of course, that I knew NOTHING. I’d spent all this time and energy planning an approach that just wasn’t realistic. Because as any parent knows, there are never any absolutes in child-rearing. The minute you say you won’t do something, fate decides otherwise and makes you recant on that exact commitment. And at the end of the day, we DO OUR BEST.
Last Wednesday, I took our girls to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens with another friend and her two daughters. This is the same zoo where Harambe, the gorilla, was shot three days later after a four-year-old boy fell into his enclosure.
Just months older than the boy at the focus of the story, my friend’s daughter is an extremely spirited and adventurous child. And despite both of our diligence, she managed to run out of our immediate sight more than once. She was there and then seconds later – gone. I did a 360 scan and saw her climbing up a rock wall, trying to get a closer look at the nesting flamingos. My heart stopped, her mom frantically called for her to get down, and she did. But who knows what could have happened had we not seen her?
The event that took place at the Cincinnati Zoo is awful. It’s incited some seriously strong emotions from all over the world. And whether or not the zoo took the correct action or not is not for me to weigh in on – I don’t know how quickly tranquilizers work, whether or not Harambe was acting erratically or if another measure could have been taken. What I do know is that the subsequent backlash against the mother who “let” her child into the enclosure is almost more heart-breaking than the situation at hand. What kind of parent lets their child out of their sight for a second?
Just a few of the thousands of comments people have relentlessly cast into public forums:
- “These parents should not be able to breed again.”
- “They should have thrown the negligent parents into the enclosure as a distraction while they rescued the kid, and let natural selection take its course.”
- “Kill the parent not the gorilla.”
They say it takes a village to raise a child. But in this situation, a mother (who was carrying an infant) lost sight of her toddler and now there’s an outcry of people calling for “justice.” Some are calling for jail; you may have seen an online petition seeking “justice for Harambe” through criminal charges–it’s earned almost 10,000 signatures in less than a day. Some say she should pay for replacing the gorilla. Or that she should stop breeding. And in way too many posts, comments that SHE should die.
REALLY? Where’s the village, people? If the woman’s identity becomes public, what will happen? She didn’t leave a bag of Xanax/heroin residue out for her 9-month baby like this woman did just down the street a few months earlier. She didn’t intentionally drop her child into the enclosure. She lost sight of her toddler and a terrible chain of events ensued. It’s a screw up, sure, but it’s a screw up to which most moms can relate. A screw-up that certainly doesn’t merit the public shaming and ridicule she’s subsequently endured.
Is it possible we could stop casting judgments for long enough to offer her some compassion after enduring an extremely scary situation? And realize that possibly, just possibly, she was doing just what the majority of us do when raising kids–our best?
Michele says
Thank you for some sanity…people these days are so eager to judge they never give it a second thought. My heart goes out to this woman. May she find the strength to rise above the ignorance.
Gary Richmond says
Great article. That is exactly right.
People are sure into judging these days.
Mel says
I agree with you 90%, except the fact that the most obvious “Village” is the throng of people in front of the exhibit who didn’t see the child or chose not to grab the child when he climbed through the railing. Everyone there failed, except when it was time to start screaming (disturbing the gorilla) and start filming. I am a parent and whether I am with my kids or not, I watch out for kids in general. (Regardless of whether I get told off or thanked.) They don’t have to be mine before I say something or act. I believe the entire episode was preventable and everything that has happened as a result is the tragic consequence of the fact that we don’t live together and act as a village anymore, we live and act like individuals, and this is the result. Exhausted parents go to the zoo + zoo with minimal budget (’cause everyone wants lower taxes) has minimal staffing and security + endangered animal (’cause we destroy animal habitats and hunt them for cool points) = this fiasco. It makes me sad.
Karen M. says
Andi,
While you made some valid points, you don’t mention once the other side of the story.
What about the class trip to the zoo and this happened to a pre-schooler? Will it be the poor teacher, chaperone, teachers aid, etc did the best they could but only looked away for a second and over the 15 foot drop they went? You would be screaming for blood if that was your child but remember, it wasn’t their fault. It was an “accident”…I highly doubt it. Would it be ok because they weren’t “perfect”?
The hypocryricy of children dying because of “mistakes” made by parents is just sad. Parents cooking their children in hot cars because they were “distracted” or “it was an accident” is a sorry statement to the common sense of humanity. How would you treat your sitter if they left your child in a hour car? Would it still be a blasé attitude??
If it’s not the parents responsibility to keep their children safe, then whose is it? Who is to keep children safe today or held responsible if they are hurt?
andivcurry@gmail.com says
Karen, Thanks for taking the time to reply with such substantive feedback. You raise great questions. And ones that hit close to home, because had this occurred last year, a babysitter would have been with my kids at the zoo. And of course, her negligence would be inexcusable had this occurred to our child.
I can only speak for myself and refuse to make judgements on others’ parenting approaches, but I can say that as a parent, I’m constantly assessing situations to establish safety risks. In that environment, my concern has always been more on someone taking my child rather than the child falling in the enclosure. Certainly the same thing could have happened (someone taking the child), but when you have more than one child, it’s truly impossible to have your eyes on a child at all times, unless they are on a leash – which I refuse to do.
There’s a big difference between leaving your child in a car for an hour and losing site of them for a minute. If a child is playing out in the yard and chases out into the street after a ball and is hit by a car, is that the parent’s negligence for not standing beside them the entire time to stop it?
I guess I just don’t feel that deferring to people doing their best as a “blasé” attitude. It’s what it is. I do my best to choose a childcare provider who will do her best in those situations to keep a watchful eye on my children. I do my best to keep my children engaged without devices and to keep myself present in those situations so I can keep a watchful eye on them. I keep my kids up with vaccines and I do my best to sanitize my kids’ hands after they’ve touched every surface in a public space. But there are times when they will get sick. There are times when they will sneak under a rack at a department store and cause my heart to stop. And I pray that there will never be a time when I’m negligent to the point that something terrible happens to one of them.
That being said, I accept that I cannot control everything. If I tried to do that, I would be a neurotic mess and likely pass my anxiety along to my kids. I will do everything I can to protect my children, but I do accept that things happen. And while she was negligent, this woman certainly doesn’t deserve to be burned at the stake for her negligence. The same if it had been a childcare provider.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment with such great feedback.
Karen M. says
Very, very wise words…