Is Our Society Putting Humanity Out with the Trash?
Monday, June 30, 2007 Police find the bodies of two toddlers in the apartment of a South Carolina woman. The children, who had been left in the car all day while their mother worked, were found wrapped in garbage bags under a sink in the apartment. Police took the woman to a hospital for fear that she might harm herself. She hasn't been able to make any comment and her lawyers say they are concerned with her health first, and her legal situation will play itself out. She was charged with homicide by child abuse. Around 340 children have died in the past decade from being left in the car.
To watch this on the news, your first thought as you see her crying at the hearing is probably not a nice thought. You are probably thinking what an evil or ignorant person this is to leave her kids in a hot car all day. It's in our nature to point the finger and feel self righteous when other people make mistakes. Have you ever really thought about what the circumstances surrounding the incident might have been?
I know sometimes it's easy to believe that everyone in the world has the same circumstances as you, and that everyone thinks the same as you, and has the same problems as you, and the same resources as you, but they don't. We've become so indifferent to human nature that we've forgotten how cruel the world can be.
Ask yourself some questions. Why did this woman have her kids with her while she worked? Could it have been because she didn't have child care? Could she not afford a baby sitter? What about the father of the children? Where was he? Where were the grandparents, the friends of the family, the village that it takes to raise children? Why was she even working in the first place if she was such an abusive terrible mother? I suppose that she was working to feed and support the two kids on her own. How did we get to the point where women end up in no win situations such as these?
Most people don't really consider these things in their daily routine, but being a creative writer, I tend to think a bit outside the box, and I encourage you, the reader, to step outside those lines of safety that keep you rubber-necking the headlines, and try to figure out what it is that causes these tragedies. What would you do in less comfortable shoes?
Published by Wendy Grimsley
World Traveler, Writer, Cynic, Skeptic, Believer in the universal truths and laws, and most everything in between. View profile
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3 Comments
Post a CommentIn these situations I don't start with many assumptions. If a woman is crying at court in a situation like this it's because she's caught, she's been locked up, she's done something terrible and stupid, she is mourning her children, she will have to live with their deaths caused by her neglect the rest of their lives and innumerable other combinations. There is also, as Wendy rightly points out, something beyond the box that is the simple media story. While Michael Fleet correctly points out that adults should know that it's never acceptable to leave children in a locked automobile on a hot day, there is the question of how this has come to be. Was it just a morally wrong act on the part of a single mother, or a stupid act, or a stupid and fatal act out of desperation and that desperation caused by a whole other set of avoidable circumstances with others responsible for making a difference in those circumstances? We don't know if she was a bad mother overall or that day, but she did a
While it's always wise to consider all sides in a story, it's never acceptable to leave one's children in a hot car all day. We've all heard stories of children dying in the heat of an enclosed automobile. While this woman's plight is sympathetic, her decision is reprehensible. No matter how well-written the article, you can't make me feel sorry for this woman. I've been in the children's place. The fight for survival for the single parent is one that is fought by way too many in this country; but plenty find a way to not kill their kids. This is a bad mother indeed.
I have to admit that when I first heard about this story I was one of those people that succumbed to the knee-jerk reaction of thinking that the mother was only crying because she got caught. Which to be honest, even after just pondering it myself, I realise is a stupid thing to think. This article is definitely food for thought and hits right at the heart of the matter with a few simply expressed thoughts that question you in just the right way as to lead you down a different path and out yourself in the place of that mother; to take notice of the "choices" she was forced to take by situations beyond her control. She was a mother put in a bad situation, not a bad mother.