Should Vice Principal Lose Her Job? - (*Warning-Gruesome topic")

[diebitter]

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So stop endangering your kids...

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This was entirely uncalled for, and encapsulates nicely the snap-judement mentality I have suggested we guard against - not just here, but in life more generally. Let me give you more info, see if it changes your mind or makes you regret your easy insult: Each incident I mentioned happened once in nearly 12 years of parenting 3 kids, including long stretches of time as a lone parent during the week - the hardest time for working parents (I mean years not weeks). I felt terrible for doing them, but I corrected them, and went on with the day, feeling lousy about it and vowing to make sure I didn't do it again.

Does this change anything, in your eyes?

I was simply pointing out some of the issues that face busy parents, as I feel they may be worthwhile to raise, and helpful in adding some more illumination to the discussion.

However, I honestly feel that there's little discussion left in this thread with the exception of details that illuminate issues around this (NT's last post here is one such useful addition), as anyone that seems to show any resistance to the idea of just condemning this idiotic woman seems to be vilified along with her. Not really conducive to a discussion, and I bet people who may have posted something have been put off by this emotive and somewhat unpleasant tone. I see the tone in the thread about beauty pageants too, and I don't like it one bit.


whatever, I thought this was a discussion, and if I'm going to be accused of child endangerment myself for trying to add light instead of heat, I really think reasonable and worthwhile discussion for me in this thread is over.

PS. I did find NT's post very illuminating. It gives us a good picture of how the authorities look at it - and to me it does demonstrate this woman avoided the punishment that other members of society wouldn't be able to avoid - which I don't agree should be the case, it should be the same for everyone. I'm of the view she should be punished, given this new knowledge.

[Michaelson]

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I sentence all you people that jumped to a judgement without not wondering about finding more out to watch '12 Angry Men'.

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DB - it's true... I haven't followed this case all too closely, but honestly, I can't think of many plausible scenarios that would in any way mitigate this woman's culpability. Can you?

-Al

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I can think of a lot of things that would affect this woman's mental state at this time - tiredness, upset in her life, a near accident on the way to work that jarred her etc

Whether these are in any way diminishing of culpability is another matter.


I guess I have some empathy because I have children that mean the world to me, but I sometimes do things in the extremely busy schedule I have as a working parent that are stupid and borne of forgetfulness. I've forgotten I've had a kid to pick up at a certain time from nursery because it was my turn rather than my wife's, I've driven off without making sure a baby seat wasn't properly secured in its seat, I've even left a side door open and started the car to drive off - only to be stopped by the kids shouting 'dad, you left the door open!' When kids are misbehaving for example, you can easily stop midway through doing up their seatbelts to chastise one, and go to the next task cos you've registered you've done the seatbelt up when you didn't. IT HAPPENS!

Honestly, I don't particularly want to defend her, she's at best an idiot, and at worst monstrous, I'm just pointing out we don't know all the circumstances. I was also pointing out that we all slip into idiocy from time to time, and we're lucky that most of us usually do it when it's have trivial consequences, not catastrophic ones like this. And that parents, particularly int he morning, have an awful lot to juggle when they are getting the kids and themselves where they're supposed to be to a specific schedule. I'm not trying to say 'hey, I know better than you cos I'm a parent' here, but I think until you have kids and have to get them and yourself ready each and every morning, you probably don't appreciate how much work and coordinated effort this involves before you even start the working day. And much of this effort becomes so automatic as there's so much to do, you sometimes register you've done something when you've completely missed it. IT HAPPENS!


Finally, talk like 'how could she not see the kid' is just the sort of instajump from assumption to conclusion without knowledge I'm suggesting we all guard against, mkay?

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Ah, now I get it. You're a negligent parent who endangers your children sometimes, and so you have empathy for this woman who let her child burn up in a hot car. And because you sometimes do things that could kill your children, you think all parents must be as negligent as you, right? "There but for the grace of god," etc.? "It happens" to everyone, right?

Well, you're wrong. If you're committing acts or omissions that could potentially kill your children, you're not "absent-minded." You're not "forgetful." You're criminally negligent, and you're a bad parent.

So stop endangering your kids and stop defending horrible people who let their kids burn to death.

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It must be weird going through life with complete contempt for human fallibility.

Maybe you're right, maybe you've never made an honest mistake (or even just made a poor judgment call) that could have had disastrous circumstances. But I hope if you ever do you'll be as hard on yourself as you are everyone else.

[NT!]

That's Drew in a nutshell. Never met a soapbox he didn't like, never saw a shade of grey in his life.

FWIW I don't really care whether this woman goes to jail or not. I'm with Boris, I don't think it really accomplishes anything, although reading her comments makes me wish they would send her up anyway.

With children like this, where there is almost certainly a stable / loving relative or family friend available, the most common (and best) option is kinship care (using a family member or friend as a foster parent). The irony is that because this woman is so privileged and has such a good support network, her kid is the MOST likely to come out of foster care in good shape.

I think even if you allow her to get her parental rights back at some point, not at least removing any kids from her care and suspending her from work is just absurd.

[Michaelson]

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...

FWIW I don't really care whether this woman goes to jail or not. I'm with Boris, I don't think it really accomplishes anything, although reading her comments makes me wish they would send her up anyway.

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I think even if you allow her to get her parental rights back at some point, not at least removing any kids from her care and suspending her from work is just absurd.

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Pretty much my feelings exactly.

[katyseagull]

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So stop endangering your kids and stop defending horrible people who let their kids burn to death.

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Drewdevil, what the hell? This is just ridiculously mean. It's a terrible thing to say in my thread where I was interested in discussion on whether the woman forfeited her right to work and whether there was any conceivable way that her mind could have blanked on the fact she had not delivered a child to the babysitter. I've found most of the replies in the thread to be really interesting and thought-provoking. This one just makes me mad.

I invite people from all view points to give me their thoughts and to argue the facts in this case. I appreciated diebitter's posts because, frankly, he represents my position. I'm not one to rush to judgment. I like pondering things for days and weeks. I like contemplating various scenarios on how a disasterous chain of events could ever happen in the first place.

When one of the posters accuses another poster of being a lousy parent because that poster is trying to give the rest of us an example of how rushing in the morning can lead to accidents then I am extremely disgusted.

[Harmonium]

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I was simply pointing out some of the issues that face busy parents, as I feel they may be worthwhile to raise, and helpful in adding some more illumination to the discussion.

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You forgot some chores. That happens. She forgot where her kid was - all day.

[katyseagull]

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PS. I did find NT's post very illuminating. It gives us a good picture of how the authorities look at it - and to me it does demonstrate this woman avoided the punishment that other members of society wouldn't be able to avoid - which I don't agree should be the case, it should be the same for everyone. I'm of the view she should be punished, given this new knowledge.

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Agree. NT's posts are very illuminating and well written. Thanks for popping in NT! I like NT's suggestion that the woman's family should step in and provide kinship care. That's about the most sensible thing to me seeing as how Brenda's husband is blind to the fact that his wife is not capable of managing.

I found the statistics in Mrs. Utah's link interesting, that in roughly 50% of these cases the adult is charged with a crime. In cases where the adult is an unrelated childcare provider, that number goes up to 80%.

[Blarg]

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My own personal experience of growing up in a foster family, which I know through experience to be personally frightening and repulsive to many people, has provided me with the knowledge that a great many parents do horrific things to their children, including things that endanger their mental and physical health. And they do it repeatedly, sometimes as long as they can until they go to jail or somebody dies. And then, they quite often do it again. I met them, and I grew up with their kids and lived with the results every day, from the time I was small myself. I do not find it nearly so unimaginable as do most people that parents could completely neglect, or intentionally harm or kill their children; it was a natural, daily part of my life for so many years. It goes on, like any other part of life. I know that the idea that someone would act that way is almost unimaginable to a normal consciousness, so much so that it is hard to incorporate into one's understanding and accept. It is easier to push away with all one's force. This provides a de facto way of ignoring it that makes one feel much better.

I also know the excuses and mind-set of the people who do this type of thing. I've heard it before. While others can hear something like this for the first time and reject it or be surprised by it, the effect is totally different when you are well past the point of believing such things simply cannot happen. Especially not among decent middle class white people, perhaps? But yeah, they sure do happen. They may well have happened in your neighborhood, or neighborhoods you aspire to, among people you know, or aspire to know. To nice looking people, too, and maybe kids even nicer than you ever were.

There's a recoiling from reality that says, "Terrible behavior by a parent toward his or her child could not happen!" It effectively says, "La la la la la la la, I'm not listening!" You would think it was the child whose need for consolation should be thought of first. But we treat kids like numbers, and the first number is Number 1. He's the first one whose needs are taken care of, even if it requires turning a blind eye to do it.

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I completely accept the perspective that you have outlined here and in other posts. However, no one in this thread has denied the possibility that this was a monstrous act by a woman with some sort of deep seated resentment towards her child. For the few of us who have chimed in against the general tone of blanket condemnation, we have all been ambivalent with respect to the facts of the case.


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I would argue that the immediate ad hominem focus in some of those posts, which has unfortunately remained largely uncommented on and thus implicitly approved, suggests quite a bit more than ambivalence, and in the case of more than a single poster.

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It seems to me, though, that where some of us consider it a possibility that a loving parent could have a brain snap that resulted in the death of a child and the tearing apart of a family, from the outset, with only the broad outline of the case on which to base your opinion, you have completely rejected this possibility. In fact, you go dangerously close to suggesting that wherever a parental mishap results in the death of a child it cannot be an accident (though perhaps I misunderstood the line I bolded above).



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Key is that I have rejected that idea not by ignoring it, but by considering it, and have merely come to a different idea of its worth than have some others. As they say, anything is possible, but some things are so unlikely as to bugger belief. This strikes as as good an example as you'll ever find of something so unlikely to be an accident, as the consequences are so incredibly personal and dire and cruel, that it seems much more reasonable than not to think it is probably no accident. Is there a possibility it actually IS an accident? Certainly. I just think that possibility is vanishingly small. All the more so since the lady was even warned of the extremely obvious before, that you shouldn't leave your kid alone in the car like that, as a death or permanent injury, and a quite unpleasant one, could be the result. Combine these things with the understanding that to some mindsets, child endangerment is absolutely not anywhere near so repugnant as it is to you or me, and the possibility that this is an accident gets put even more in perspective as ridiculously unlikely. So much so that it seems more like wishful thinking that such a thing couldn't happen. In fact, awful things happen to children every day, many done with far more malice. That it is so hard to wrap our minds around the magnitude of child endangerment enough to realize it is not literally incredible, but the sort of thing that is very much a part of the world, gives this lady's crime a sort of instinctive built-in deniability, as we reject its loathsomeness from our minds, that it unfortunately does not deserve.

So coming to the conclusion that an accident is extremely unlikely shouldn't be confused for simply not thinking about an issue, no more than coming to the conclusion that the chances of it being an accident are greater than I would agree with. On the contrary, I'd say it probably takes a lot more thinking and understanding to see how a woman could do this to her child than it does to think that she could not.

I have to go to work but will read the rest of your post later.

[DeuceKicker]

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Ah, now I get it. You're a negligent parent who endangers your children sometimes, and so you have empathy for this woman who let her child burn up in a hot car. And because you sometimes do things that could kill your children, you think all parents must be as negligent as you, right? "There but for the grace of god," etc.? "It happens" to everyone, right?

Well, you're wrong. If you're committing acts or omissions that could potentially kill your children, you're not "absent-minded." You're not "forgetful." You're criminally negligent, and you're a bad parent.

So stop endangering your kids and stop defending horrible people who let their kids burn to death.

[/ QUOTE ]This is disgusting, and shows real immaturity.

Why am I not surprised that it has gone completely uncommented on by the supposed enemy of ad hominem?

[dvh]

I read through this entire thread only after reading DB's comment on tone. IMHO DB was just giving examples how a parent can make a mistake, but doesn't try to defend the mistake.

As a parent of 2 children I can't think of any statement that is more personal than being called a bad parent. Call me a bad poker player, an idiot, whatever- but Bad Parent will result in a natural defensive position.

An example from my experience that I think about often and makes me shudder to this day: My wife, 3 year old son and infant daughter were on a 2 day 20 hour road trip. We had just driven 10 hours and stopped at a restaurant for dinner before retiring for the night. Halfway through dinner my 3 year old son stood up and ran around the corner of the table out of sight. Instinctively my wife and I both ran after him out of sight of our daughter who was sleeping in her car seat. Immediately we both looked at eachother in shock and I ran back to my daughter. She was out of our sight for maybe 30 seconds, but that was enough for something to happen or for her to be taken (she thankfully was fine and sleeping). My wife cried herself to sleep for 2 days and I was ill inside. Are we bad parents who endanger our children?

My point is that things happen, and some parents are still good parents even though dangerous situations arise due to poor judgement for whatever reason. I think this is what DB was trying to say. I am not sticking up for said vice principal.