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

[katyseagull]

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I can sympathise because on at least one occasion I've put a briefcase or a phone or a child's car seat on top of the car while sorting stuff out, and then drove off not realising it (thankfully no child in the seat). I've also remembered while working late I had to pick my kid up from nursery, and have exactly 5 minutes to cover the hour's journey to pick him up. Working parents are busy people, they have a lot to juggle.




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Oh no, please tell me you're not one of those people who rushes around in the morning and leaves your cup on top of the car! lol, and a briefcase? Haha! this gives me a whole different impression of you, DB. I've seen people like you driving down my street with a cup on top of their car [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img].

But you offer an important perspective on this topic. Working parents who are so busy that they are rushing around trying to multi-task, trying to be everything to everybody. I think sometimes parents today have too many pressures and not enough help from neighbors and extended family as they did decades ago. Scale it back and slow down already. Am I right?



Check out this story:


Chicago Sun Times (1997)-

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The state's child welfare agency doesn't plan to take action against a woman who left her infant son in a car seat on top of her car and drove off.

The baby fell onto a busy intersection in south suburban Tinley Park Friday afternoon and was rescued by a truck driver. Marcus Abram suffered cuts and bruises and was listed in fair condition Sunday at South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest.

Maria Caldwell accidentally left Marcus on the roof of her car after putting her 6- and 4-year-old children in the car, police said. She traveled about two blocks before the baby slid off the roof. ...

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[daveT]

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And explain what you mean by the Jungian view of the world. You mean that our actions can easily be explained as they are not accidental?

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It's disturbing, but fitting to this thread.

According to Jungian Theorists, a mother is contemptuous to her daughters, because they see that their daughters are young and have opportunities that they are no longer able to have.

But there is a duality here, that in the same token, she loves the daughter as well. Obviously, the relationship here is highly complex, and does not suggest that the mother hates here daughter. This is only an explanation of the competitiveness found in many mother/daughter relationships. "Your going to go out in THAT dress?"

This contemptuousness extends to the son, but not as severe. But it has always been well documented, and good fodder for tension in movies, of the mother showing displeasure in her children.

But either way, to some mothers, a child is a representation of the dissolving of dreams.

In theory, a mother should never see motherhood as a sacrifice, but with today's society, this is probably more common, and I would think that it is something that we all are starting to deal with. Don't you find if fascinating how many children hate their parents. This may be normal in teenage years, but from people my age, this demonstrates a sad imbalance. To think that these people are raising children makes me shiver.

Yes, I am serious about SUVs, but more about the drivers. I know that this is going to ruffle feathers, so if you own one, don't continue reading.

From observation, I find that SUV drivers tend to be much ruder drivers. I remember reading about one that killed a bike messenger. He was more concerned about the blood on his SUV than about the kid he killed.

Today, I walk quite a bit, but I walk fairly slow (fast to me) on a good day. I find that SUV drivers are more likely to cut me off when I am walking across the street, are more likely to creep up on , and more likely to honk their horns in impatience.

They also tend to drive more reckless than normal cars, IMO.

Just passive observation, maybe I am more aware of them because of their size. I do believe that everything we buy is a reflection of our personalities, that their is some reason that I am more careful when I see an SUV on the street than I am with any other car.

[Blarg]

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That doesn't mean it's okay, it's just I think sometimes it's easy to snap judge about people. Sometimes it's better to just be grateful you're not in their shoes.

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Few people, I would hope, are of the character to give so little regard to any child, much less their own. I don't feel grateful I'm not in a sneak thief or a rapist's shoes. I won't be wearing those shoes by design, not because I've been blessed. There is zero "there but for the grace of God go I" operating here.

[Blarg]

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Katy, if you don't want this person to rot in jail, what is your alternative?



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I'm confused myself as to what I want! In general I want less prison sentences for non-violent offenders [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. But I have to say that the more I read about this case and dwell on it the more disgusted I get with Brenda Slaby.

I feel compassion for her. I can't imagine how she is coping with this horrible chain of events. But I guess I don't think she should work with children any more. She is either too ditzy or narcissistic or she is trying to please too many people. This was an accident but of such huge proportions that I can't reconcile looking the other way and letting her go unpunished. Like I said earlier, if she had left an elderly man in a car people would not have forgiven so easily.

I think some acts are so offensive to the community that you have to expect to suffer the consequences. She should be branded incompetent to watch children and her family needs to severely restrict her responsibilities and duties as she cannot seem to multi-task.

I guess I think she should be charged with endangering and neglect. Yes it was an accident but she needs to realize that society will not tolerate this degree of recklessness.


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What you have here is something very similar in certain respects to an armed robbery gone awry, where somebody gets shot. The robber might not have meant it to happen and hoped something like that wouldn't happen. Maybe his partner did the shooting, not him. Or maybe he turned to see a security guard raising his pistol and shot as much out of blind fear as anything close to calculation. Yet the law holds him responsible, and correctly. He chose to bring along a weapon, and get himself into a situation where using it was definitely a possibility. That situation could not possibly have happened were it not for the choice he made to bring a gun, and that choice was not made in the heat of the moment, but away from the scene. It was always possible to make another choice.

Even if we disavow any chance that this person murdered her kid on purpose, she is still quite responsible for his death and it was no accident. She chose to put the kid in a position in which his death could happen. This was of her own free will and not under duress. She even had lots of time to change her mind before the kid died. She didn't. And she had even been warned before of the dangers, which are apparent to anyone of functional intelligence. Much like the armed robber, she was not the victim here, nor was any accident involved. She was the perpetrator, and, at best, she decided to spin the wheel of fortune and let fate decide. That choice itself exhibits at best a depraved indifference to her child. That this act is such an unnatural thing for anyone to consider doing to anyone, much less a child, and much less their very own child, speaks to the staggering, toxic depth of this woman's narcissism.

She may be a lot of things, but the victim of an accident she is not. There is nothing about this that is accidental.

[Blarg]

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Don't you find if fascinating how many children hate their parents. This may be normal in teenage years, but from people my age, this demonstrates a sad imbalance. To think that these people are raising children makes me shiver.


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It takes two to tango. If anyone is to be blamed, I'd zero in first on the one who was actually an adult at the time things went sour before being so presumptuous as to make judgments. There's really no other way that makes sense or is decent.

Being raised in a foster family that dealt daily with the results of other people's mistakes and their effects on their children, I wouldn't blame the kids for hating their parents. Some of these kids have been raped, tortured, unfed, emotionally terrorized, and virtually all of them have been neglected. What did these little kids do to deserve even the smallest part of that? Surely it couldn't have been that bad.

Denying those kids, and the adults they become, their right to their own emotional integrity by assuming that they are to blame for having poor relationships with or harboring anger or resentment toward parents who were perfectly deserving of it is cruel. They saw what they saw; unlike potential judges, they were there at the time. If they were not cared for properly by their parents while children, are they to be shunned and denied as adults, too, for not keeping it a secret, this time by judgmental strangers? Does the abuse of the parent clear the way for us to be negative toward his child too, continuing the cycle into adulthood? Is it completely irresistible to kick a man when he is down? Or is it possible that we could perhaps allow ourselves the kindess and luxury of suspending judgment?

Anyone who wants to discuss or think on matters of deep emotional import has to be ready to hear things that make him uncomfortable. Some people's stories are pretty hard, and can make us unhappy. It is sometimes hard to think that bad things really do happen to people all the time, because that means they can happen to us. (And we, at least, are innocent and undeserving.) Many of us reject any such notions in a near panic, and try to find an explanation for such things that makes life seem less chaotic and dangerous. Blaming the victim solves a lot of problems quickly, and it also tends to make one feel clever, as if one has reached a conclusion by stepping back and sizing things up in the round. What's really happening is we are often running from reason and understanding at top speed, because a platitude or favorite idea is much more comforting than letting the wild roar of the world into our heads. And what we have come up with is the last possible thing from understanding, in either sense of the word.

Would you rather a person know he could not ever tell you the truth? Would you like him to even have to consider that you might be too unkind or incapable to hear it? A friendship with that kind of person still smacks of loneliness. For an abused child, his abuse can continue to imprison him the rest of his life. Our setting up our walls and judgments around him helps ensure he'll never be quite as free as you or I. That isn't something we should undertake lightly.

[daveT]

I need to read you post a few more times to absorb it all, but, yes, I was laying the initial blame on the parents. However, there are people who should not be raising children. I am an example of this person, though I deny I would ever do what this woman did.

Certain people should not be going to college either, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, not every one can be honest with themselves and make effective decisions about life. I am far from perfect, and I made several errors in my life. I don't what boils down to human and what boils down to plain stupidity, but I don't deny that some of it is plain stupidity and lack of foresight. I guess we have to learn some things the hard way.

We all have to take a certain amount of responsibility for ourselves and the world we are creating, especially when we have to weigh in the helpless. Letting people like this raise children, especially other people's, is irresponsible.

[katyseagull]

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What you have here is something very similar in certain respects to an armed robbery gone awry, where somebody gets shot. The robber might not have meant it to happen and hoped something like that wouldn't happen. Maybe his partner did the shooting, not him. Or maybe he turned to see a security guard raising his pistol and shot as much out of blind fear as anything close to calculation. Yet the law holds him responsible, and correctly. He chose to bring along a weapon, and get himself into a situation where using it was definitely a possibility. That situation could not possibly have happened were it not for the choice he made to bring a gun, and that choice was not made in the heat of the moment, but away from the scene. It was always possible to make another choice.

Even if we disavow any chance that this person murdered her kid on purpose, she is still quite responsible for his death and it was no accident.

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I disagree. I think it was accidental. The difference between this and the robbery situation is that the robbers went with the intent of committing a crime and they knowingly placed everyone in danger.

The assistant principal went out into her driveway that morning and strapped her baby in a baby car seat with every intention of being a reasonably responsible mom. She was just pathetic at it. She then, evidently, had a major brain fart and simply forgot she ever had the child with her, somehow thinking that the kid was already at the babysitters.

Yes, she had been warned. And yes, she was arrogant and flippant in her attitude towards her daughters safety. But I do not believe that she purposefully left the little girl in the car knowing that the girl would suffer. I think she forgot completely about her own child which, obviously, is extremely troubling and would indicate to all of us that she is not suited to be a parent (understatement of the year [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]).


I will have to give your argument some more thought. I do see your point that placing a child in a car on an extremely hot day (and hell it was so hot here that week [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] ) is knowingly placing a child in danger. To be reckless with any child is a crime. So in one sense I do see your point, Blarg.

I believe that some of us have more limited capabilities than others. We cannot fulfill all those roles and dreams that we were led to believe we could. Clearly, this mom was too mentally ditzy and distracted to hold both a job and be an alert parent.

[Stagger_Lee]

Her action directly led to the death of her child.

I see no grey area here. I do feel sorry for the woman and the angst she is feeling. But she killed here child and deserves to be punished.

This is made more dreadful by the fact that the person killed was entirely dependent on the killer for almost everything. Gross negligence.

[Kaj]

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The assistant principal went out into her driveway that morning and strapped her baby in a baby car seat with every intention of being a reasonably responsible mom.

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The fact that she's been warned about this in the past makes me believe she was not going out with every intention of never leaving her kid alone in the car. Which is the real issue. Her definition of being responsible does not include never leaving your kid alone in the car. So whatever her intention regarding responsibility, it was not to fully comply with the law under all circumstances. You don't accidentally keep leaving a kid in the car unless you purposefully disregard this risk. Nothing accidental when you knowingly disregard risks (and the law) because they're inconvenient.

[daveT]

What's hilarious about this is that some time in the near future the other kid is going to go home with a card they made in school for Mother's Day that says "Best Mom Ever."