Another Brick In The Wall

I often ponder items about our society, the moral standards, responsibilities to each other, where I think we are going, and what I feel are our failures. I am sure I am not the only person to make these ponderings, but I truly wonder if people think about their actions, take moral responsibility for those actions. When I started this personal blog, I wanted to cover my opinions on morals, items in the news, and life in general. Lately I have been starring items through my Google Reader to post responses to on my blog. This article in the Indianapolis Star caught my attention:

     Mom accused of neglecting kids at McDonalds

State police arrested an Indianapolis woman Monday after she allegedly left three small children alone in a vehicle for more than a half hour while she was inside a fast-food restaurant.

Contessa M. Irvin, 25, was held in the Marion County Jail this morning on initial charges of child neglect after police say she left her three children ages 5, 3 and 10 months, alone in a vehicle in the McDonald’s parking lot in the 3800 block of West Morris Street, Indiana State Police Sgt. Anthony Emery said. …. “

Even though the article itself was appalling the thought that mom could go inside, sit down, eat lunch, while leaving her 3 small children in the car; I found some of the comments left even more appalling. Obviously there is a sector of our population that feels this mother was just in leaving her kids in the car, after all she was right inside the restaurant. But it is not that she could see them mind you, obviously not when you read this section of the article:

Witness Robert Shoulders told Sunier that one of the children climbed out of an open window and onto the vehicle’s roof.

“Shoulders stated that he had went into the restaurant approximately 20 minutes prior to Trooper Sunier’s arrival announcing to the patrons for the parent of the children to come outside and retrieve them,” Emery said in a statement. “He stated that no one responded.”

Either she didn’t notice her children climbing out the window of the car, or she simply did not care. I assume there was an absence of caring since she didn’t take ownership of the children when the witness went looking for the mother before the police showed up.

Some of the commenter’s suggested mom obviously needed a break is all, they shouldn’t be so hard on her. EXCUSE ME! I am a mother of three children, two of my children were from my first marriage, and predominately counted on me as literally their everything. There were times I wanted to scream, times I wanted to run away from all the work and responsibility, but I took those on when I decided to have these beautiful children. Parenting is taking the good times with the tough times, staying home when there is no sitter, giving up an extra because the kids need something. If a mother needs a break there is something called a ‘babysitter’, which is a real person that sits with the kids, takes care of the kids in a similar fashion as the parent would (or should).

Other commenter’s suggested this was okay because their parents had left them in cars when they were growing up. Oh I see, no matter how wrong something is if our parents did it to us then it is okay for us to do it to our children! I must have missed this lesson!! My parents left me in cars when I was young, by age 7 even left me home by myself (this is another topic about teenagers having children!) – does this mean I did it to my children. No I didn’t leave my kids in cars, or home alone like I was because I knew it was inherently wrong, imagine using God given judgment. How can a parent do the job of protecting their small children if they aren’t even there! This mindset is just wrong, it is simply saying if our parents beat us, then it should be okay to beat our children – my goodness people think about this concept.

I am also struck at how people haven’t realized how life has changed. Maybe there was a time it was okay to leave kids in cars, towns were small, neighbors were people we knew, families that knew families, trust that was a bond in a community; but that time is no longer. We live on blocks that where we don’t even know the people within the houses closest to ours let alone the entire neighborhood. Towns are rarely small, and even the small towns don’t boast families, and neighbors of the old towns; they aren’t towns full of citizens that you can trust your life and property with. When the communities are so different, don’t people see that parenting also has to take on another role? Parents need to be the protectors of the children; I sure wished this woman would have remembered that before she enjoyed her Big Mac.