Children: Poor Parenting

Lately, the innate misanthropy of the inhabitants at Casa de Los Gatos is emerging full swing. It could be the general tide of world events - the brutal repression by our good friend and ally Pervez Musharraf, of his own people; the brutal idiots of the Burmese junta, crushing peaceful assmebly and protest; contaminated, toxic food, toys, and consumer products; a moron running this country into the ground; a moron running Iraq into the ground; things worsening in Afghanistan; the number of lying, hypocritical perverts exposed (so to speak) in the ongoing game of Republican whack-a-mole.

Today's example of piss-poor parenting comes from the Miami Herald, which reports on a family that has lost not one, but two, toddlers to accidents recently. I'm reminded of Oscar Wilde's snarky comment,

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

What have you to say to this family? Or about them?

The first child, aged 2, died in what was termed a "freak accident" as the father was cutting down a tree at the lot on which the family house stood. Now it's quite possible that something outrageously unexpected happened while the tree was being cut down and the child was killed in some way that no one could possibly have foreseen.

But the second child, 2-1/2 years old, is hard to explain. The father says he sat the child down on a woodpile and then moved his truck. The child wandered off the woodpile and into the path of the truck and was crushed by a wheel.

Why would anyone in their right mind leave a small child unsupervised around big vehicles? It's entirely foreseeable that children run out into the path of vehicles. They do it all the time.

If you've already lost one child to a tragic accident, wouldn't you be much more alert to the possibility of losing another? When hanging out with our best friend's daughter, we would never allow the child to walk on the side of the pavement closest to the road, because a driver might lose control of their car and accidentally hit her. We made her keep tight hold of an adult's hand at all times. We never ever put her car seat down on the side of the vehicle nearest the road. We watched that poor kid like a hawk.

So what kind of parent puts their toddler - the age at which most children have no fucking clue about safety - down near a truck that they plan to reverse out of a space? We would have had that child strapped into the truck right next to us.

We're sure the father is devastated and all that. But really, you have to start wondering about when we're going to require potential parents to get training and licensing first.

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