1 Jun 2016

Blame the Mother

Last August, I was just about to have a bath when I heard a bang and a scream and my husband yell for help. My middle son, in his effort to somehow FLY into bed, had overshot, bashed his head on his chest of drawers and cut his forehead open. A combination of extremely blonde hair and gushing head wound meant it looked far worse than it was, but after a trip to A+E and some glue, he was fine. No harm done. Accidents happen.
A few years before this, I was making a cup of tea, turned to put something in the sink and my eldest (who would have been around 20 months) pulled a cup of just poured boiling water directly onto his head. I stripped him, put him in the sink under cold water (poor child was baffled, but this is the best thing to do with a scald if ice isn't immediately available) and then went to A+E. He suffered very very minor burns, but otherwise, no harm done. Accidents happen.
Many years ago, when I was five, I fell through a window under the watchful eye of my father and was millimetres from death. The awful injury sustained still gives me a lot of problems. But accidents happen. I'm alive and well, that's the important thing.

In none of these cases was any fault attributed to a parent. They were accepted as accidents, because everyone knows accidents happen with little kids. Little kids are unpredictable. They are not rational. They don't fathom danger, or apply it to themselves. Sometimes, the accident is fucking awful and someone dies. Recently, that someone was a gorilla.

First off, much loved family dogs have been known to murder children so I don't know why people are surprised a gorilla might be hostile to an invader. Gorillas have some genetic similarities to us, and a lot of people have said he was protecting the toddler. How would you react if a large, unknown mammal suddenly fell into your house? How about it a great crowd of similar mammals bellowed at you about it? I'm guessing you might feel intimidated, and afraid, and probably defend yourself in the way you do when a spider runs across your bare feet in the night. Stop anthropomorphising a gorilla. Gorillas are dangerous. There's a reason they aren't given free rein in a zoo.

Second, it is a mystery to me why the enclosure wasn't properly blocked off. I dislike zoos at the best of times, and I would much rather have a huge electrified fence protecting me from the big animals than have them in a moated hole. In fact, I would much rather have the big animals living in their natural environment, not locked up in some faux-forest-clearing in Cincinnati, but that's just me. The safety of the enclosure seems to be in doubt.

So, a four year old got into the enclosure. Four year olds are not wise beings who can gauge danger. Four year olds are very much of the age when they see a gorilla, want a gorilla, and go to see the gorilla. Only a few months ago, I had to rescue my idiot then-four year old from a huge pile of masonry in Ludlow Castle where he had taken up residence. Four year olds do not think about the consequences of their actions. The four year old's life was endangered by the gorilla. The zoo did the only thing they could reasonably do in the circumstances and killed the gorilla. Poor Harambe. The little boy survived.

And now his mother is being absolutely ripped to fucking shreds by social media. People have called for child protection to investigate her for neglect. People want her head, mainly because of the death of the gorilla I think, rather than any real concern for the child.
Just the mother, you'll note. As is so common in these sort of cases, the father of the child is just a blameless simpleton who couldn't possibly be expected to share in the management and safety of his children. This is an extraordinarily common narrative in any story castigating a feckless mother, and it is both misogynistic and generally damaging to the state of fatherhood. Surely we have progressed from the 1950s, where Father has a flat cap, a pint of ale, and the stub of a rollie and doesn't know his children's names, let alone where they are at any given moment?! I wonder what the narrative would be had the child been in the sole company of his father, perhaps on a weekend-daddy-day? I'm sure the mother would still be blamed somehow, probably with a headline like "HARAMBE BOY'S MOTHER DRUNK WHEN HE GOT INTO THE ENCLOSURE".

So, the mother is at fault, because honestly, who expects a zoo to be safe in this day and age? Surely they just let the animals roam about freely and you have to dodge out of the way of marauding lions and whatnot!? My main concerns when taking my boys to the zoo are losing them, traffic if it unexpectedly turns out to be covered in roads (Whipsnade, I am looking at you), and Jim having a meltdown. The idea that they might be able to actually get into an enclosure wouldn't occur to me. Does this make me stupid, that I assume a zoo has taken sufficient safety measures to stop my kids being mauled? This isn't like the case where the man deliberately climbed in with some lions in an elaborate suicide.. That child should not have been able to get into the enclosure. I think it is reasonable to expect a zoo to be safe, even if the safety measures are invisible. Compare this with the Smiler accident at Alton Towers last year. Nobody was screaming that the people on the ride should have known better than to go on such a clearly dangerous ride, or tried to blame their parents for allowing them to go to a theme park unaccompanied. There are expectations of safety from public attractions.

But still, definitely the mother's fault. She should have been watching him! Well, yes, and I know this is a foreign concept to the childless, but you do OCCASIONALLY have to look at OTHER THINGS when you have children. Like, where you are going, checking other people in the vicinity to make sure nobody's being abducted, other people if they start a conversation, your phone if you get a call, your camera to 'make memories' (urgggh that phrase), or even your other children. I can think of literally thousands of reasons to stop looking at your child for ten seconds, and as any parent knows, a child can cause absolute chaos in ten seconds.
Now, imagine watching your child being mauled by a gorilla. Most parents really do love their children, even if they never post a meme to tell you how much. Social media animal behaviour experts seem much more willing to attribute a gorilla with mammalian emotions of love and protection than the child's own mother. I can't even imagine what the hell went through her mind (or the boy's dad's mind, or his siblings for that matter) seeing her son so in danger. That is punishment enough.

Yes. it's a tragedy that Harambe had to die so a boy could live. Yes, there are lessons to be learnt. But it's not the mother's fault, unless she pitched the kid into the enclosure herself. Sometimes, there is nobody to blame, and that's what really gets on everyone's tits. 

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