Mom Shaming

A couple days ago the Cincinnati, OH zoo had to kill a near-extinct gorilla after a boy fell into the enclosure. Because it is 2016, there were tons of videos posted of the event on social media which sparked a million different theories and opinions about what happened. Most people think the mother was at fault. Now, I didn’t read a whole lot about the story because it makes me sick thinking about it. Sure, the mother could be at fault; she could have been not paying attention of her children and letting them run where ever they want. We’re any of us there? Only those who were at the zoo that day really know what happened and who is at fault (or no one at all.) However, when I saw how horrible everyone was being towards the mother, I instantly defended her.

I felt the need to defend this mother because that could easily have been my child in with that gorilla. Any parent, especially those raising special needs children, know that anything can happen; it only takes a second for something to happen to a child. Take for instance child kidnapping cases, a mother turns her back in the grocery store to check out the sale on green beans and {POOF} a stranger has taken her child and is halfway to his car before she notices. Or a mother takes a quick shower while her baby is still napping, comes out to find the child not in bed, but went downstairs, opened the front door, and is standing on the front porch. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. Things happen to my child all the time. A few weeks ago we were in Target shopping for toys and the next thing I knew Eli was 10 isles away and by the time I got there he was gone completely. I ended up having to flag down a worker to call a missing child code. If that were to get on social media strangers who had never met me before I’m sure would be calling me a horrible mother for not watching my child. What about the other day when my child was upstairs in his meltdown corner and came out choking because in the 2 minutes he was in there (with his therapist on the other side of the curtain) he swallowed a nail and had to spend a night in the hospital. I’m sure I would be a bad mother here too because my son pulled a nail out of the wall of his meltdown space.

I was defending that mother because the only people who show compassion for parent’s in situations like this are those of us who have been through something like this. I don’t judge other mothers and what they go through because I know I either HAVE or WILL go through it. I know how hard it can be or how even though you are doing your best and doing everything right ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. I think our world, as a whole, needs to show a little more compassion for each other because we don’t know what we are all going through.

And as a disclaimer- yes, the mother MAY have been in the wrong, again, I didn’t read every story out there. I’m just saying my initial reaction was to defend that mother as I would hope other’s would do for me if I was in the situation.