Ruth

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Parents, I beg of you, stop blaming and shaming other parents.

35 years ago, a mom shopping in a Sears department store went to go look at lamps, and left her six year old with another group of boys, who were all trying out the new Atari game at a kiosk. That boy’s name was Adam Walsh.

30 years ago, an 18 month old toddler playing in her aunt’s backyard fell into a well. Rescuers worked nonstop for 58 hours, finally freeing “Baby Jessica” from the well.

In both cases a tragedy happened, an unforeseen tragic accident took place which left Adam dead, and a toddler fighting for her life deep underground. But they also has something else in common; they had an entire country of moms and dads supporting the grieving parents.

Let me repeat that, EVERYONE SUPPORTED THE RESCUE EFFORTS WITHOUT BLAME. NO BLAME. None. ZERO.

No questions asked, not one single “Where were the parents?” comment. Just a country of other moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas watching in horror as a set of parents, one of their own, went through the unthinkable. Adam was our son. Jessica was our baby daughter.

THOSE PARENTS WERE US.

Flash forward to 2016, the year of THE PERFECT PARENT.

Yesterday, a two year old boy, splashing in the magical lakefront waters of a Disney Resort, succumbed to the wilds of mother nature. An aggressive alligator scooped him out of the water, right under the watch of his father, who attempted to fight with the alligator to free his baby son. Pure horror. Sheer Terror. Parents who actually had to watch their baby be taken from them, as if they were in some African nature documentary.

A tragic and unforeseeable accident. An accident.

I weep for this mother and father. I am sick with anguish for the pain, agony, misery, and regret pulsating through their viens this very second. And I bet you are too.

But not everyone is.

You see, we now live in a time where accidents are not allowed happen. You heard me. Accidents, of any form, in any way, and at any time, well, they just don’t happen anymore.

Why? Because BLAME and SHAME.

Because we have become a nation of BLAMERS and SHAMERS.

And how are accidents allowed to happen if we can’t blame someone? Surly, they can’t, right? I mean, random acts of nature, unpreventable tragedies, and fateful life changing events that take place in a matter of nanoseconds cannot possibly take place if everyone is being a responsible parent, right? NOPE.

They can’t, because this country and its population of perfect pitchfork carrying mothers and fathers sitting behind keyboards needs to accuse. They NEED TO BLAME, to disparage, to criticize in every damn way and at every damn corner, the parenting of another.

And when do they really get to lick their blaming chops? When a tragic accident happens. That’s when the pouncing is at its freshest, when raw emotion and ignorance collide, and they dig their word claws in, and take hold of whatever grace these grieving mothers and fathers have left in their souls.

And then they tear it out.

Listen to me very clearly perfect parents, VERY CLEARLY.

I’VE HAD ENOUGH.

I’ve had enough of scrolling through comment threads and seeing over and over again questions like “Where were the parents?” and thoughts like, “This is what happens when you don’t watch your kids.”

I have simply HAD ENOUGH.

I have one question for the blaming and shaming moms and dads. You know the ones who immediately blame the parents, the ones who go on the internet and type comments like, “This is nothing but neglect by the parents,” and “They should have known better. Who was watching that little boy?” and my favorite, “I would never let that happen to my kid.”

Here is my question,

Have you ever been to a child’s funeral before?

I have.

The funeral of a child is an event in life that you never, ever want to experience.

Now let me ask you another question.

In the coming week these parents will fly back to their home in Nebraska without one of their children. They will leave a vacation resort, packing up his Buzz Lightyear pajamas and his favorite blanket, and they will make an excruciatingly difficult journey home. A journey that they never in a million years thought they would be making.

They will meet with a funeral director, pick out a tiny casket, a tiny burial suit, and surrounded by family, they will bury their baby boy.

And they will suffer every single day for the rest of their life.

At the funeral for this two year boy who died in front of his parents, can you do me a favor? Can you walk up to the mother and say the words that you just typed out last week? Can you? Can you greet her, hug her, shake the father’s hand and then say, “ Who was watching that little boy? You should have known better. I would never let that happen to MY child.”

Can you do that for me? I mean, you felt those words so deeply in your heart and soul that you typed them for a million people to read. Certainly you can say it straight to the faces of the people you meant it for, right?

Here, let me help you.

Put away your pitchfork for a moment and try this.

To the mother and father who went for a walk on vacation for the last time with their little boy yesterday, I am deeply sorry that you had to experience the worst kind of tragedy possible, an accident. I grieve with you. Your baby was my baby. Your son was my son. I have nothing but love for you, love to help you get though the pain yesterday, today, and for what is gonna seem like a thousand tomorrows. I wrap my thoughts and prayers around your aching heart and soul. May the God of this universe in some miraculous way bring peace to you and your family.

That is what you say. THAT. And just THAT.

Stop the blaming.

Stop the shaming.

In their darkest hours, can we please just LOVE other parents. Please?

I keep seeing this behavior too.

I’m not talking about the teenagers who clearly had some lack in their rearing.  I’m talking about the infants, toddlers, and 2-3-4yr olds who get into trouble.

Every parent out there, if they’re being honest, will admit that they have looked away from their small child “for just a second” and turned back and discovered the child wasn’t where they were left.  It happens to every parent and caregiver out there.  It is simply, physically, impossible to have your eye on your child every second.  You do your damndest to make sure that during those seconds of distraction your child won’t be able to get into serious trouble.  But shit happens.  It’s a miracle, and a testament to the stubbornness of parents, that more small children don’t end up dead or seriously injured during those seconds of inattention every year.

My mother was HUGELY OCD about my safety as a child, and I still ended up in the ER a ton of times for my share of stitches.  I figure it’s just pure luck that I never tried to climb into a gorilla pen.

When my younger brother was 7 or 8 or so my mother saw, for the first time, those child harness-leash sets, and turned to me and said “god, I wish I’d had those when you two were toddlers”.  I still remember her telling me that.

Course, there’s a set of people out there who’d shame parents for using those harness-leash combos.

You can’t win.

Would I like to see zoo’s re-evaluate their fences on exhibits?  Sure, even if they’ve been accident free it’s probably time for an update regardless.  But I don’t blame the zoo either.

Would I like to see Disney take a closer look at their signage?  Sure, after all, a “no swimming” sign doesn’t mean the same thing to a New Yorker (or an Nebraskan), as it does to a Floridian.  Maybe it’s time to change up those signs to “Don’t approach water, alligators”.  But I don’t blame Disney either.

Re: my work rant.

The excuse was that stocking levels were so bad that the time had to be taken before the Memorial sale started to fix things.  Though the store manager said all the right non-commital things she’s clearly not happy either (tone of voice, exact word choice, and her own actions tell me ALOT).  The Garden-seasonal department’s spring-summer sales carry the store, literally.  From the months of April to July our departments sales equal or better the sales of the rest of the store (with the occasional exception of Lumber) for the rest of the year.  I know the fuss is always made about Thanksgiving and Christmas, but for big box home improvement stores, at least in this area of the country the really big thing is spring-summer.  Having a department manager who cannot keep up has the potential to kill the store.

Mind, its not all her fault or under her control, but she’s not keeping up with basic stuff.

Example: back on 4/20 a $50 trash can went to its final clearance price of $13 before the “throw them out” point.  $13.  These are nice 13g stainless steel cans.  That SHOULD have been the trigger for the department manager to check stock, pull them out to a highly visible spot if they weren’t already (this should have been done at least one markdown prior really, but it should have been checked within the week after 4/20 too) and make them go away before they have to be trashed.  If not herself then by handing the info to an associate to do.  We as associates can’t see the markdown schedule so it has to be handed to us.

Yesterday, 6/2, an Assistant Store Manager handed me an info tag for these trash cans, informed me that the system says we have 35 of them, and to please pull them, tag them, and make them visible cause we have two weeks before corporate automatically orders them trashed.  35 of them, and we haven’t sold a single one in two months (that I can check).  Thats $1750 worth of sales down the drain if they get trashed.  Shit happens, the occasional box of clearance merchandise gets missed and ends up trashed.  35 13g trashcans is 3 PALLETS worth of merchandise.  Hell, if nothing else, making sure that they were out and tagged during the Memorial day sales madness would have likely fixed the whole problem!

It took me 5 minutes to find them.  It took me longer to find an appropriate spot to display them, mostly because of the bulk involved.  But not that much.  Another half an hour to get them out of the overhead, tagged, and in location.

Maybe an hour of my time total.

While I helped customers and answered phone calls, by myself cause the only other person in the department was Newbie M who I saw all of three times for my entire 4hour shift.

Yeah……