When the Child-less Attack

My Drill Sergeant from military school is a wonderful man. He's a Captain in the US Army. He has served bravely overseas. In college, his car had the bat signal in the rear window. He has done many amazing and wonderful things. You know what he hasn't done? Had children. And yet every single time some sort of thing comes up on the news about children or babies or mamas or breastfeeding or anything, he has an opinion. An opinion that he shares with the world. That's fine I guess, his prerogative. But sometimes it drives me nuts when people without children are so quick to judge parents.

The latest thing he had an opinion on was a woman whose child ate one of those detergent packets thinking it was candy. He said that she should have her children taken away from her because she's obviously an unfit parent. Then he went on to say, and I quote  "I swear to God if I ever came home to find my kid dead because my wife didn't think to child-proof the laundry detergent, I would drag that [expletive deleted] into the front yard by the hair, shoot her in the gut, and watch her bleed out. Then I would happily go to jail for the rest of my life!"

First of all, classy right? I asked him if he had any responsibility towards his future child, to which he replied "Well I'm not a [expletive deleted] idiot, so I would child-proof everything. The assumption being if something was left out, un-child-proofed, then it was her. Plus this woman was a stay-at-home-mom, so obviously making sure dangerous substances in the home remained secure would be one of her primary duties. AND I'm not having kids, so this is entirely hypothetical."

Thank God for that last part.

My thoughts on this are the following. I think that most parents have their child's best interests at heart. Although the news is rife with stories about horrible parents, I think the majority of parent's want what is best for their children. Most parents would NEVER knowingly put their children in danger. So I'm giving this mom the benefit of the doubt.

It is so hard to baby/child-proof everything. We have all the fancy child-proofing mechanisms, and CJ still gets hurt. He is almost two. Two year olds are notoriously sneaky. I can turn around for a split second and when I turn back, he is on the table. He's like the butler from Mr. Deed's "I think you underestimate the sneakiness sir." I'm not saying parents shouldn't be accountable. I am saying that kids are going to get into things.

My main point of this post isn't that though. My main thought is why the heck do people without children always have an opinion? They are so quick to judge. It drives me insane. They've got an opinion on breastfeeding, they've got an opinion on spanking, they've got an opinion on child leashes. Until you've been "in the trenches" you have no idea what it is like. I had so many ideas about how I was going to raise my son. My biggest thought was that I would never let him watch tv. Our TV is like 7-11. It's not always doing business, but it is always open. Just sit back, relax, and unless a child is being physically or emotionally abused, trust that the parents really do have their best interests at heart.

And let me step off my soapbox now. No CJ's were hurt in the making of this post. Just proving my point that he is a tricksy false climbing on top of chairs baby.


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