Sigh

[generalripper]

Daily dose of happy news. Don't read unless you're ready to be pissed off or depressed.

Infant dies with pacifier taped in its mouthThings like this didn't bother me much before we had kids. I mean, sure, I would be angry and sad, and would have wished the worst for the parents, but it would pass quickly

Comments

[apostate_96]

That is just fucking sick and wrong. The sad thing for me is that I've got a fairly good idea of the mindset of a parent who might do something like that. It's not evil or vicious or cruel, either, but primarily lazy and self-centered. There's a quote from one of the episodes of the TV show Millennium that goes something like "evil is the result of a cold heart and a weak mind." Sounds about right to me.

At the same time, your description of the infant's experience of it is just heartwrenching. It reminds me far too much of how I figured our one male ferret might've felt when he died, as he was sick and alone at the vets. We were hurrying to get there after being told by the doc he was fading but....we missed by about five minutes.

Give R a hug for me, too, eh? A big one.

[generalripper]

but primarily lazy and self-centered

Yes. I was too much in shock to really think about it, but Carolyn mentioned this as a possibility...that they weren't actually malicious...just lazy and stupid.

I mean, come on. You don't give an infant any remotely solid food until they're 6 months old - their systems just can't handle it yet. You generally stop using the swaddling technique after the first week, because by then the baby is used to being out of the womb. And babies are positively awful at breathing through their noses until much later - whether it's a physical limitation or just something they don't know how to do yet, I don't know - but taping a pacifier in a baby's mouth is the same as sealing it shut.

your description of the infant's experience of it is just heartwrenching. It reminds me far too much of how I figured our one male ferret might've felt when he died, as he was sick and alone at the vets Yeah I remember you writing about that. I felt the same way about Boris, when we came home from Christmas and found

[apostate_96]

In a way that's still some of the hardest bit for me to deal with - pets get sick, and sometimes you can't fix it, and sometimes you have to put them down, and that's just the way it is - but I wasn't there for him when he was alone and scared, and that hurts.

Me, too. Taking on pets has always seemed like a serious responsibility to me, especially in terms of taking care of them when they're not feeling well. They're brought into our world by us, and it's our responsibility, dammit!

That eye condition must be fucking contagious....

[donkey_hokey]

Wow.. There is so much wrong with what happened. Parents who never should have had kids, incredible stupidity and ignorance galore, etc etc.

I don't think there was ANYTHING going through their minds (except maybe resentment over the infant's inconvenient existence), and that seems to be one of the biggest problems with this tragedy.

Poor kid.

[generalripper]

the infant's inconvenient existence

Yeah...the mom commented that the baby was placing a strain on their relationship and finances. Well, no shit, genius! Babies have this way of doing that - especially when you're 19 and not even married yet. It was rough on us, and we'd been married for 6 years and I was established in my career.

Sounds like their marriage proposal was "You're what??".

[apostate_96]

Yeah, probably.

Either that or her father saying something like "Guess what you're going to be doing?" CHA-CHAK!!

[adjust_56]

This is very tragic, and for me once I had S and lost him it was hard being around children his age. What is unfortunate is that these people are so ignorant that they have no parenting skills whatsoever. That just sucks for the little one. In the middle East my mother in law and would argue over S being swaddled, he was close to 3 months and enjoying the freedom of his little arms and she would swaddle him because they think that their limbs will grow crooked if you don't do it, and that's a cultural thing. But this poor little one had a very rough time of it, in a warped way he is better off gone than with these parents.