ummm... what?
Feb. 11th, 2003 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hel_anaNow, I understand the arguments about women who are so incapable or so unprepared for the idea of motherhood that they abandon their infants. I understand that mothering is a largely learned behavior.
What I don't understand is why anyone would make allowances for this in determining child custody after the fact.
Baby Mira's mother says that "she's sorry, loves the baby and wants her back". Well, gee.. doesn't that make it all better? She actually loves the child she abandoned, unclothed and unwrapped, on a concrete stair at Nathan Phillips Square in January. And not a nice day in January. It was significantly below freezing.
This is perhaps predictable. However, it's the response of the children's "protective services" that gets me.
The storysy
In it, Durham Region children's advocate Maurice Brenner says "The criminal charges should not play a role in the decision," about whether the baby should be returned to the woman.
Like I said above. "ummmm.... what?"
I realize that the woman was homeless, and didn't have a lot of options. I can have compassion for her on those grounds. Not
knowing what to do in that situation is understandable. But for crying
out loud. That doesn't mean that reunification of this "family" is a
good or reasonable thing. Compassion is not the same thing as
being blind to the best option for the child. And the best thing for the
child is not being returned to a woman who abandoned her to die, and
is only now seeing the light.
Biology should not trump common sense.
What I don't understand is why anyone would make allowances for this in determining child custody after the fact.
Baby Mira's mother says that "she's sorry, loves the baby and wants her back". Well, gee.. doesn't that make it all better? She actually loves the child she abandoned, unclothed and unwrapped, on a concrete stair at Nathan Phillips Square in January. And not a nice day in January. It was significantly below freezing.
This is perhaps predictable. However, it's the response of the children's "protective services" that gets me.
The storysy
In it, Durham Region children's advocate Maurice Brenner says "The criminal charges should not play a role in the decision," about whether the baby should be returned to the woman.
Like I said above. "ummmm.... what?"
I realize that the woman was homeless, and didn't have a lot of options. I can have compassion for her on those grounds. Not
knowing what to do in that situation is understandable. But for crying
out loud. That doesn't mean that reunification of this "family" is a
good or reasonable thing. Compassion is not the same thing as
being blind to the best option for the child. And the best thing for the
child is not being returned to a woman who abandoned her to die, and
is only now seeing the light.
Biology should not trump common sense.
