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Parents, If You Think What Happened at The Cincinnati Zoo Can’t Happen to You—You’re Wrong

Until this week I never realized how many perfect parents we had in this country.

It took a three-year old child falling into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and the animal’s subsequent killing by zoo security, to bring them out of the woodwork like roaches when the lights turn off; offering all manner of outrage and all sorts of condemnation for the boy’s distraught mother.

I must be mistaken. Apparently all the emergency rooms are filled only the broken arms and concussions of kids with irresponsible parents; the gashed knees and dislocated elbows only riddling the bodies of those with negligent moms and dads. All of my scars must be evidence of my parents’ unfitness for the job. 

These people have either never had a toddler or are in deep denial about their own parenting prowess—because I’m respectfully calling B.S. on all of them.

I absolutely adore my children. I’m about as present and engaged and attentive as any parent I know, and yet I can picture about a billion times when my eyes wandered or my attention lapsed or I was too slow or simply too exhausted, and my kids could have been a news story; where they escaped with only a few scratches and my racing adrenaline. And those are just the moments I’m aware of, to say nothing of the infinite times when the near misses and almost disasters escaped detection and I was both fortunate and oblivious.

I remember the day I took my kids to my parents’ house for a long weekend. I was flying solo, as my wife was working and I’d been doing some hardcore single parent duty. One morning the kids wanted to go swimming, so I got everyone suited up and sprayed my eight-year old son with sunscreen and he jumped in the pool. I then did the same with my daughter who was three at the time, and said to her “Okay, you’re good!” I turned to organize the clothes and towels and to get her swimmies on, when I somehow it registered that I’d heard a splash ten seconds earlier. I quickly turned to see my daughter just hovering there two feet under the surface of the water.

It was easily the most terrifying moment of my life.

After jumping in fully clothed in a panic, lifting her to the surface and seeing with great relief her cough out a few huge mouthfuls of water, I held her and patted her on the back until I realized she was going to alright. I sat her in a chair, wrapped her in a towel—and then I bawled like a baby. I realized the gravity of the moment. I was a few seconds from losing her; a random phone call, a quick distraction, an uninvited daydream and my life would have never been the same. I could have had to carry the weight of her death instead of simply having a dramatic story with a happy ending to tell people.

Every sensible parent who hasn’t faced a tragedy with their children, knows that they’ve probably narrowly avoided one more times than they could ever imagine. This is parenting. Despite our best, most loving, most sincere efforts, sometimes harm comes and the unthinkable happens and our worst fears come to life. Kids are startling fast and unfathomably impulsive, and they can outrun or out jump or escape every attempt we make to protect them and quite often there’s nothing we can do about it.

It’s a terrible thing to see a beautiful animal destroyed the way we witnessed in Cincinnati, but it’s far more terrible that we can’t mourn the loss without throwing someone under the bus. Social media has elevated our need to blame and shame and punish and moralize and finger point, to levels that should make us all sick. We seem to need a weekly vigilante mob to be part of and we will sentence strangers from a distance regardless of the personal cost to the targets of our disdain.

What the heck ever happened to mercy, to compassion, to giving people the benefit of the doubt that they’re trying as hard as we are to protect their kids from circumstances and people and from themselves? Parenting a toddler is the most taxing, unceasing, exhausting endeavors on the planet and most of us (as I imagine this mother) are doing the very best they can every waking moment of their over filled, frustrating, sleep deprived lives.

None of us would fare well if our greatest parenting blunders went viral, so let’s all step down from our self-righteous touch screen tirades long enough to be decent human beings. I don’t know this boy’s mother but I know that there’s no one who feels more horrible or embarrassed or incompetent than she does. Seriously, if you think this is a field day for her you’re delusional. She’s having to live out a parenting nightmare in front of the entire world; one that most of us can never imagine, but one we could all so easily be living if we’re honest with ourselves.

If you’re a perfect parent, then by all means, judge and carry on and condemn and call for this mom’s head.

If not, I suggest you celebrate that your kids are safe and healthy today, be thankful for the times life bailed you out of your own failures, be grateful that a loving family still has their child with them–and be quiet.

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