Neglect or an accident?
The Herald leads with an article today about a Mum who left her 11 month old twins alone in the bath “for a matter of minutes”. One twin got into trouble, under the guidance of 111 she attempted resuscitation… tragically the child was removed from life support five days later.
Yes, it is tragic. Any situation where a child dies is tragic… but was it preventable? And, is it neglect?
This Mum left her 11 month old babies alone in a bath for “minutes”, not even seconds (not that I could easily justify that either). Is there a difference between seconds and minutes when you’re talking about 11 month olds? seconds = accident? minutes = stupidity? Personally, I think 11 months is just too young to be left alone.
At the risk of sounding ‘holier than thou’ I never, ever left my children alone in the bath at 11 months. Even with post natal depression, sleep deprivation (due to sick children), and a lot of sole charge (thanks to husband that travels), I never left them alone in the bath.
I wonder who will excuse her behaviour with ‘but she was only young’ or ‘she had poor parenting skills’ or ‘she had PND’ or something similar
These weren’t children… they were babies. You can’t call out to them and say “you ok?”, they can’t answer.
So, is this neglect? Should this woman be charged with an offence? Neglect? manslaughter?
Yes, the Mum will be in a great deal of emotional anguish and pain.
Recently, a woman was charged with murder for a similar situation however in that case she refused to provide any sort of assistance to the child, and the child was left alone in the bath for fifteen plus minutes.
So, is the recent case just a tragic accident? For me, there is certainly an element of “but there for the grace of God go I”.
How about parents who run over their kids in the drive way? Or, how about when a parent and child choose to cross the road at a point not the crossing, and the child gets hit by a car? Or incorrect car seat usage? Should they be charged?
I would argue that this bath case is pure and simple: she is responsible, she left those babies alone, one died. This is a tragedy for the child, for her twin NOT for the Mum. May be that makes me cold and heartless? I feel for the Mum because she caused her child’s death… but she is still responsible.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Agree.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:14 am
I’m in the “there but for the grace of god” camp. Cant see any merit in inflicting anything more on her.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Well, you do.
I’d suggest to wait until all the facts are clear, before condeming someone based on a newspaper report and your own interpretation.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:23 am
I would leave this tragedy well alone. I have certainly done the same and we know nothing about the kids – some are walking at that age.
Our son (15 months) and daughter (4) bath together and she’s always knocking him over or he slips and goes under. But he pops right up again. And we don’t watch them continuously – you can supervise with your ears as much as your eyes.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:25 am
KiwiGreg – I agree. While I never left the kids in the bath at that age I did once have my son on the bench and turned around to grab something from the other bench and he did a face plant into the floor – fortunately no damage. Things with kids can happen hellishly quickly. How many parents have had the experience of fumbling their kid or dropping them? They are pretty robust little things (if they weren’t we wouldn’t have survived getting out of the trees in Africa) but accidents can happen.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Not leaving your toddlers in the bath by themselves is a no-brainer.
This made me cry – I thought of my own nine month-old twin daughters. There’s really no punishment worse than the pain of being responsible for your own child’s death – no prosecution please.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Malcolm – even if they are walking would you really leave them in water alone though? And, our two bath together as well but when they were younger I wouldn’t leave responsibility to my older child. I think that would be unfair on him if something did happen. I am the parent; the adult with the responsibility.
Brian – there are a lot of instances where accidents can happen…I just argue that this bath case was a little more foreseeable and potentially the risk is higher. Saying that, I can also see the situations like letting your kid stand in the trolley (they fall and get a head injury).
You’re all right… it’s not always black and white. And, as in my previous ‘dirt is good’ post I do advocate an element of risk-taking with kids. BUT I still believe in the bath case that it was a terrible decision to leave those babies alone.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:41 am
I think it is a tragedy for the mother, but one she is responsible for. She is responsible for her kids. It doesn’t sound like a momentary slip or inattention, she seems to have chosen to leave them unattended. That’s a big no-no with kids. She may not have got the message but it has long been said you should never leave young children unsupervised near or in water, whether it’s a bath, paddling pool or whatever.
I think she should probably be charged, but hopefully get some supportive/supervised sentence (non-custodial and non-monetary) – through which maybe she can learn some more parenting skills.
Every parent has a degree of luck of the manage to successfully and safely raise kids, but you still have to take reasonable care.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:43 am
I don’t have kids but I’ve seen my bro and his woman deal with theirs.
I view parenthood as follows: children run around trying to kill themselves, and parents run around behind them trying to save them.
So with all the daily stress and exhaustion from taking care of the little terrorists, It’s very clear to me how easy it would be to make just one disastrous mistake or misjudgement.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:55 am
I do. I’ve been thinking more about this. When our daughter was sitting up and crawling she would be in the bath (on one of those anti-slip mats) and yes I would be out in the adjoining room doing stuff and listening to her. Or I would nip into the hall and get the telephone. But I wouldn’t wonder off and start watching TV and I would be listening – she would be jabbering away to herself.
On paper that might sound reckless but as you know these things are more subtle than simply “yes or no, have you ever left your child alone in the bath?”
March 9th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Actually Malcolm… I get what you mean… judgement calls as a parent can be sooo subjective. A moment vs minutes… definitely judgement.
Pete – agree totally.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:01 am
BlairM – If an unsupervised toddler wanders into my backyard and drowns in my pool I will be prosecuted.
Are you suggesting a mother who leaves her toddler in a bath and it drowns shouldnt be prosecuted ?
Im not suggesting fencing baths – but ffs wheres the consistency? I wouldnt have placed the kid in my pool, nor even allowed them to be there
March 9th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Jadis — I find your post very confusing — are you thinking aloud to yourself and writing while doing so? Normally it is good to have a point, a point of view so we can follow the argument. You seem to think of various things and eventually come to some conclusion which doesn’t seem to be following your own reasoning.
My point of view would be that having bathed all of our kids I would not leave them alone at 11 months. To be honest leaving an 11th month old baby in the bath unsupervised for minutes seems a very foolish thing to do. I would say that’s a case of parental neglect. I find myself agreeing with Patrick Starr and (gulp) Pete George on this one.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Unfortunately, many people do not give ‘health and safety’ considerations to day to day living, and someone who points this out could be the subject of derision. For example someone while holding a pair of scissors (with fingers through the holes) may thoughtlessly wave them around which would be an accident waiting to happen, and yet think nothng of it. Or a driver too embarassed to diplomatically tell a passenger to stop the conversation at a point where the driver needs 200% concentration, like having to do two lane changes in quick succession on the Wellington Motorway (eg enter at Hawkestone St – merge into Terrace off ramp – merge into main lane).
March 9th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
This is a hard thing to read, I can’t imagine what she’s going through right now, one thing she won’t be doing this again.
Everytime she looks at the living child it will remind her of her negligence and that will be a burden.
Imagine what having to tell the twin why they can’t run and play with their brother or sister is going to be like as will every birthday, Christmas and holiday, first day of school, recital and sports day and the twins marriage and birth of grandchildren.
I wish her grace and to be able to not become a defensive parent without forgetting that moment.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
A lot of assumptions being made here. Not sure how anyone has sufficient information render judgment on what actually happened. In a tragedy such as this we should be especially careful not to rush to judgment until facts are established – and somethimes not even then!!
Just because you can comment does not always mean that you should.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
If an unsupervised toddler wanders into my backyard and drowns in my pool I will be prosecuted.
Are you suggesting a mother who leaves her toddler in a bath and it drowns shouldnt be prosecuted ?
The death of a random toddler due to neglect should be prosecuted. The family deserves justice. However, if neglect kills your own child, there is no third party requiring punishment – you have already punished yourself through your own stupidity. Unless the neglect is willful, what is the point of a prosecution?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
[Jadis]: “This is a tragedy for the child, for her twin NOT for the Mum.”
A confusing statement. She is responsible for the death but that hardly makes the loss of her child any less tragic. It’s not an accident but it is definitely a tragedy.
It’s not the same as Nia Glassie, and she’s hardly a murderer, but when someone has died and it appears to be someone else’s fault we can’t go deciding whether or not to lay charges based on how upset the perpetrator appears to be.
IMHO there should be neglect charges, and if guilty the judge can decide at sentencing whether or not the loss of her child is admonishment enough.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
RRM -you’re right, I was harsh in that statement. The Mum of course will go through all those things that MikeNZ says… and I should have mentioned the Dad, grandparents, family and friends.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Based on the “facts” presented the woman is unfit to be a parent and the other child should be placed in care.
Malcolm ,no way can a 4 year old be responsible for a 15 month old in water. Listening out is not good enough either.!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
@Malcolm –
“Our son (15 months) and daughter (4) bath together and she’s always knocking him over or he slips and goes under. But he pops right up again. And we don’t watch them continuously – you can supervise with your ears as much as your eyes.”
Sorry Malcolm, that really is negligent – and habitual negligence at that. 15 months is too young. Stay in the room or take them out if you’re going to leave.
I feel very sorry for the mother in the reported case – she may have only done it once, after all.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I’m not making the 4 year old responsible. I did the same with our daughter when she was the only child. But she’s in there and never stops talking and tells me ever time he stands up, slips over etc. I’m just saying that there are a lot of subtle factors which aren’t known to people who are reading a newspaper article about the tragic death of a baby/toddler. There’s a difference between leaving a child in the bath for 10 minutes and watching TV at the other end of the house, and being in the next room, with the door open and listening to your child talking and playing.
You might say ipso facto the child drowned, this lady is guilty. We’re in trouble if we get to the point where tragic accidents are not allowed. Nothing is risk-free and eventually someone will die from even the most innocuous activity. And we’ll hear about it in the news. If we live in a “no such thing as an accident” world then we’ll be cowed into living a life of only the most basic and necessary activities with unreasonable worry. No cycling, no swimming in the sea, no skiing, no running, no tree climbing, no eating nuts, lock yourself in the bathroom lest the phone ring when bathing the kids, no throwing your kids in the air, no trampolines, no bullrush, no riding to the shop without a cycle helmet, no living.
It is really safe to bathe a child when you’re alone in the house? What if you had an epileptic fit or slipped and hit your head? Or fainted, or had a heart attack? It’s probably happened.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
DPF – really not the sort of thing that needs to be posted here.
A tradegy that requires only our sympathy, not pious condemnation.
[DPF: Jadis posted it, not me. But regardless I think one can have a respectful and useful debate about the situation]
March 9th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Malcolm
I think the test is what’s reasonable.Your examples are simply ridiculous .
March 9th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Agreed Kowtow, but ‘reasonable’ is a moving target so it’s probably best to let people make their own judgements about what is and what isn’t reasonable for their own kids. By and large this seems to work.
As to my examples being ridiculous, well epileptics have restrictions on their driving. Do you think this is unreasonable? And would you let an epileptic bathe your baby alone, day in and day out?
March 9th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
BlairM – you would then bring into question the degrees of stupidity and degrees of emotional upset.
Consider if [you] drunk drove a car, accidentally crashed it killing your family. Its a stupid act and would no doubt cause you emotional harm. – the cops wouldn’t hesitate to prosecute
March 9th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
If it’s according to the majority of right wing nationalists in here, she would be cleansed from having anymore babies. And yes, that mother now face a lifetime of reminders from the right wing propaganda, the likes of Mr. Law, Mr. Garret, Mr. Clayton, Mr. Jackson et al.
They are all lining for the PM’s science award for economic initiatives. Yeah, kill of the future generations!
[DPF: 20 demerits for trolling]
March 9th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
What’s trolling, is that when one uses the board to redirect participants to his/her site for own economic or popular gain? If so then it’s not. You have allowed nasty posting earlier that were directed at belief and you did nothing about it. I understand this is a right wing propaganda site, and if you are honest, you would encourage intelligent debate rather than the filth thrown around in here.
So, what are you going to block me from posting? I honestly don’t miss, but you can have your mess to indulge in. Cheers?
March 9th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
By and large this seems to work. Agreed. However reasonable includes common sense and reconition of potential dangers and hazards and taking reasonable steps to avoid or mitigate.
Kitchens and bathrooms have long been recognized as potentially dangerous for a very simple reason ,alot of bad things happen in them. Same with stairs, but I dont advocate every one live in a bungalow or stop boiling spuds,if there are small kids around keep the handle in not out,simple and reasonable .
March 9th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
malcolm (1049) Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I’m sorry Malcolm I don’t want to pick a fight with you as this is too tragic anyway, But, it wasn’t a tragic accident.
It was momentary negligence by the mother in not having eyes on her 11 Month old twins in the bath. (she left the room!)
The result, one drowned and the other was probably traumatised.
Whilst I feel for them all lets not use language that denies or lessens the facts as we know them.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Malcom, i don’t mean to sound condescending, aside from what you have written here, i know absolutley nothing about you or your children.
“I’m not making the 4 year old responsible.”
This statement is false, you are clearly making the 4 year old responsible as according to you its up to him/her to give you the warning should (god forbid) something go pear shaped.
I don’t think your a bad person or a bad parent, but im pretty sure your making a mistake with this one, please reconsider.
Thank you
March 9th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Just remember that any action that increases the safety of your child even by 0.0000001% is a bloody good action indeed
March 9th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
What a heartless, terrible thing to say Tassman, if you posted such vile filth on my blog i would ban you indefinetly
You are well aware of what trolling is as that is precisely what you are doing, you come here with nothing of substance only vulgar remarks intended to spark hatred, you are of absolutley no value to this forum.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
A tradegy that requires only our sympathy, not pious condemnation.
[DPF: Jadis posted it, not me. But regardless I think one can have a respectful and useful debate about the situation]
Yes I see that now – sorry.
However no use can come of a debate here about this – as evidenced by several of the comments above.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
*BZZZZZ* wrong Jadis!!
She is responsible of course, but it’s no less a tragedy for her too. Silly comment.
Negligence of course, but I’m sure the court will show lenience…as was the case with the mother who drove recklessly into the drain with her three young kids who drowned last year(?) at Opiki. Drove past that accident just minutes after it happened, not good.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
If you can leave a eleven month old alone, 999 times out of 1000 you will be fine. Only problem is you can never know for sure which time will be the 1 in the 1000th.
March 9th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
you can probably drive pissed over the limit 999 times out of 1000 and not kill anyone……………..
March 9th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
you’re a dreamer PS.
99 maybe.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Ive been driving for over 30 years … in the days when you could drink a bottle of wine and drive without a problem.
………..you must still be on you provisional licence.?
March 9th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Thanks Mike Tan and Mike NZ, I appreciate your comments are sincere. These looking-after-children judgements don’t really come across well online as the bald facts cannot convey all the other aspects which might be the difference between reasonable and unreasonable. And of course people judge risks differently.
Anyway it’s a tragedy for this little girl and her family and even if the mother can be considered negligent I would hope she isn’t prosecuted as I’m sure she has suffered enough.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
oh yes of course, lets have a different set of standards for women, like hey, we already compensate for maori -so why not women too?
March 9th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
In general, statements like this are not true. They are impractical.
Staying vigil all night watching your child as they sleep, observing them breathing and performing rescue breaths if they stop will reduce the chance of cot-death and accidental suffocation. But this is not feasible. We have to accept some risk in life.
The percentage you give is the equivalent of 1 billion people doing an action to prevent one adverse outcome. If the action takes minimal effort (like stacking kitchen knives downwards in dishwashers) then fine, but if it’s a difficult one (such as never letting children have time unsupervised) then things become less simple than “won’t somebody think of the children”.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:02 am
Consider if [you] drunk drove a car, accidentally crashed it killing your family. Its a stupid act and would no doubt cause you emotional harm. – the cops wouldn’t hesitate to prosecute
It’s not really analogous, driving drunk on a public road has the potential to harm others besides your own family, so prosecution is appropriate. But if you got drunk, cooked a fry-up, then neglected the stove and it burned your house down and killed your family, it’s not something that affects the public at large.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:25 am
What would be worse than harming your own family?
March 10th, 2010 at 7:27 am
At Pete – are you being deliberately obtuse, I think it’s pretty clear BlairM is trying to make a different point. I think he’s wrong in that you dont have some special right to harm your family over the public at large (or put another way its not a lesser wrong to harm your family versus the public).
March 10th, 2010 at 7:35 am
Not being obtuse. Blair says that prosecution is appropriate if there is potential to harm others besides your family, and then implies it’s different if it’s family and not “the public at large” that is harmed.
If I get drunk at the pub and smack someone in the face I should be prosecuted, but if I go home drunk and smack my wife or kid it’s different?
March 10th, 2010 at 7:47 am
“If I get drunk at the pub and smack someone in the face”
If you did that at my pub you could look forward to a long stay in intensive care you insane dropkick. And I thought James Sleep wrote utter nonsense, but George you take the cake twit.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
LOL. D4J, now that you’ve done your remedial english class and we can almost understand what you’re saying, it’s time to get a dictionary. First phrase to look-up: ‘hypothetical question’.
March 11th, 2010 at 6:50 am
If I get drunk at the pub and smack someone in the face I should be prosecuted, but if I go home drunk and smack my wife or kid it’s different?
*sigh* again we are not talking about people deliberately causing harm. We are talking about unintended tragedies caused by someone’s mistakes. Nobody is suggesting that such a person should not be punished. I am just saying that the punishment of losing a family member unintentionally, and knowing it was your fault, is quite sufficient punishment. This woman will never see her child again, never hold her again, never see her grow up. She’s also probably lost custody of her other child. That’s punishment a’plenty. Whereas, if she had neglected someone else’s child in the bath, apart from her conscience, she doesn’t have to live with any other consequences, and the state needs to step in and ensure she is punished somehow.