Mother arrested after child put in washing machine

by Cassiline 115 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  asleif_dufansdottir

  Correct me if I am wrong let’s assume the mother was “playing” with her child. Don’t you have to insert money first BEFORE the washer turns on? This fact in self seems to imply there was more of a malicious intent to her actions.

  I have had laundromat washers and dryers turn on without having to put money in them. I don't know whether somebody else had put money in (either by the last person to use it overpaying, or somebody putting money in several washers and then not using one - I've also seen that happen) or whether the machine itself was messing up. My uncle was a repair person and said that he has known people who knew how to do it, make laundromat equipment run without requiring money (I think it involves messing with the control panel or the controls on the back of the machine).

  There are many, many facts that are not obvious from the news stories. Was she playing 'hide-and-go-seek' and made a horrible mistake? Was she at her wit's end with a toddler running around and screaming in a laundromat full of strangers, and tried to put her in a washer to keep her from running out the door and playing in traffic or getting snatched by a stranger while mom loaded the washer or moved stuff to the dryer (I hate going to the laundromat - I can only imagine going with a 2 year old)? Was she an abusive parent who finally got caught?

  There's no way to tell. We are not given enough information by the article. Obviously she made a huge mistake. How many of us can say we have never done anything dumb in our lives that could not have, under the right circumstances, have had catastrophic consequences? If she is indeed an abusive parent, I'll be at the front of the mob with the torch. I just can't make a determination without more facts.
• 

  Cassiline

  Was she at her wit's end with a toddler running around and screaming in a laundromat full of strangers, and tried to put her in a washer to keep her from running out the door and playing in traffic or getting snatched by a stranger while mom loaded the washer or moved stuff to the dryer

  If a parent feels the need to shove their baby into a washing machine to keep her safe god help them.

  I agree all facts are not known, but I see no reasonable explanation for her actions.
• 

  asleif_dufansdottir

  We're leaving out one possibility. Maybe the woman is just plain dumb. Maybe it didn't occur to her it was dangerous?

  Not that this is an excuse, but it's a possibility. I have a friend who was a labor & delivery nurse for a long time at a university hospital (large % of high risk and teenage and low-income pregnancies). She can tell you stories that would curl your hair of people (sometimes well-intentioned people) that are just several IQ points short.

  I must say, my mother and my grandmother were downright paranoid, and naturally I'm that way too. "Don't do that, you'll get hurt" "Be careful around that table, it has a sharp corner" They were always thinking of some obscure way that no one else would think of, that someone could get hurt or something could go wrong. My husband, who had a much more normal mother, has had 20 years to get used to this constant apocalyptic "Oh, no! What if...?" He still shakes his head at it. There's a lot of reasonably normal stuff I never got to do as a kid because something might get broken or dirty or I might get hurt. Now, lest you think I believe I missed out because I didn't get closed in a washer, I don't.

  This rather rambling tale is to try to make the point that some mothers are hyper aware of what could go wrong, some are normally aware, and some apparently are hardly aware at all. In the animal kingdom, survival of the fittest usually ensures that mothers with bad parenting skills reproduce less than mothers with good parenting skills.
• 

  Realist

  asleif,

  We're leaving out one possibility. Maybe the woman is just plain dumb. Maybe it didn't occur to her it was dangerous?

  thats what i said 2 days ago
• 

  Gopher

  If this woman is just plain dumb (giving the benefit of the doubt here), she is still unfit to be a parent. If she's so dumb, who knows what STUPID thing she would do next to her child??

  Again what she is displaying in public is, IMHO, just the tip of the iceberg of the seriously wrong things she does when out of public view.
• 

  asleif_dufansdottir

  Realist: oops. sorry. next time I'll read over the thread before saying things like "Nobody mentioned this"

  Gopher: No argument there, with the caveat I made in my earlier post - most, if not all, of us have done things which could have, under the right circumstances, had catastrophic consequences - I think our society has become a bit too anxious to "string somebody up" based on a single mistake which went horribly wrong before even making sure it's a pattern of behavior. Sometimes we even make laws in response to kind of bizarre events - would anyone be surprised to see the Calif. legislature pass a law in response to this that makes it a felony to put a kid in a washer? Sometimes a freak occurance is just a freak occurance.

  I'm not saying the woman should be totally forgiven and given her kid back without somebody sticking a microscope up her butt to check out her parenting skills, but can we not withhold judgement until we have all the facts??