Are You My Mother?

Remember the story by  P. D. Eastman, Are You My Mother? Are You My Mother? is about a hatchling bird. His mother, thinking her egg will stay in her nest where she left it, leaves her egg alone and flies off to find food. The baby chick hatches. He does not understand where his mother is so he goes to look for her. In his search, he asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They each say, "No."

Then he sees an old car, which cannot be his mother for sure. In desperation, the hatchling calls out to a boat and a plane, and at last, convinced he has found his mother, he climbs onto the teeth of an enormous power shovel. A loud "SNORT" belches from its exhaust stack, prompting the bird to utter the immortal line, "You are not my mother! You are a SNORT!" But as it shudders and grinds into motion he cannot escape. "I want my mother!" he shouts.

But at this climactic moment, his fate is suddenly reversed. The shovel drops him back in his nest, just as his mother is returning home, and the two are reunited, much to their delight, and the baby bird tells his mother about the adventure he had looking for her.1

 The story of Casey and Caylee Anthony2 floors me. I don't care whether or not Casey is "innocent" or "guilty". It does bother me that if she is guilty, that she isn't taking responsibility of her actions.

As a mother, you're supposed to be a "mother bear" to her "cub." Any person who has children (and isn't clinically insane) loves them, and would do anything for them. And if anything happened to your child, or that you didn't know what happened to your child.... I mean working in retail, any time a child gets away from their parents, the parents go into def-com 5 trying to locate them. Even if that 5-year-old has just wandered to the toys, which is the case 95% of the time.

When retail stores go into a frenzy, they call it "Code Green." Then the store associate goes to the nearest store phone to get a description of the child. All store personnel are posted at exits watching for that missing child. When the child is located, he/she is escorted to the front of the store where the parent is waiting with a store associate. Stores take missing children seriously, so why wouldn't Casey Anthony? Caylee's grandparents did right by Caylee. They requested seeing her, they wanted her. Which appears more than Casey did. Casey was only 20-years-old when Caylee was born. Perhaps she was an immature 20, wanting to go out and party it up. Perhaps being a parent was just too much for her. All that unselfish behavior that it requires.

What floors me most about this, and any child abuse/murder, case is that there are so many parents in the world. Many of whom can't be parents, due to physical inabilities. That doesn't mean its not engrained in their bones, the maternal and paternal qualities, it just means that they've yet to get their child. People like Angelina Jolie can't afford, in their industry (acting), to lose their figure or take the time off to go thru the pregnancy, but that doesn't mean that she and Brad Pitt can't be good parents. They provide a home and all the physical and emotional needs for their children. As do all good parents. I wish all people thought about their children first. Don't get me wrong there's a time that abortion is a necessity and sometimes its not planned. But in cases when a person is getting an abortion just because they are wanting to be selfish, that's just not fair. 

Just because that person is selfish and immature, and not wanting to deal with the trials and tribulations (along with all those fun times too) of parenthood, doesn't mean she (and in some cases, where its more of the father's decision, he) can deprive the child of the trials and tribulations of growing up. In cases where the parent(s) cannot provide the child a standard of living that the child deserves (even if the parent doesn't feel the child deserves) then adoption should be the alternative. Not abortion. That's unnecessary, and I believe that when death is unnecessary its a sin. Commandment Six: Thou shall not kill. 

Killing a child, a widely unrecorded occurrence (an estimate that between 60-85% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates)3 is without a doubt the worst thing a barren woman can think of. Its only slightly worse off than how a woman who has lost a child (or children) unexpectedly feels when she hears about a child fatality. Its important to realize potential. That child you are killing, for selfish reasons could be the scientist that cures cancer or diabetes, or the next diplomat who could resolve all the problems in the world, or even the next artist who opens your eyes to a perspective you never expected. Its important, almost equally to recognize strengths and weaknesses. If a child is superb in English, don't call them stupid when they don't get math. Math is logic and defined organization, a set of rules to follow to get the same answer. English is about expression, how you interpret something and the creativity that you use to describe something. Instead of calling your math-deficient student stupid, get them help to sort through the rules and compare it to another subject they are good in. It turns out that students who do well with English actually get word problems better because there's more information than just numbers together.

The morale of this lengthy blog: Love your child(ren), for who they are not who you want them to be. You had your chance to live your childhood, think back to the experiences you had with your parents, good and bad. Think back to that teenage version of yourself, how would have treated yourself differently? How would you have handled that time you got busted sneaking in after curfew? Don't go without rules, rules are what defines character just be sure to explain the rules so that your child(ren) know why the rules exist. I love my brothers all individually because I know they are all different. They are amazing individually, and I know they all have their strengths. I hope one day they'll find them and use them for good not evil. (So superhero cliche I know, but if they excel at sports and strength is their -- well strength, that they use it for sports and not to become the school bully.) And one day, I hope to look for these strengths in my children.