What is bad parenting?

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If you've been watching the news, or reading articles online, chances are you will have heard about Harambe, a 180kg male gorilla who was shot dead within his enclosure after a four year old boy somehow fell into his enclosure. Harambe 'played' with the young boy for around ten minutes before his keepers chose to shoot him- from the video footage I've seen, he simply holds the boy up in the water and moves him around a little, he's not violent in any way, shape or form...but there we go. 

Thankfully, the boy walked away injury free (despite falling all the way down into the enclosure...) and his parents have released a statement saying how grateful they are that the right people were in the right place at the right time. Most of the world is screaming in anguish at the unnecessary death of Harambe, and as sad as that is, it's not the point. 

The point is the developments that have come about as a result of this incident, shared with the public today: the parents of the child could be prosecuted and face criminal charges- I repeat criminal charges- for bad parenting, essentially. 

Criminal charges because their little boy fell into an enclosure at the zoo. 

Can we just pause for a second? Can we look at, oh, I don't know, Kate and Gerry McCann?!?!?!? No one has charged them for not only 'allowing' their daughter to be taken after leaving her alone at night time in a foreign country, but no one has charged them for leaving two babies alone in a foreign country either! This was a conscious decision made by the parents and is without a doubt an example of poor parenting. However, a child falling into a zoo enclosure as a parent turns their back for a few seconds, that's a mistake. And it's not one worthy of a criminal charge. 

All parents take their eyes off of their kids for a few seconds- to answer the phone, get something from their bag, tie up a shoe, so many other small and unimportant things. It happens all day, every day and sometimes, as a result of this, accidents happen. A child is hurt, gets lost in a shop, falls into an animal enclosure. It happens. 

Whilst the parent probably should have been holding the child's hand, what's important here is that she is not a bad parent. She didn't hurt her child, she didn't put her child in danger, she wasn't acting in an irresponsible way (that we have been told of anyway!). She simply stopped focusing for a few seconds...probably to look at the gorilla, ironically. 

For this child's parents to face criminal charges, and for the McCann's not to seems absolutely outrageous to me- not to mention ridiculous, stupid, moronic and a whole host of other negative adjectives.

A sad incident has happened. A gorilla unneccessarily lost it's life. But a child walked away unharmed and that is not worthy of a criminal record and possibly losing their child due to "bad parenting". 

What do you think?

Love from,
Florence Grace

Like this? Why not try... Why I'm sick of Maddie McCann

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