Common sense prevailed

In the news recently was a huge hullabaloo about  a young mother called Cherish, living in America who was about to be prosecuted for leaving her four month old baby in a shopping trolley and "forgetting him"  leaving him for 20 minutes in total.

This mom has four young children, all well taken care of, two I believe are at school or nursery and one young one plus baby.  Now it transpires that this mom called at her supermarket to collect a bunch of flowers for her nephew or niece, can't remember which.  This she does every time a child of the family reaches 16. Taking the child out of the car still in his baby seat she unstraps  the other two children and into the store they go, she paid for the bouquet and straps the children back into the car and drove off, leaving her four month old baby in the shopping cart.  Shooting off home it wasnt till she arrived, ten minutes later, when one of her children in the car asked where the baby was!  In horror the mom drove back to the store and was very fortunate to find that the baby had been taken into a store and was being well taken care of.  By all accounts she was distraught, who wouldn't be and so relieved to see her baby was safe and sound. Total time taken, 20 minutes.

The outcome of this was huge.  Media television jumping all over the story, the usual calls of unfit mother and a very real chance of all four children being taken into care and a custodial sentence.  We covered the story here in the UK too and the mixed reaction from the general public was huge.

I read some of the hate mail.  Most, though not all that wanted this mom hung drawn and quartered were from men.  Some from women too who felt the children would be better taken into care, after all what kind of mother is this that can  "forget" her child.  There were though over 20.000  posts from well wishes, mostly moms who had done similar or admitted that they too were not the perfect mommy. Well my response to this was that she was a normal mom, a busy, loving mom who had only given birth 16 weeks previously to this very much loved and well taken care of child. A mother who was running from school to nursery and shopping and back again, a mom who had a momentarily lack  of forgetfulness.  Does this make her a truly terrible mom, I think not.  Why do I think this, well I too forgot my son and I do not consider  myself bad mom.

My son was ten days old, I had been home from hospital one day.  I dressed him in his beautiful new white romper and placed him carefully in his big silver cross pram and pushed him proudly to the post office to buy one or two things. I left him outside the post office (we could in those days) and completed my purchases. I left the shop and walked past this huge pram containing this very precious bundle and actually walked home, it was only on entering the house and seeing baby paraphernalia around the house that I remembered him and with horror on my face I ran down the road to the post office so fast I would have won any race, I was fortunate that he was still asleep in his pram safe and sound and I, with much relief took my son home. He suffered no  effects of this, though I can't say the same for my heart!

Does this make me a bad mother, I don't believe so.  There are babies every day who are left on beds whilst the mother turns around to get a clean nappy etc and the baby rolls off. children who go missing in a supermarket for a short while, who fall because their moms and dads don't have hold of their hands over uneven paths.  So many things we all could have done, hopefully we did not. This mom did not deliberately leave her baby, she had a lapse of concentration.  Yes it could have ended badly but fortunately for her it didn't. The baby is safe and well and with his family, no worse for this experience.  Can ANY parent claim to be the perfect one,  I think not.  We all do our best for our children but life being what it is we can say we never given our child a lolly for some peace and quiet, or stick a video on so we can finish the ironing in peace or some such thing, or that our concentration is ALWAYS on our children.

Fortunately for this mom common sense prevailed.  The social service departmental people that checked her and her husband out found them to be a loving family with a father that worked hard for his family and a mommy that took good care of the children.  She had a momentary lapse, should she be vilified for this, I think not.  I wonder what you all think.  Plus we need to take imto account baby brain,  this baby was only 16 weeks old.  It takes twelve months for us moms to get our heads back in gear with all the hormones surging around our bodies after birth.  I just hope that this mom can now put this behind her, for sure she won't forget again, I know I didn't!

Sad to read in the news too of the death of Jackie Collins aged 77, the sister of Joan Collins.  I can't say I have read any of her books, not my type, but she was loved by many who did read them and it is  always sad to read of a death after fighting an illness for six years.  We with ph know the battle we live with so know how hard daily life can be when our bodies are letting us down.  My condolence go out to her family at this sad time.

We are preparing for a holiday in our motor home down south to visit with friends and hopefully family too a good break is what we need and then return to get on with all the procedures needed for me to begin the trial.  I have said before I am paranoid about leaving cupboards and drawers clean and neat and windows sparkling, freezer defrosted and tidied and all put back in. This makes going on holiday stressful but then hope to have an enjoyable holiday knowing things are left lovely and

tidy for our return.

Have a good day everyone.  we are hoping that the three week heat wave supposed to hit us at the end of the week transpires.   Would put the icing on the cake for our holiday.  Speak later  xx