We put a pretty veneer of Christianity and love and goodness on ourselves, but it seems to crack pretty easily.
I haven't followed the Casey Anthony story very closly. I am aware of most of the story, but haven't watched any of the trial. I got the idea that she most likely did kill her child, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict. That's a shame.
But it is one of the very basic ideals of America - innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Does this suck lemons at times? Yes, it does.
It surprises me that so many Americans seem to think that just because "every one knows", a person should be put to death.
Damn.
Here is a thought. Children who live on your street, in your neighborhood, in your city are being abused, neglected and murdered by their parents.
How about you do something about that? You can have more impact there than screaming and frothing at the mouth on news comment sites and twitter.
And I know why this case has captured such interest. Too many young, white mothers look at Casey Anthony and see (at least on the surface) someone not that much different than themselves.
And it's scary.
So you rant, disparage and distance yourself as far from her as you can.
I see a lot of young mothers these days running in some terrified nightmare that they might do one single little thing that will ruin their child's entire life for ever and ever.
I see a lot of young mothers putting up fronts for their friends, family, total strangers on the street, so that no one will think anything but that she is the most perfect mother in America.
That's a lot of stress.
Every time something like this happens, I hope that it will allow for an open, honest discussion about the stress and frustration of being the perfect mother.
I have a dream that some day, mothers will be able to say, "I'm depressed" and not hide it.
That mothers will be able to say "my kid is jumping up and down on my last nerve today" and not be judged.
That mothers will be able to feed their kids a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner one night because they are exhausted and not feel like they are damaging their kid for life.
I'm not saying that Casey Anthony was a good mother who just cracked one day, it's fairly obvious she was an accidental mother who didn't want to be one.
I'm just saying I wish something good for mothers would come from these horrible things.
But instead we get screaming, horrific threats, blaming, anger and outrage.
Nothing productive, nothing positive.
Thor sez: Remember that time you accidentally locked me in a closet for 8 hours when I was a kitten? And I turned out just fine.
3 comments:
This week, I have changed my name. It is not Mommy. And it is not Aunt Angie. But for the life of me, I can't get my two boys and nephew to stop calling me that. Over and over and over again.
I have not gotten emotionally invested in the Casey Anthony case, but I can only imagine how it feels to be a juror and hold someone else's life in your hands.
The whole thing is just terribly sad, and I think society finds it easier to fight about things that just don't make sense.
Yes, and I was the wonderful mother and aunt who spent the first three days at Disney in July saying, "Danny come back, Nicolas, get down."
Day four was like, please wander off, fall in a moat.
We all survived.
It is sad, but children are murdered by patents and caregivers in this country quite often. We are outraged about this one because the media shoves it in our faces and tells us to be outraged.
Meanwhile, they could have been informing and educating us about what the debt ceiling means and the impact of raising or not raising it.
Oh, yeah. That's boring.
Yeah, that would be doing their job, at least. Y'know, the part about informing the public.
Truly, the very idea that the Repuglicans are trying to mess around with the debt ceiling is TERRIFYING. And most Americans don't understand this at all.
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