He who is without sin

Good Tuesday everyone!

Today's post is a little different to normal, some may say it's a rant, others may say that it's a bitch, personally I say it's something that must be said:

So yesterday on the train ride home I was reading Kotaku.com when I came across this article: http://m.kotaku.com/5904285/i-am-one-of-those-horrible-neglectful-mmo+playing-parents

Now I need to say, it's rare that I publicly criticise someone, but this person had this coming.

Never before have I ever read something so disgusting in my whole life.

In previous articles this man has publicly attacked fathers who have injured their kids, calling them all names under the sun and doing so claiming it's video game news... The last article I read about this sort of thing by this writer was about a father who in a stupor of exhaustion had shaken his child to death while shouting "go to £&@$ing sleep!" and this writer branded this man a monster for doing it.

I can understand why someone who had never had kids would say something like this, as they would never experienced the 3 o'clock shuffle. That time when your child has something wrong with them, probably hungry, but possibly wet, possibly over heating, possibly sick/teething/grumpy etc, your brain is 3/4 asleep and everything is on auto pilot.

It's during these times that so many people admit to indirectly hurting their child; maybe they drop them, they feed them formula too hot, they fall asleep on the sofa, etc

The fact that this man can outright ridicule people who simply need help is disgusting, and leads me to think that perhaps he didn't actually help out with night feeds or similar, maybe to him these sort of things are the responsibility of the mother, so while she's walking around like a zombie with bags under her eyes from getting at most 2 hrs sleep a night, he's getting his 8 hrs plus and effing off to work during the day!

You see, I've read lots of cases about parents who shake their babies, and 9 times out of 10 the cause is literally temporary insanity. People want someone to blame and with a sensationalist media it's very easy to lay the blame at the feet of the parent(s). But more often then not they are simply not coping well with the struggles of parenthood. They don't tell people or ask for help because they're terrified of being branded a bad parent.

In these situations, the state is supposed to step in and help out, but I can tell you from first hand experience, the state has no interest. In my case we were supposed to have a home visit at 3 months in, we never had that visit, and I suspect our 6 month visit will also go by.

But for me the icing of the cake, the thing that boiled my blood, that ground my gears, that made me froth at the mouth, it was this line from his article yesterday:

"I quickly gathered them up, brought them inside and made sure the door was shut and locked, something their mother forgot on the way to work."

That's right, this man actually attempts to lay the blame for his accident on his wife, because when she left for work she forgot to lock their front door - now tell me, who here locks their front door while someone is still in their house? No one! Because it's a fire hazard! And he has the cheek, the audacity and disgusting attitude to imply that the potential injury and/or death of their kids is the fault of the mother, while he was being negligent.

Don't get me wrong, i don't blame him for making a mistake and allowing his kids to crawl off. I'm lucky, my Mini Moo can't crawl yet and I know when she can all sorts of things can happen, and when she starts walking its just a matter of time before the inevitable fall down the stairs, but I know when this happens it will be largely my fault, and it's just something you learn from.

But what sickens me more than anything else, more than any part of the actual article itself, he doesn't once apologise for attacking other fathers who like him made a mistake and were unlucky in that the mistake caused the death of their child.

So this is me calling out to that writer (who'll never read this blog) to think twice next time he ridicules another parent, as his next accident may not be so harmless.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley