UPDATE: Cincinnati Police Zero In On Parents in Zoo Incident

[avebury]

6. Instead of four of her own kids it could have easily been a group

of kids from the daycare that she worked at. It is not unreasonable to suggest that any adult taking a group of children out in public have backup to make sure that all children are adequately supervised. Would you feel so sympathetic towards her if it had been your child that was with her that went into the gorilla moat?

Most rational adults would find it difficult to watch a group of children all by themselves. The fact that she also works at a daycare would lend mot people to believe that she should be even more aware of what it takes to keep track of a number of children because parents leave their children at that daycare every day with the expectation that the kids will be in one piece at the end of the day.

My issue with the whole situation may be summarized as follows:

1. I don't care who the children belong to, one woman cannot safely manage 4 children by herself in an environment full of distractions.

2. You cannot expect young children to have impulse control and it doesn't matter how many times you tell a child not to do something, some kids will look you right in the eye and do it anyway. The child issued multiple red flag warnings which the mother failed to take seriously. That is why adults should be in control not children.

3. The mother's apparent lack of good old fashioned common sense. She didn't take at least one other adult with her and she took her eyes off the only kid with her who wanted to dive into the gorilla moat. She has changed her story about what she was doing at least once to try to make herself look not that bad.

4. The mother failed to acknowledge that she did play a role in the tragedy. She could have said something along the lines of I will never forgive myself for turning away for a moment and as a result my child was hurt. I feel so bad that a beautiful animal was killed as a result of what happened. A lot of the public backlash that has landed or her like a ton of bricks is a result of her failure to take ownership of the role she played in the events. Her reaction was along the range of "Accidents happen, thank God for saving my son's life. You can see how well her statements went over with the public. She came across as totally clueless.

People need to take responsibility for their actions, plain and simple.