From the Horror Files

Flipping through the channels tonight, I happened past CNN and the headline at the bottom of the screen read "Mother accused of microwaving infant". I didn't stop to see the rest. The headline was nauseating enough without having to hear the rest of the story. I don't want to know the details.

But even more so, I don't want to hear anyone making excuses for why any person would do such a thing. (And you know they always make excuses for these sickos.)

I don't want to hear about post-partum depression. Millions of women have children every day, lots of them get depressed. It's no reason to kill your baby. I was a single mother who had the bad sense to be with 'the incredible disappearing man'. It was depressing. The day before my daughter turned 5 months old, I was in a horrible car accident. After two months in the hospital, I came home to a baby who didn't know who I was, and I wasn't too sure I knew her either. You want depressing? That was depressing. I didn't kill my baby. Things were tough. Things are tough all over. You get over it or you find a safe place for your child - somewhere away from you. You don't kill it and you sure as hell don't put it in the microwave. I got over it, and my baby was always in the safest place she could be - with me.

I think part of it is the disappearance of personal responsibility. You have sex without protection, and you are going to get pregnant - maybe not the first time or the fifth or the thirty-seven, but the law of averages says sooner or later the egg will meet the sperm. As a woman, whether it's right or not, the baby is primarily your responsibility. The guy doesn't carry it around for 9 months. He doesn't get sick or fat. He doesn't get stretch marks or gestational diabetes. He doesn't get laid out on his back during the last trimester. If he's a good man, he loves you, he loves his baby and he provides nurturing support to you both. If he's not, he's gone or worse - you have to take care of him and the baby, too. But whether he's good or he's not, that baby is a little person depending on its mother to keep it alive - to love it, to shelter it, to feed it and to protect it. Being a mom means being the responsible party. Some people never learned to accept responsibility for their own actions, and so taking on the responsibility of a child is too much.

I say, too damn bad. If you're pregnant and you can't accept the weight of 18 years (or more) of responsibility, be responsible enough to give the child up for adoption. Or if it's soon enough by law, be responsible enough to abort the mass of dividing cells before it becomes a child. (But abortion is a topic for another blog, and I'm old enough to know I no longer have the energy for that debate.)

Either option is way WAY way better than using a microwave to solve your parenting problems. Sick freak. I hope they microwave her, but they'll probably just find her 'not guilty by reason of insanity'.

Feh.

I'm ranting. I know it. If you want to refute me, feel free to rant about this on your own blog. Don't try to give a refuting rant here - I won't post it.