On Harambe and Mummy Blaming

So sad the world lost the almost extinct gorilla, Harambe at the Cincinnati zoo recently. What's sadder is the circumstance around which the gorilla was killed and how much public backlash the mummy of the beautiful 4- year-old has received. The boy's mum has sadly become the butt of a lot of criticisms tagging her as irresponsible and uncaring but is this really true. What I find more baffling is that many of the commenters seem to have totally absolved the boy's father of any blame. You might ask me 'Why blame the dad if he wasn't at the zoo'? Here's the thing, the report says mum had several young children she needed to look after and she was managing to do a good job of that until her 4-year old went missing. Not that I think that anyone should be blamed for the little boy's accident (he was just being a child), but I feel that both parents should always take responsibility for their children. If taking care of many children at a public place like a zoo could pose a challenge, then such outings can be delayed until the other partner is available (two are better than one). 

This reminds me of an unfortunate incident that happened in Lagos, Nigeria some time ago. A nanny ran away with a family's three children while the parents were away at work. The nanny had been employed about 2 weeks prior to the incident through an online agency. Unknown to the family, the nanny belonged to a cartel of child-thieves and had ulterior motives to kidnap the children to sell them for money. This story ended well because the nanny was found and arrested by the Nigerian police many days after the incident. But before the nanny was found, the online backlash on the poor mother who was distraught at losing three children, was unimaginable. People blamed the mum for being so careless with her children, too trusting, and putting her work before her family. Whether these points are true or not is not the issue, what stood out for me was the fact that the father didn't get that backlash. What stood out for me was the fact that it appeared that the marriage was made up of just one person and the job of parenting was her sole responsibility. What stood out was the fact that mothers get all the blame when things go wrong while fathers get all the praise when they go right. What stood out for me was the fact that as much as we wanted our fathers to be more involved, we intentionally shield them and protect them while putting our mothers under the bus.

I believe in a two-parent child rearing except when circumstances cause a person to be a single mom or single dad. I believe a man and his wife should both take responsibility for raising children. And taking responsibility isn't just financial, it also involves being responsible for making decisions that will affect the child's well-being. I believe society need to cut mothers some slack- in an ideal situation, you hardly love that child more than the mother does. So please, forgive her when she makes mistakes and help her rise above those mistakes - mistakes that might have caused so much pain, even the loss of another species. Goodbye, Harambe.

Photo credit:heavy.com