Most people, whether they have children or not, have strong opinions about parenting. It seems that no matter where one falls in the nature versus nurture debate, blame for the ills of society are more often than not placed at the feet of moms and dads.
The collective evaluation of parenting serves as a tidy way to define and compare generations, too. Many of those who raised children in the 1950s, for example, would look at parenting in the 1970s with something akin to horror, as crew cuts gave way to flowing locks and Pink Floyd replaced Fats Domino on teenagers’ turntables. Those cultural shifts, for which parents are often held responsible, could then be applied to any number of social problems, such as increased drug use and crime, and the decline of the nuclear family.
Perhaps the biggest knock on modern mothers and fathers is that they are overprotective of their children, and as a result are contributing to a generation of young people who will be incapable of looking after themselves as adults. And that’s what makes the reaction to the shooting of a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo on Saturday so interesting.
For the one or two readers who missed the story over Memorial Day weekend, a 4-year-old boy who was visiting the zoo with his mother climbed a railing and walked through bushes before falling 15 feet into the gorillas’ enclosure. Harambe, a 17-year-old male western lowland gorilla, then dragged the boy through a moat, stopping occasionally to look up at the shocked onlookers. Zoo officials decided to shoot Harambe rather than risk the death of the boy at the hands of the 420-pound gorilla. It was the right decision, albeit a sad one.
But the mother’s failure to watch the boy, not the validity of the shooting, is the debate that set social media ablaze over the ensuing days.
When tragedy happens, a common reflex is to place blame, to create a villain as a way of coping with chaos and loss in a poorly ordered world. So who else could be held responsible for the death of Harambe but a mother who failed to have eyes on one of her children at all times? A mother who, it would seem, doesn’t fit the definition of a helicopter parent – those moms and dads currently being blamed for a generation of mollycoddled children.
As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 450,000 people had signed an online petition for “the parents to be held accountable for the lack of supervision and negligence that caused Harambe to lose his life.” It goes on to say that the child’s home life should be investigated.
We assume many of those who signed the petition are parents and that all of them were once children. But how many of them have lost sight of a child for seconds or minutes? How many, as children, did something their parents warned them was dangerous? We don’t have any hard data, but the percentage would almost certainly be close to 100. The mother at the zoo may have made a mistake, but for petitioners to use one incident to suggest she is unfit for the role is a cynical and unsupported leap.
There’s nothing easier than criticizing someone else’s parenting. But to raise children is to make mistakes, and to make them every day. One of the worst parts for parents is not knowing what price their kids will eventually pay for all of those mistakes. The best a mother or father can do is love their children unconditionally, teach them how to be decent human beings and try to keep them out of harm’s way whenever possible. Sometimes they will fall short, and tragedy will find an opening.
So mourn poor Harambe the gorilla, but save some compassion and understanding for flawed mothers and fathers, too.