One more for the "too stupid to breed" fileFollow

you really think people this stupid would read the newspapers?

There probably has to be a really good investigation, and even the court case, to determine what really happened to the baby - and if it WAS a taped on pacifier, there needs to be the court case just to impress what a criminally stupid thing to do it was (both to the mother, and the public).

But in my own opinion, if it's really a case of stupidity/ignorance and not done with any hope of the child dying, giving the mother a jail sentence for a taped on pacifier is uneccessarily cruel. She is certainly punished enough.

As for "4real" I desperately wish naming registries also had a rule about names that could reasonably be expected to get your child teased to death in the schoolyard.

I know how horrifically "police state" parenting licences sound, but I've been all for them for a very long time, just to help prevent those really occaisonal, but tragic errors by people who have never been exposed to parenting ideas at all.

The way I envisage them, is that you would get a simple, easy information booklet, like the driver's learning booklet, that would contain really basic safety and care information. You'd sit an easy test, which you could sit as often as you like. If you couldn't pass your test before your baby was born, then your details would go to family services, but your file would be closed as soon as you passed the test, and no other problems popped up in the mean time.

Things in the booklet would include how often, and how much, babies need feeding when they are newborn, 6 months, and 1 year. How much sleep a baby needs. The general rule of thumb about dressing children to keep them at a comfortable temperature. The themometer tempreture at which they should get immediate medical attention.

A list of adult foods and drinks that should never be given to babies and children under a certain age (including all coke/pepsi/soft drinks).

Simple advise on keeping the mouth and nose unobstructed, and the eyes protected. How delicate and important the neck and head is, and why shaking must be avoided at all costs.

A list of really bad ideas: giving fun rides in the washer or dryer. Drying your baby in the oven or microwave. Any others that have come up in real life. Oh, and the dangers of babies running free around stoves and unplugged electric sockets.

Some elementary advice on how to treat a child, for it's psychological health.

I know so much of the above is really obvious, and well known by almost all people, but that's the whole point. The parenting licence would NOT be a device to ever prevent anyone from having a child, but would be there to help those people who, for whatever reason, never learned the basics, or never found out for themselves good pediatric advice from any type of health professional.

The three things that haunt me are the mother who has no idea of how microwaves worked, and put her baby in one to dry it off, like she dried off all her tea-towels, the father who agreed with his toddler that a tumble-dryer ride would be fun, and the young mother I heard screaming in distress for hours down the hospital corridor, because staff would not let her go home with her baby.

She could not understand what it meant (in her state of distress), that her baby was right now "dying of dehydration" and "needed to stay in the hospital to be rehydrated". She had had no idea that her baby needed feeding every four hours as a general average.





Edited, Jun 27th 2007 7:13am by Aripyanfar