Paying attention to not paying attention - Yahoo! News

I foresee a new disorder developing....

I enjoyed that right until the point about the dufus who left his baby in a car . . that gave me the shivers... interesting article though!

There was a radio call in prog today prompted by a news item about a mother who handed her baby to a 'tramp' to hold while she popped into a shop to get some cigarettes.
And did not return (I think) for an hour!

A few of the callers told stories of how, when their babies were a few weeks old, they, too, had forgotten their existence momentarily. One mother had gone into a store, leaving the baby in a pushchair, just for a few seconds.
She exited, got in to her car and drove home, a considerable distance, went into the house, unpacked her shopping and realised she had forgotten something.
It took her a while before she recollected what it was!

That was 34 years ago - and when the mother got back to the store, the pushchair was still there with her daughter in it!!!

OK, it wasn't quite like that!

The point some of the callers made was that post-natal stress or (temporary?) mental illness can trigger amnesia, etc.

There is another story in the news right now about a foster mother who abused her three foster/adopted children for over 20 years, doing cruel and terrible things to them, really shocking and vile. She is a Jehovah's Witness, fanatical and believing that the children were possessed by or the personification of evil.

I expect she will be reviled and vilified, and yet, wouldn't she have to be extremely ill to do something so wicked for so long?
She will be punished, in this life at least, and perhaps in the after life she claims to believe in, but if she is sick, will she get any compassion or, at the very least, therapy or medication?

She forced the children , to eat their own faeces......forced them to drink washing up liquid........made them drink bleach......beat them with sticks......then forced those sticks down their throats.......as a punishment , which was said to be painful beyond belief !

What would you like to do to her as punishment / cure for her actions ?

Peter,
when I first read some of what she did, I was filled with angry hatred that such a vile being could do such things.
I felt angry at the professionals who had 'allowed' it to happen; I had lots of prejudicial thoughts about the hypocrisy of Jehovah's Witnesses, and, somewhere not too far from the front of my mind, was an picture of her being made to suffer in kind.

If that woman had been standing next to me at that moment, I am horribly sure that , in the first full flood of my anger, I would have wanted her to suffer violence.

I think I can say with certainty that it would have been at my hands, but, even if it had been in my power to do, at that moment, I cannot be sure that I would have attempted to stop violence against her.

That all happened even before I had fully connected with any warm, caring concern about the plight of the now adult children! And, of course, the emotion was not created, it was re stimulated by her acts of torture and those upon whom she inflicted suffering.

Now, I believe that many people would not criticise or chastise me for such feelings; some might say I am 'right' to feel that way and some, certainly, would say that what ever pain or punishment is meted out to her will be justified.

And I will not be surprised to read or hear that she has suffered at the hands of an angry, vengeful person or mob.

How will I feel if that happens? Part of me will be 'glad', I think, and I am sorry to own that!
Not because it makes me bad person, at least in my own eyes, but it makes me less of a person that I would like to be.

But my own capacity for hatred and vicious sparks means that, in some way, I echo and reflect something in that woman.

Tim Field, who, having been harassed and bullied out of work, created Bully On Line, talking about the serial bully says:



Responsibility

The serial bully appears to lack insight into his or her behaviour and seems to be oblivious to the crassness and inappropriateness thereof; however, it is more likely that the bully knows what they are doing but elects to switch off the moral and ethical considerations by which normal people are bound.

If the bully knows what they are doing, they are responsible for their behaviour and thus liable for its consequences to other people. If the bully doesn't know what they are doing, they should be suspended from duty on the grounds of diminished responsibility and the provisions of the Mental Health Act should apply.

I am not saying that I'm a bully, and the foster mother must be called to account for her actions, of course. But, no matter how much I might feel that I can justify it, and being pretty damn sure that I won't act on it, I also want to acknowledge what Mother Teresa called 'the Hitler in my soul'.

Punishment or cure? Both?

I do not want to believe that she is a sane woman - it reminds me that, as a sane person, I could behave that way!

I think she is profoundly sick - and that reminds me that, at some level, though right now it galls me to say it, she merits compassion as do her children.

If not for her sake, then for the sake and comfort of those who believe we are not like her!

An eye for an eye ..a tooth for a tooth......seems to come to my mind , when I read stories about things like that !

In essence that was what the woman said she believed, along with the 'spare the rod' principle and, presumably, other lessons from her childhood!