I am often taken aback when I hear people commenting on the loss of a child as though it was somehow the parents fault. Don’t get me wrong, there are times that it might actually be but I think for a majority of the time it isn’t. When it comes to SIDS, I often hear it is a lack of parenting skills that led to the death of the baby. When is comes to suicide, I hear how the parents must not have been around enough or they didn’t pay attention to their kids problems. When it comes to car accidents, the parents should have paid more attention or if the child was with someone else I hear that parents didn’t do enough background checking on their child’s friends parents. And even when my 4th child was born with birth defects, it was my fault because somehow I didn’t take care of myself during the pregnancy. I just want to reach out and shake them!! Instead I try to remember that they likely haven’t experienced the loss of a child nor cared for a special needs child.
As a parent who has lost a child I can tell you, I don’t need to hear from outsiders that it was somehow my fault. I already have those thoughts in my head. Was it my fault, could I have prevented it? When I look at SIDS and the loss of my daughter I know there were things that could have reduced her risk of passing. Does that make me a bad parent for not knowing… I sure hope not. There is a sea of information out there and you can’t possibly know everything. I did all the child prep classes, no one ever said a word about safe sleep and hardly 2 minutes was spent on “back to sleep”. The last thing I need to hear is that Clara died because of my poor parenting or even that it is God’s way of weeding out the bad genes. These days I spend time getting the word out about SIDS in hopes to inform other parents so hopefully they will have many more days with their babies.
When it comes to Lincoln and his birth defects, I can’t tell you how I mad was when I started hearing the stuff being said behind my back. We had genetic testing done and found his condition to be a random genetic mutation. No amount of prenatal care, folic acid, ect would have prevented it. Does that mean I am a bad mom?? I hope not. But even with these results I still hear that somehow I got what I prayed for or that God obviously is teaching me a lesson. For real?!?! We must not believe in the same God.
I simply ask for you to ask a parent the circumstances behind their child’s passing or special need. Learn the facts directly from the mouth of the parent. Don’t rely on word of mouth or a quick internet search for all your info. Do any research after you know all the facts surrounding that child’s life/passing. I am more than willing to tell you about Clara’s passing or Lincoln’s condition because it means that other parents learn new things, I can give you info to search on, and I am hopefully less judged.
When we know someone that has lost a child PLEASE to remember that most of the time it really was an accident that took their life. Something unpreventable by the parent and child, something out of their control. Instead of wasting time judging the parents on their parenting skills we should be offering support to all involved because you never know when something might take away your child or loved one and you might be in need of that same support you gave them.
