Dear Readers: The blog post below this one says it all —I thought: Our modern era considers it a news story when a child accidentally gets left behind on a small excursion for a small amount of time. Why? Because the underlying idea is, “What if something BAD happened? Then it really WOULD be a story.” So the fact that this scenario even set the stage for a “What if?” story made it newsy enough. And that was that. For a day.
But now the story continues. Of course, any time there is any breach of protocol concerning children — even a single dumb, inconsequential mistake — the authorities are called in. This is because we assume childrearing is something that CAN and MUST be done perfectly or children will not survive. This kind of frenzy drives parents, teachers and caregivers crazy. It assumes zero resilience on the part of kids and insists we demand zero human fallibility on the part of all adults. Which, for the record, is impossible.
To err is human, and yet the human race survives. Why? Because we are built to be pretty sturdy — even kids. This is something our hypervigilant, hyperventilating society routinely overlooks.
Just like you can overlook a 2 year old at a park. — Lenore