Mother of girl in washing machine charged: California woman in custody; child still in hospital
What, you couldn't just give the poor kid a bath like most mothers??
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A mother accused of placing her 2-year-old daughter in a washing machine and turning it on was charged with felony child endangerment Tuesday and is being held on $50,000 bail, authorities said....
Upon discovering the child trapped inside the commercial washer, Crabb said, police had to break the machine's front glass to extricate the child from the washer, which was filled with water.
According to an Associated Press report, surveillance camera footage showed that the woman, Erma Osborne, placed her daughter in one washer, then removed her and placed her in a second front-loading washer, which turned on when she closed the door.
It has always amazed me that one needs a license to drive, fish, hunt, or own a business, but any maroon with a functional libido and intact plumbing can have a child. No, I'm not about to begin advocating eugenics, but sometimes it makes me wonder. Do we as a society not have an interest in ensuring that children are well cared for? That children are safe? I believe that we do, and yet ANYONE lucid enough to do the horizontal bop for a few seconds can create a child. RAISING that child, though, is at the very least an 18-year commitment. Why can we not ensure that parents are, at a minimum, able to follow what you could call the Parent's Hippocratic Oath (First, do no harm)?
If we were to be honest with ourselves, we would admit that we are a society that loves babies but hates children. Babies are cute, but children are a LOT of work. Judging by the amount of child abuse, it's clearly TOO much work for a lot of folks, and yet we allow them to continue abusing and screwing up their children. This, of course, provides them with the experience to continue the cycle with THEIR children. And so it shall ever be....
Surely we can do better than merely shaking our collective heads?
