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seldearCatherine was a few hours old when she was abandoned outside a Melbourne hospital on the 13th May - Mother's Day.
"HOW COULD SHE?" screamed the headlines on Monday.
Joan - newborn, with her umbilical cord still attached - was left in a cardboard box across the road from a Sydney church, just this Sunday 10th June.
We haven't had the dramatised headlines yet, but I'm sure they're coming.
For the first week after Catherine's discovery, the news was full of her - and particularly her parentage. How could a mother do such a thing to her child? What kind of a woman would abandon her baby? What was going to happen to her?
Interestingly, there was very little said about the father.
I was instantly reminded of an episode of Joan of Arcadia, in which a baby is left in a sports bag in a dumpster while a girl makes a tearful call to police to pick up the child, and a witchhunt is on for the irresponsible mother who just abandoned her child.
It turns out that the mother is a cheerleader, pregant to a school football player who is also the son of one of the city's officials. In the teaser, the player is shown dumping the baby (a silhouette in shadows and streetlights) and it's implied that the girl was pressured to give up the child by the father. The attempt to charge the mother with neglect is dropped once it comes to light who the father is, and everything is smoothed over...but the girl is transferred to another school.
During the episode, Joan's mother (Mary Steenburgen) tries to bring up the matter of the father, but is dismissed. She is the one who, in the end, explains to her husband why the charges aren't being pressed: the politics of it all.
I have no personal experience of motherhood or pregnancy myself - it's all theory to me. However, I understand that it's not uncommon for women to become depressed after the birth of a child. I know that not all women are instantly maternal - or even maternal at all. And I know that parenting is a tiring and difficult experience - I only have to look at my own mum for proof of that.
And I know that everyone has a bio-mother and a bio-father. (Thank you, Claire Bennett, for introducing me to the term "bioparents" - so apt!)
But only the mother came under fire.
There are similar calls for Joan's mother to step forward, with authorities citing that she won't come under any charges for needing time out from her child.
However, I'm not entirely convinced that either Catherine or Joan need their respective mothers. A mother, certainly. Parents, if at all possible. Family, for sure. But surely it would be better for a child to go to a family that wants it than a reluctant parent? Adopt or foster the child out and give it a chance to grow up in love, without the stain of "what my mother did to me when I was six hours old" shadowing the relationship between parent and child.
Madeleine comes into it where a multimillionaire elderly developer stepped forward to offer a $300,000 home to Catherine and her mother (if her mother would step forward and be identified). A financial reward was offered on the life of a child.
When I was first discussing the search for Madeleine with someone on my f-list, I expressed the question: Why Madeleine?
I'm sure that this makes me a 'bad person' to certain people, and yet the question begs asking: Why Madeleine?
Why, out of the hundreds of children that go missing every year, is Madeleine special? Why advertise Madeleine and not Marie or Drew or Charlie? Why should the recovery of this one child be worth millions of dollars, while other parents - doubtless just as frantic to have their children back, but unwilling to push themselves into the public spotlight as the McCanns have - are stuck trying to communicate with a national police force that might feel they have more productive leads to follow than to hunt down lost children?
The person I was discussing it with said, in the world-weary tones of a cynic, "PR."
Before people crucify me for "omg, not having any sympathy for Madeleine or Catherine", I'd like to point out that I'd feel so much better about these offers of assistance if they were made for someone other than a much-publicised child - or even if the offer was spread around a dozen children lately missing.
Why Madeleine? Because she's cute and has big eyes that stare soulfully out of the picture? Because it assauges a sense of obligation to the things that people don't usually see and generally don't care about until they're brought to notice? Because it's good PR as my cynical friend says?
In regards to Catherine and the $300K house offer, I can think of families struggling to make ends meet, through little fault of their own. Sometimes people lack opportunity or encouragement to go out and do things, and sometimes life, the system, and fate are just against them. Not all the poor are lazy or opportunistic. Some are just poor.
Why Catherine and not them?
I'm sure people are saying it speaks nicely of these people to have offered financial help to the parents of Madeleine and Catherine. But a part of me insists that they're not doing this because they're good people: they're doing this because they want to look good. If they were doing this because they were good people, they'd make the same offer to many hundreds of other abandoned babies or the seekers of missing children. No, you can't help them all. But even a $50K offer of assistance to a struggling family, or a $50K reward for information on missing children wouldn't go astray. Philanthropy should never be practised solely when you get PR shots out of it - or else it's not philanthropy.
I do hope they find Madeleine - and the other children missing all around the world. I hope that Catherine and Joan find good homes to go to, and people to love them and bring them up.
I just can't stop asking, Why Madeleine?
"HOW COULD SHE?" screamed the headlines on Monday.
Joan - newborn, with her umbilical cord still attached - was left in a cardboard box across the road from a Sydney church, just this Sunday 10th June.
We haven't had the dramatised headlines yet, but I'm sure they're coming.
For the first week after Catherine's discovery, the news was full of her - and particularly her parentage. How could a mother do such a thing to her child? What kind of a woman would abandon her baby? What was going to happen to her?
Interestingly, there was very little said about the father.
I was instantly reminded of an episode of Joan of Arcadia, in which a baby is left in a sports bag in a dumpster while a girl makes a tearful call to police to pick up the child, and a witchhunt is on for the irresponsible mother who just abandoned her child.
It turns out that the mother is a cheerleader, pregant to a school football player who is also the son of one of the city's officials. In the teaser, the player is shown dumping the baby (a silhouette in shadows and streetlights) and it's implied that the girl was pressured to give up the child by the father. The attempt to charge the mother with neglect is dropped once it comes to light who the father is, and everything is smoothed over...but the girl is transferred to another school.
During the episode, Joan's mother (Mary Steenburgen) tries to bring up the matter of the father, but is dismissed. She is the one who, in the end, explains to her husband why the charges aren't being pressed: the politics of it all.
I have no personal experience of motherhood or pregnancy myself - it's all theory to me. However, I understand that it's not uncommon for women to become depressed after the birth of a child. I know that not all women are instantly maternal - or even maternal at all. And I know that parenting is a tiring and difficult experience - I only have to look at my own mum for proof of that.
And I know that everyone has a bio-mother and a bio-father. (Thank you, Claire Bennett, for introducing me to the term "bioparents" - so apt!)
But only the mother came under fire.
There are similar calls for Joan's mother to step forward, with authorities citing that she won't come under any charges for needing time out from her child.
However, I'm not entirely convinced that either Catherine or Joan need their respective mothers. A mother, certainly. Parents, if at all possible. Family, for sure. But surely it would be better for a child to go to a family that wants it than a reluctant parent? Adopt or foster the child out and give it a chance to grow up in love, without the stain of "what my mother did to me when I was six hours old" shadowing the relationship between parent and child.
Madeleine comes into it where a multimillionaire elderly developer stepped forward to offer a $300,000 home to Catherine and her mother (if her mother would step forward and be identified). A financial reward was offered on the life of a child.
When I was first discussing the search for Madeleine with someone on my f-list, I expressed the question: Why Madeleine?
I'm sure that this makes me a 'bad person' to certain people, and yet the question begs asking: Why Madeleine?
Why, out of the hundreds of children that go missing every year, is Madeleine special? Why advertise Madeleine and not Marie or Drew or Charlie? Why should the recovery of this one child be worth millions of dollars, while other parents - doubtless just as frantic to have their children back, but unwilling to push themselves into the public spotlight as the McCanns have - are stuck trying to communicate with a national police force that might feel they have more productive leads to follow than to hunt down lost children?
The person I was discussing it with said, in the world-weary tones of a cynic, "PR."
Before people crucify me for "omg, not having any sympathy for Madeleine or Catherine", I'd like to point out that I'd feel so much better about these offers of assistance if they were made for someone other than a much-publicised child - or even if the offer was spread around a dozen children lately missing.
Why Madeleine? Because she's cute and has big eyes that stare soulfully out of the picture? Because it assauges a sense of obligation to the things that people don't usually see and generally don't care about until they're brought to notice? Because it's good PR as my cynical friend says?
In regards to Catherine and the $300K house offer, I can think of families struggling to make ends meet, through little fault of their own. Sometimes people lack opportunity or encouragement to go out and do things, and sometimes life, the system, and fate are just against them. Not all the poor are lazy or opportunistic. Some are just poor.
Why Catherine and not them?
I'm sure people are saying it speaks nicely of these people to have offered financial help to the parents of Madeleine and Catherine. But a part of me insists that they're not doing this because they're good people: they're doing this because they want to look good. If they were doing this because they were good people, they'd make the same offer to many hundreds of other abandoned babies or the seekers of missing children. No, you can't help them all. But even a $50K offer of assistance to a struggling family, or a $50K reward for information on missing children wouldn't go astray. Philanthropy should never be practised solely when you get PR shots out of it - or else it's not philanthropy.
I do hope they find Madeleine - and the other children missing all around the world. I hope that Catherine and Joan find good homes to go to, and people to love them and bring them up.
I just can't stop asking, Why Madeleine?
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 02:29 am (UTC)You're spot on when you mention postpartum depression. My daughter is one of the most *wanted* children ever and yet, I can remember moments when I hadn't slept and my whole body was freaking out and I was in pain and I wondered why I'd wanted a child. I can't imagine what that must be like for a woman who doesn't have the loving husband, lovely home, and support system that I have.
I feel sorry for the parents and the children. And I agree that it's sad that people only blame the mother. Grrr.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 07:34 am (UTC)Thats up to them.I personally think the McCanns and their family and friends doing a a great job using PR to publisise Maddy's abduction. Her parents and family are bright, educated people and willing to use any means, any strategy and any opportunity they can to get her back. A child abducted here always makes the headlines for weeks until the child and usually the murderer is found. This one is different in that the family were on holiday in a foreign country with little or no language skills. What alternative did the parents have? Go home and wait for news? I'm quite happy to be cynical about the whole 'tragedy sells' thing but if it goes any way to getting her back or at least finding her then who cares.
"trying to communicate with a national police force that has better things than to hunt down lost children"
I can't think of a single one thats more important.
Sometimes abducted children get into national consiousness in this case international consiousness. When Jamie Bulger a two year old was abducted and murdered by two ten year olds some years ago I remember hearing a pshycologist who said that in these cases the child comes to feel like your own child, and for most people they would do anything and everything in their power to get them back. without the use of the media Maddy's abduction would be old news and forgotten within a couple of weeks.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 08:28 am (UTC)I'm just not so willing to wholeheartedly swallow the "oh, aren't they nice people" line when it comes to the celebrities offering millions of dollars for the return of this one child but not any other.
Hm. The "better things to do" line was badly worded. Before you get your feathers too ruffled, I apologise for the vagueness. My intention was to point out that when faced with a "missing child" case that has virtually no leads and another case that has somewhere to go, in practical terms, the effort is better spent on the case with somewhere to go.