Nowadays reading the newspapers require a great deal of skimming and scanning skills as most of the news and articles are basically rubbish. So you tend to quickly run your eyes over the pages to see if there's any gems in the morning paper (can't let your recorded Amazing Race programme waiting!). "Girl Missing After Shopping Trip" the Star dated 6 March was something that caught my attention. As a mother with a young daughter, my eyes zoomed in and I rapidly read through the column. What started out as curious sympathy soon turned to shocked fury.
Did you know that there are parents out there who actually let their 5 year-old child leave the house, walk a block away to run an errand? Buying instant noodles and eggs with a written note and RM4 in their pocket? The parents became worried after an hour had passed and the child had not returned. Hello! What do you expect? What were they thinking?! I have a 10 year-old daughter (that's twice the age of this young girl) and I won't let her go out and buy stuff at the tuck shop a block away. Are they crazy? With the level of violent crimes in Malaysia be it Kuala Lumpur or Johor Baharu, a full grown adult is not safe, let alone a child of 5.
Insanity aside (I refuse to believe both mother and father are potential mental asylum inmates), there's only one other reason for their actions. Their IQ must be so low. I know, my mum has told me many times not to attack other people's mental capabilities but how can you not comment or question their rationale behind letting a 5 year-old girl go out to buy noodles? What on earth were they doing that they cannot buy those things themselves?She's not even kindy-going age. She is to be protected by her parents, to be loved and taken care of, to be given shelter and food, to grow up in a safe and loving environment until such a time when she can fend for herself and go out into the big, bad world equipped with knowledge and skills to decide how best to negotiate KL traffic tehehehehehehe I just couldn't resist getting KL traffic into this melee.
Should potential parents be IQ tested before having children? Sounds horribly like a plan devised by a villain in an Isaac Asimov's fiction but maybe, just maybe we should start doing just that. It is a crime, I feel, to let morons and nitwits bring life into the world. Perhaps if one spouse is idiotic and the other is normal, we should let that pass but if both parents cannot exercise sound judgment and go on to let their 5 year-old run their errand for them, someone must save their children from them (this couple has three children.) Take them out from their home. In the UK parents have their children taken away for lesser crimes. I'll tell you about this obese British couple and how their child was taken away because the authority were worried about the child's health if allowed to live with his fat parents. Ehemmmm...of course this is another ghastly philosophy, another extreme on the other end of the continuum. Common sense is fast becoming a rare commodity, perhaps to go extinct and the tragic bit would be no one realizes that it's gone.
Going back to this particular parents who heinously allow their young child to run an errand for them, I sincerely hope they find her safe and sound. There's only one victim in this pitiful case: the five year-old girl.
Losing a child is too high a price to pay, for any parents, idiots or otherwise.
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