Who's Listening?

Where's Mommy? Daddy? Anyone?

I've mentioned this before, and I'll say it again.  Negligence is a form of child abuse.  Once it took a village to raise a child and we've concluded that this is not the case anymore.  We already know the challenges of raising children in a city, but this month I learned that in the modern society, we can abandon all hope for the rebirth of a village society when even parents fail their flesh and blood.

Unsupervised children playing by water are likely to drown

This month we read in papers of a child's life lost in a family getaway waterpark.  Parents regretfully said to the media that they left their children to play unsupervised, and later realized one child missing.  This is not news, as I had once played hero to someone's errant daughter as she dived into a public waterpark and drowned before my eyes.  I screamed for help and dived after her (as if I could swim any better la), as the smoking and laid-back lifeguard ran helter skelter towards my direction!

We looked around and asked, "...anak siapa ni? (who's child is this?)," as she gathered her strength and wriggled herself away from us.  Naturally, nobody came to claim her and that was left at that.  Later, I saw her playing with her siblings about a whole block away from her near death experience.  I noticed her parents were casually lazing and literally leaving the children to their vices.

In the midst of cries for a transparent governing body and demands for a better administration for our nation, children are dying at our careless hands.  I can see no purpose to people pointing fingers to authorities while they can't even care for their own.  How can we as a society respond to such irresponsibility? 

Recent drowning events in Malaysia include, the drowning of a toddler in a basin of water, three boys  swimming in a river, and a little child who drowned in a condominium pool when the mother was not around (information taken from Life Saving Society Malaysia website http://www.lifesavingmalaysia.org.my), suggest that negligence is on the rise, but it is not labeled as child abuse.  (By the way, have you heard about this society?  It seems that they have been attending international conferences to identify ways to prevent children drowning.  Very important people went and even more important people were thanked for the support.  The problem is, I'm hearing crickets...I still don't know how we can prevent children from drowning when no adult is present!)

I say that no matter how many tricks you have up your sleeve to dive in and safe a toddler, child or youth; it's not going to help much when negligence is our main hurdle.  Media coverage calls it 'accidents' while one went to the extent of using "poverty killing" as its sound bite...hmmm.  If we condone negligence as accidents and murder as poverty killing, than it shouldn't be much of a surprise that children drowning will escalate and no one could care less...because the dead can't talk and living children's voices are never heard. After all life is for the living, right?  At least for the living adults.

A child looking down a balcony unsupervised almost always result in life lost

Then there's the little superman/superwoman enthusiasts climbing high rise balconies and lone rangers cycling the streets on fancy tricycles...who do we blame when lives are lost? Fate???