Over the weekend, a 4-year-old boy crawled through a barrier and fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati zoo. As shocked onlookers watched — and, obviously, filmed — a Silverback Gorilla named Harambe pulled the boy through the water in a terrifying scene. Harambe was shot and killed by zoo staff and the boy was taken to safety.
The public assault on the boy’s parents was swift. It emerged that the boy’s father had a criminal record, as if that somehow explained how a toddler could act irresponsibly. A “Justice for Harambe petition” on Change.org calling for the parents of the boy to be held accountable has garnered more than 300,000 signatures — and 22 similar petitions, calling for a memorial to be set up, legislation to be passed, or for the zoo employee who shot Harambe to be charged, have sprung up around it. A Facebook page by the same name had to warn people not to post “the Mother’s phone number, address, place of employment, or any other information of this type.”
Michelle Gregg, the boy’s mother, originally posted on Facebook that she was grateful her son was OK and asked people not to judge her parenting — but then she deleted the post, perhaps because of the onslaught of hateful comments she received.
People are understandably upset at the gorilla’s avoidable death, but it seems to be manifesting vicious anger and a divide between parents and non-parents. The childless are arguing that Harambe’s death is entirely the fault of the parents who were not watching their child more closely, while those with kids are noting that this could have happened to any parent, anywhere, anytime.
Kids, especially other people’s kids, are annoying, that’s true. The benefit that parents have in understanding over non-parents is that those with kids were once themselves childless. It’s therefore not that difficult for parents to remember what it was like to deal with someone else’s rambunctious kid while non-parents have no frame of reference for how difficult raising children is, how quickly children move and how easy it is to lose sight of them.
Parents can be perfect most of the time, watch their kids at an appropriate level, but no parent can claim that what happened to this family could certainly not happen to them. As the backlash to “helicopter parenting” has taken hold in the last few years, there’s been more of a movement toward “free-range parenting” or giving kids a wider berth to be independent. Four is a dangerous age, a time when a child seems like they can understand safety — but they can’t really, certainly not all of the time.
In a not-dissimilar incident in Brooklyn recently, a 4-year-old boy fell down an elevator shaft at a parking garage in Park Slope. He had been riding up with his parents when he ran away from them and tragedy struck. For anyone saying that a zoo should not be a child’s babysitter, it’s clear that the location is mostly irrelevant.
We can be sad that an animal’s life was needlessly lost without having rage at the boy’s mother for being unable to achieve a perfection that eludes all parents. She and her son were lucky; the gorilla was not.
Holding the mother “accountable” for something that could have easily turned into the worst tragedy of her life won’t change anything for her or other parents. Most already know how fragile their child’s safety could be.
