People are sorry for your loss, but…

Easter weekend had the family get together to overeat and be merry. My family, like many others, is filled with little kids and sometimes I get the nauseating feel like it’s a Little House on the Prairie episode. Yes, the closeness is that ooey gooey sometimes.

And as you’ve undoubtedly heard, many families were touched by the search for a two-year-old boy that went missing last week. It happened in Austin, Man. and Mom and Dad were devastated that their kid disappeared.

The story was talked about at our Easter celebration when the update that Chase Martens was found dead had hit the news. There were two sides: the sadness for the parents and then the sheer disgust that parents could let such a young boy out of their sights and put him in harm’s way.

Having family that grew up on the farm there was talk that that’s just the way farm life is. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for kids to wander and be on their own. What could go wrong? Well, apparently now we see.

The other side of the argument – and yeah, at times it became an argument – was about how terrible the parents are for not paying attention to their kid and allowing him to be unsupervised that ultimately led to his death. (If foul and abduction are ruled out, they said, then the parents basically killed him.)

I see both sides of the debate. While I don’t have my own kids I can compare it to being a pet owner. A dog, like a two-year-old child, doesn’t know not to run into traffic or to stay in the yard. But that is also why I check to make sure my front gate and back gate are closed every time I send the dogs outside. Yes, every time.

While I understand that sometimes situations are out of our control, how long was the child unattended that he could get so far away? Plus, why was there such a long time before police were called and a search began? If my dogs went missing you’d be damn sure I’d know within a few minutes and be alerting everyone I could to be on the lookout.

At the same time, if the dog ran out and got hit by a car and died because of my neglect, sure I’d feel bad but… um, it’s kinda my fault. Pity me for my oversight and stupidity, not my loss.

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