I am not a huge fan of Oprah but occaisonally I do like to watch the show - it always depends on what the topic is about.
Last night I was intrigued with the episode entitled, 'An Overwhelmed Mom's Mistake'. My first thought was - okay, something bad happened because this lady is a bad mother. After listening to her story I got a greater understanding of exactly what Mom's have to go through each and every day and how easily something bad can happen.
Now, I am not a Mother - and I like to think that if I do ever become a Mom I would be the best Mom ever. I would be able to hold down a job, raise a family, continue a loving relationship with my husband, etc. After listening to this ladies story it isn't so easy being 'Super Mom'.
Infact, the scary thing is that what happened to this Mom can happen to just about anybody - here is her story:
The Mom in this situation was an Assistant Principal at a school. It was the first day of school so she was busy preparing for that. She had two children to get ready for the day. Usually her husband takes her children to daycare but on this particular busy morning he had to go to the dentist so couldn't drop off the youngest child.
The Mom got the youngest child in her car and went to drop her off at daycare but arrived too early. She realized she had time to run an errand first before dropping her daughter off to daycare. She went to pick up some donuts from a bakery, for the staff at school ,and then headed off to school. During her day at school there were some new teachers so she talked about her two wonderful children to them and had a normal day. At the end of the school day one of the fellow teachers was walking past the Mom's car and to her horror saw the child sitting in the car - not moving. The child had been sitting in the car, in the heat for 9 hours. I don't think I need to go on here.
The scary thought is it can happen so easily. And it is not due to lack of caring for your child or being a bad parent - I think we often try to fit so much into day that is already busy that we overwhelm ourselves and something as tragic as the above story can happen.
I know we have all been in similar situations - for example it is not uncommon for me to drive home from work and totally not remember my drive home. I could be thinking of things that need to get done, or get into such a trance from the same drive that I do every single day that the car kind of leads me home. Another example is that just a couple of weeks ago I was going out to dinner with friends. The restaurant was on the same route that I take to work and I totally forgot to exit at my turn off because again, it was instinct to just continue driving on the road I was on.
Back to the Oprah story - I felt so bad for this lady. I am sure she and her husband will always have guilt over what happened to their child. I am sure it is something that they will both learn from - it is just a shame that a child had to lose their life to learn this lesson.
To read more about this story go here: http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20080902_tows_moms
A lesson that we can all learn from this story...................... don't overwhelm yourself, life is too precious to always be in a rush, stressed and not taking care of yourself. Look after yourself - your life is precious too.
Till next time.............
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