There's lazy parenting and then there's desperate parenting. Then there's dumbed down desperate parenting.
Every parent does a little lazy parenting here and there. (Don't hate.)
But, dumbed down desperate parenting...
Well, let's just say most of us have the better sense to avoid it, despite lack of sleep and sanity. Then again, there are plenty of dumbed down parents out there...leaving us somewhat sane, yet still incredibly exhausted parents shaking our heads in astonishment.
Like this Arkansas mother, pictured here, in an fabulously appropriate t-shirt for the occasion:
She calls her very own mom for advice when her little baby Ronald was teething and she had obviously hit desperate parent mode. Tylenol and Motrin were not helping...
You know how that can be...the crying and fussiness and not being able to do anything to take away the pain...any parent who's been through teething knows full well that we are willing to do just about anything to fix the pain. We can empathize with this mother. I know I can.
Hold onto your seat, though. This is where dumbed down desperate parenting comes in.
So, her mom advises her to go ahead and rub some alcohol on the baby's gums. Lori Sheppard, 28, takes her mom's advice to a whole other level, and instead tosses some Bourbon in her baby's bottle.
Wait, it gets better!
So, she lays the baby in the playpen in their trailer, then LEAVES (she claims he was fine * she left the trailer) for a "brief amount of time," whatever that means.
When she goes back in the trailer, little Ronald is "unconscious and unresponsive." The baby is rushed to the nearest hospital and then airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital, 125 miles north in Little Rock, where his blood alcohol content came out to a whopping .19! (Remember, if you get pulled over with a BAC of .08, you can get nailed for drunk driving.)
While she denied at first that she gave her baby a bottle of Bourbon, little Ronald's father did say that a 5th of it was in the freezer. Sheppard did eventually admit to the dumb act of giving her baby a bottle of Bourbon.
Needless to say, dumbed down desperate parenting can land a mom like Sheppard arrested and booked with felony charges (child endangerment and aggravated assault) with a $10,000 bond and a baby like little Ronald in the hands of the state after several days of treatment at the hospital.
When your mom gives you advice, I don't care how exhausted or desperate you are, listen to the words of wisdom and follow them. If you need a little more clarification, ask questions!
Desperate parents...that's understandable...we all get desperate. More often than we like to admit, I would tend to say. But, even on our most desperate days of infant teething, lack of sleep, fevers and fusiness, the crabbies and clinginess, the last thing we parents would do is fill our baby's bottle with Bourbon.
I mean, let's get real here.
Dumbed down desperate parenting...there's not a whole lot more to say about it. Just say "No."
