Mom Kills Baby

I was watching Oprah last night. I was kind of enjoying the irony of being in Saudi - but watching Oprah. I rarely have time to catch Oprah, well especially since we don't own a TV.

The episode was one that was probably recently aired in the US. A mother came on to tell her story about accidentally leaving her baby in the car when she went in to work. It was August and 100 degrees. She didn't normally have the responsibility to drop the kids at day care and just forgot. As a principle, it was the first day back at school. She was busy and in the rush to get to school she forgot the baby was in the car. And she didn't realize until the end of the school day what had happened. By then it was too late, the baby had died. After a few minutes I had to turn off the show.

It's any parents worst nightmare. I'm sure we can all imagine doing it. I feel no sense of judgement about what happened It's very very sad. But why is she on Oprah telling everyone about this? Hopefully it is cathartic and helps her deal with what must be unimagineable thoughts of "what if". Maybe I can see that she wanted a chance to tell the world what happened so that she can somehow alleviate her guilt.

But why does Oprah have this on her show - other than for the thrill factor of watching someone else's grief? She tried to sell it as a public service. Pay attention! Don't be so busy! Slow down and appreciate your life. All good messages - yes! But I don't really get that this woman's situation was a call to heed this good advice. It struck me that these messages were just an excuse to have her on and get the ratings.

And now I can't get her out of my mind. I hate the side-show effect that daytime television goes for. I've never been able to watch it. Jerry Springer would literally make my hands sweat. And my stomach continues to flip thinking about the moment this poor mother realized what had happened. I can't stop thinking about her.

This is why I don't watch TV. It gets in my head and I can't shut it off.