Blonde, your argument falls apart on two different levels. You are trying to compare this wholly avoidable risk with things like riding in a car or household accidents, but there’s a difference – those are things that we do our damndest to avoid.
We put our children in car seats, we don’t let them bounce around the car unrestrained. Instead of driving at breakneck speed and changing lanes willy-nilly without signals, we drive more carefully when the baby is in the car. When we want to go our for a nice aimless drive, we reconsider whether that’s a good idea because of the baby.
We babyproof our houses. We don’t throw choking hazards down on the floors, we don’t put caustic chemicals into low level, unlocked cabinets on purpose, we don’t put the baby at the top of the stairs without a gate to see what they do, nor do we encourage baby to pull the German Shepherd’s tail.
But a one month old child is not at a teachable age. There is nothing that they are able to learn from being exposed to any situation. The baby had no cognizance of where he was or what the croc was or what was going on. At one month, he’s not capable of much more than eating, sleeping and emptying bowels and bladder. One month olds do not really smile, they do not do much by way of communicating. They can barely hold their heads upright on their own. It is not a time to learn what mommy and daddy do for a living. It’s not a time to learn about the dangers of huge animals that could devour them in one bite. It’s not a time to be exposed to hazards which serve no purpose in the one month old’s life. (You know, unlike the deadly car, which at least can get them from point A to point B.)
The simple fact of the matter is that this was unnecessary and demonstrates a significant lack of judgment on both Steve and Terri’s part. Even more disturbing is the fact that Steve has said, in response to the uproar, that he would do what he did again but he’d make sure that there were no cameras around to see it. In other words, he knows that people disapprove but he doesn’t give a damn. He knows that he’s unnecessarily putting his kids in danger, and he is of the opinion that it’s society’s problem, not Bob and Bindi’s.
That’s fucking frightening, and it holds across the board. If it were Bob Vila taking a one month old into his woodworking shop or Bret Favre taking a one month old out on the football field or a trainer in the show at Sea World taking their baby out on the high dive while Shamu jumps up to grab halibut, or Officer Smith taking his one month old on a ride-along, it would be the same brand of stupid and if any of them responded the same way that Irwin has, I’d be calling for an investigation and intervention from child protection for their child as well.
