# I want to offer a contrarian take on this story: BLAME THE WOMAN MOM **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 22, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686 "2021-05-22T12:46:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/61 "2021-05-22T21:38:49Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Someone endangered her child by driving aggressively and recklessly. All she did was to flick them off. She didn’t do it because she was having a bad day and wanted to take it out on someone, she did it because that specific someone put her and her child in danger. BTW your need to create a story that we have no evidence for one way or the other is not disgusting but it is pathetic. All we know from the article is that she says she was cut off. That does not necessarily mean the other driver was putting her or her kids in danger, could be just her end of an aggressive driving interaction. Then she was in front of them flipping them off in her rear view mirror. Does your made up story fit that? I can speculate to the in between but it would be speculation. I wouldn’t state it as fact. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/62 "2021-05-22T21:39:33Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I have no “need” to blame the woman. I also have no need to completely absolve her having had some responsibility for the tragic outcome. Those are contradictory statements. You said in your first post in this thread that had this been a MAGA wearing male, then he would not be blameless for the outcome. Then you went on to say that blaming the mother is not blaming the victim, because a mother whose child has been murdered is not a victim. This too states that you are blaming her for the outcome. > [@DSeid](#): > > She was as described by @IvoryTowerDenizen: irresponsible … which was an abrogation of her responsibility as a parent. I’ve never met a parent who was 100% responsible all the time. How many parents do you think exist that have not abrogated their responsibility as a parent, in your opinion? Let’s say it was was slightly different. There was not child in the car, and the person who was shot was the driver who flicked off someone who cut her off. Still her fault? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/63 "2021-05-22T21:42:49Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > BTW your need to create a story that we have no evidence for one way or the other is not disgusting but it is pathetic. Wow, you really are doubling down here. The article specifically states that she was cut off, that is aggressive and reckless driving. I made up no story, I simply read the article. Why you want to justify shooting a child, I have no idea, but you are going to great lengths to do so. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/64 "2021-05-22T21:49:28Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I have no “need” to blame the woman. I also have no need to completely absolve her having had some responsibility for the tragic outcome. She was as described by @IvoryTowerDenizen: irresponsible … which was an abrogation of her responsibility as a parent. Don’t put incomplete words in my mouth to support your point of view. She may have been irresponsible, but she’s also blameless for her child’s death. Every human being has moments of irresponsibility, many more grievous than what this poor woman did. She is utterly blames for what came next. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/65 "2021-05-22T21:52:34Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You said in your first post in this thread that had this been a MAGA wearing male, then he would not be blameless I did? News to me. Running a series of statements that generously are misreadings. Blame fault is not 100%. Do irresponsible things and involve your kids in those irresponsible things and something bad results then you share _some_ responsibility for the bad outcome. You have some degree of culpability. Yes parents, myself included, are not 100% responsible. Usually we are lucky and nothing bad results. But when it does, when leaving the preschooler alone in yard with the wading pool for just a minute to quickly run grab a fresh diaper for the baby results in the child drowned, that time, we are responsible for that. Our usual getting away with poor choices be damned. Waiting for your story to how she was cut off by reckless driving that threatened her children’s lives and then flipping them off in her rear view mirror. Pathetic yes you are. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/66 "2021-05-22T21:54:02Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > BTW your need to create a story that we have no evidence for one way or the other is not disgusting but it is pathetic. You’ve gone way beyond white knighting for a tool now. You have become the tool. This is exactly blame the woman for drinking in a bar in a short skirt territory. k9bfriender did not make up a damn thing. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/67 "2021-05-22T21:54:49Z")
Wow! Just wow! ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/68 "2021-05-22T22:00:34Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Blame fault is not 100%. Do irresponsible things and involve your kids in those irresponsible things and something bad results then you share _some_ responsibility for the bad outcome. You have some degree of culpability. Yes, in general that is not an incorrect statement. But in this specific case, the answer is she carries none of the blame. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/69 "2021-05-22T22:09:11Z")
Okay. Quote my stating what they say I said. No a perception of being “cut off” in traffic does not equal having her child “endangered” nor is there anything that states she even thought that. They are both fictions. Made up. As is the belief that anything I am posting excuses or justifies shooting a gun at the trunk of her car killing a child. Not what I have said. Or implied. I don’t _blame_ the father who ran in the house for a clean diaper not realizing that the preschooler could drown in that brief period of unsupervised time. It was a mistake of ignorance and/or poor judgement. But it was a poor decision that led to a poor result and he is not without fault for having made that choice. Even if other parents also make poor choices without consequences every day. You don’t get absolution from culpability from responsibility because you are suffering loss. ---
**Author:** ![Jumpbass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jumpbass/32/147_2.png) [@Jumpbass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jumpbass)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/70 "2021-05-22T22:09:45Z")
Wow, it looks like Kenny is winning this thread. He got everyone else fighting. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/71 "2021-05-22T22:14:27Z")
Meh. Kenny’s misogynistic trolling was winning when people took the bait to respond about how sexist that was. Debating whether or not getting into aggressive road behaviors, flipping off unknown others, _especially_ those behaving erratically with their driving (a selection bias for possibly unstable) is recklessness that puts any minor children in your car at risk … that’s not a trolling win. Even if you think I am disgusting for my position on it. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/72 "2021-05-22T22:19:31Z")
heres a better story on it > **[Manhunt underway after 6-year-old boy is killed in road-rage freeway shooting...](https://www.ocregister.com/2021/05/21/person-shot-on-55-freeway-in-orange-highways-northbound-lanes-closed-for-investigation/)** > > “She was hysterical, screaming,” a witness said of the boy’s mother after the attack on the 55 Freeway, reported at about 8:10 a.m. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/73 "2021-05-22T22:44:37Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > At the grocery store, last week, a lady who was paying no attention ran over my foot with her shopping cart. Because I was wearing flip-flops it hurt like heck. Per the wrong ass OP, you are partly to blame. See, you shouldn’t have been wearing flip flops out in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/74 "2021-05-22T22:50:18Z")
The most I’ll ever do on a highway if someone pulls a dangerous maneuver around me is very briefly flash brights or at most hit the horn. Even that might be enough to set off an aggressive loon. This woman sadly made a bad choice with kids in the car. I doubt the shooter if and when caught will have a viable defense in that he/she was so horrifically insulted by a middle finger, that shooting back into the car was a valid response. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/75 "2021-05-22T22:52:09Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I’ve never met a parent who was 100% responsible all the time. This reminds me of a story a friend of mine, who like me is a parent, told me: Apparently there is a novel in which a mother, with her small child, is at the ticket counter at an airport. She becomes distracted looking for her passport, or paying the exit fee, or putting her luggage on the conveyor belt, or whatever … anyone who has ever traveled knows there are a lot of little details you might have to fuss with in a moment like that. Anyway, in the book, she looks up from her tasks and her child is gone. The story told to me by my friend was that someone she knew (a childless person, of course) was indignantly saying that the book was ridiculous, because it portrayed the mother whose child vanished as a good person who didn’t screw up but just got unlucky. A good mother, insisted this childless individual, would NEVER have taken their eyes off their child in the airport for a second, not even to deal with the clerk at the ticket counter. My friend and I just laughed and rolled our eyes. I don’t know if that indignant person ever went on to have a child or not, but if she did, I’m sure she learned a few lessons about real life parenting very quickly. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/76 "2021-05-22T23:06:36Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I did? News to me. So you can’t even remember your own posts? > [@DSeid](#): > > Say this was a dad with a MAGA hat who got into genitalia swinging contest with another man while with his kid? > [@DSeid](#): > > That he is not blameless for the tragic outcome. What the hell else does that mean but to say that the MAGA guy isn’t blameless in this situation? Do you want to restate what you said, or are you going to continue to try to say that it doesn’t say what it clearly says? > [@DSeid](#): > > Blame fault is not 100%. Do irresponsible things and involve your kids in those irresponsible things and something bad results then you share _some_ responsibility for the bad outcome. You have some degree of culpability. Okay, and this is you specifically saying that she deserves blame. Do you not understand the words that are coming out of your own mouth? > [@DSeid](#): > > Yes parents, myself included, are not 100% responsible. Usually we are lucky and nothing bad results. But when it does, when leaving the preschooler alone in yard with the wading pool for just a minute to quickly run grab a fresh diaper for the baby results in the child drowned, that time, we are responsible for that. Our usual getting away with poor choices be damned. That’s not what happened. This was not the result of a parent taking their eyes off their kid and tragedy ensuing, this was the case of someone shooting their child. > [@DSeid](#): > > Waiting for your story to how she was cut off by reckless driving that threatened her children’s lives and then flipping them off in her rear view mirror. Why are you waiting for “my story”, that’s the story that’s in the article. Did you not read it before you came in to white knight the troll? > [@DSeid](#): > > Pathetic yes you are. Given that you are unable to understand plain words, whether in an article that you think you are referencing, a trolling OP that you are defending, or even the words that you yourself use, I find your little quippy attempt at an insult to be a feeble and desperate attempt at deflecting just how stupidly you have stumbled in your desire to justify murdering children. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/77 "2021-05-22T23:18:11Z")
Is there a word for inadvertently pitting yourself? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/78 "2021-05-22T23:21:20Z")
The Deep End of the Ocean? I read that book ages ago. It was really, really good. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/79 "2021-05-22T23:28:14Z")
I have no idea, but I’ve always wondered what the book was. Now that I have a name, and a good recommendation, I’ll have to read it. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686/80 "2021-05-22T23:29:24Z")
There was nothing inadvertent about what the OP did, he got what he wanted. @DSeid on the other hand couldn’t help but give into his “enlightened contrarian” urges and burst into the scene to defend an obvious troll. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-offer-a-contrarian-take-on-this-story-blame-the-woman-mom/942686.md?page=5)