I honestly think a lot of it is wanting to prove that it could never, ever happen to you. There are some things that are more likely to happen to some families than others for obvious reasons – if the child is cared for by a parent, that child is never going to die in a way that’s related to a day care center, if the family doesn’t own a car there’s not going to be a car accident caused by one of the parents, etc. – but tragedies happen to all kinds of people. We just don’t want to believe that they could ever happen to us.

@Bunnytwenty; yes @Diera’s conclusion was mine in the post as well-that this is a way of differentiating ourselves. I did not delve into cul-de-sac hero’s backstory, and I have questions about the analogy (as I mentioned). But I think if you take the essence of the idea that we should not be blaming victims, there is an interesting point to be made here.

Blaming victims is wrong, but understanding them and their actions as they contribute to the crime has value, just like data about the perpetrator, the location, the motive, and the circumstances. The desire to convince oneself of having control is at the root of blaming victims. The appetite for the illusion of control seems at an all time high, as we give up ever more freedom in the name of security we will never really have.

Last week a toddler in my extended family died in one of those awful, just-looked-away-for-a-second accidents.
As the mother blames herself (the excursion was her idea), the father blames himself (he was the parent on duty, who wasn’t looking at the awful moment), the owners of the hazard blame themselves (maybe we should have fenced … )
… the grandparent generation is pointing out the amazing number of lucky moments it takes to get a child to adulthood.
Whether it’s narrowly missing being part of the freeway accident or fishing your kid out of the swimming pool or catching the baby biting the so-called childproof lid off the aspirin bottle, we were the recipients of amazing luck on countless occasions.
It hurts dreadfully that luck occasionally deserts families. But please, let’s not blame the parents. Even when you’re doing a dynamite job 24/7/365, a momentary inattention shouldn’t be fatal. And it usually isn’t.

I think the comparison with rape victims is spot on. “When we look to the details surrounding a tragedy, what we really want to do is find out how to differentiate ourselves: I’m different. I’m smarter.” In a case of rape victim, other women feel safer ‘knowing’ that they dress more conservatively, or don’t dance as suggestively or don’t accept drinks from strange men or don’t have one night stands… so they won’t be raped… right? No one wants to type cast themselves as a “typical” victim.

And when there is no typical victim, which is usually the case in random isolated incident tragedies, society creates one – the neglectful parent.

I live in queens ny, I now live only a few miles from where little Liebby was abducted and I grew up on the border of queens and one of the bad parts of Brooklyn. However even being so close to a bad neighborhood, in our little neighbor it was relatively safe. Most of the kids who went to my elementary school lived within a 5 block radius and most of us were granted at a young age to walk home by ourselves, then one day one of my male classmates was nearly abducted thankfully a good Samaritan intervened if not god only knows what would have happened to that boy. But I remember my mother bringing me to the emergency PTA meeting they had the night after the attempted abduction and all the parents were outraged and blaming the poor mother for her lack if parenting skills yet most if the other parents were in the same boat because they allowed their young children to walk alone. I couldn’t have been any older than 9 and I remember asking my mother why they were blaming his mother when it was not her fault. My mom simply responded that in times of tragedy people like to point fingers even if those fingers are pointed at the victim. When my mom started letting me walk home from school we went over the walk several times and went over defense strategies such as screaming “I don’t know you” if a stranger tried to grab me as to alert other people around me that something wasn’t right. Thankfully I never had to defend myself or alert a soul that someone was trying to harm me. But in this little boy’s case he was looking for a stranger for help another thing children are taught to do if they are lost. Sadly this stranger was a monster. I think it’s horrible to be blaming the mother and I will admit I thought to myself “who let’s their 8 year old child walk alone in this day and age?” but then I got the facts. When you live in a fairly safe neighborhood you do want to give your child freedom and it’s something the parents went over with their child. There is no one to blame here other than the monster who took that little boy’s life. It’s just a sad and horrible tragedy.

Rebecca, thank you for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion. However, I do not have a schtick. I occassionally write thought-provoking blog posts about sometimes controversial issues as time permits. Still, thanks for acknowledging that there is a discussion to be had without resorting to an inflammatory manner of speaking..

@BunnyTwenty – I don’t understand which posts you read which lead you to call me hateful names. It’s not fair to twisting my words in such a manner. I’ve explained my position more clearly now, so, if you’d like to debate on these points, please feel free to comment directly on my blog.