Mum-of-three Jennifer Campbell, who is also behind the website ‘Mama Lion Strong’, has opened up about an incident on Facebook (now taken down) which occurred when she lived in New Zealand.
Whilst she was feeding her six-week-old on the sofa in her house, her two-year-old made his way out of the gated garden and onto the road. Thankfully he was found by a neighbour who returned him, but Jennifer says that the guilt was overwhelming.
She then revealed a number of other things that happened to her kids in the weeks and years that followed to try to show parents that accidents can happen and they can happen to anyone.
She continued:
“And next month it will be something else. And next year something else. And we really don’t know if one day a terrible tragedy will befall our family – because of a lag in supervision, a safety measure we forgot to take, a lapse in judgement, a child’s curiosity, a teenage boy’s risk… We don’t know. Because accidents happen.
“A two year old boy died in our country this weekend. He wandered away from his family’s home and he was found in a creek half a kilometer away four days later. There are rumblings online that this was “preventable.” Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe people should shut their mouths and remember that these parents are going through the worst pain anyone could experience. And they will blame themselves the rest of the their lives, don’t you worry.
“You all know that I have no tolerance for people who march around with the air of perfection. This tragedy could have been our family. It could be yours. Because accidents happen, and when they do people need love and compassion, not lectures and blame.
“Let’s show our fellow grieving Manitoba Mom and Dad some love please. Be kind, gentle, and compassionate in your thoughts and conversations about this. We are all just perfectly imperfect humans, trying our best out here [sic].”
The status has been shared over 10,000 times and has 21,000 likes. Jennifer has had thousands of people contacting her, thanking her for sharing her experience and message.
The personal trainer has also had some negative comments, to which she responded:
“I try and let discussions run their course on this page, even when they are unfavourable towards me, if they remain respectful. I am open to hearing other people’s perspectives and have grow tremendously the last three years by doing so. But sometimes people are not respectful and they have to go. I have just had to ban a few people from this page which deleted all of their comments (but seriously, good riddance!).
“I am sorry to those who felt invested in the conversation. It really was a pointless exercise trying to convince a few women that they could show more compassion to this family. Some day Chase’s mother and father might read through the comments here and I only want them to see love. With that in mind, today I will be deleting all cruel comments being made towards my parenting and this family’s [sic].”
Check out the full Facebook post below:
One afternoon when we were still living in New Zealand, I sat on the couch pretty much topless, as one is when nursing a…
Posted by Mama Lion Strong on Sunday, 27 March 2016
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