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| The view of the incident from my house. Circled in red is the man who was filming the whole thing. |
Yesterday as I sat by my living room window trying to get some work done on my laptop, I heard a woman from the block across from mine screaming at the top of her lungs repeatedly. I didn't really think much about it at first because to be honest, my neighbourhood's a bit weird sometimes and there are all sorts of interesting characters around here every now and then (just a few days ago, I was wondering whether there was somebody at the playground downstairs attempting to sing rather badly, or perhaps it was just a cat giving birth to a watermelon). There is a Primary School literally around the corner and the boisterous students who are usually playing downstairs make questionable wildlife sounds as well, so I did not think anything was amiss. But the screaming did not stop and she seemed like she was really in distress.
Then I heard a man shouting, "Hello! Hello! Hello!!". Still thinking that perhaps it was a domestic dispute or a lovers' quarrel, I peeked out the window to see what all the fuss was about. I spotted a man standing on the grass and staring up towards the other block - he appeared to be holding his handphone and filming something up there. From my angle, I was unable to see what exactly he was watching unfold before him, but a small crowd started to form and I could hear everyone's panicked voices filling the air.
A woman gasped in horror. School students were pointing upwards. Mothers tightly clutched their young ones. What on earth was happenining, I wondered? Was there a big dramatic fight scene going on at the balcony and those people were nosy spectators? Is somebody contemplating suicide by jumping to their deaths and the bystanders are watching in horror? Or did someone accidentally fall out the window and is holding on for dear life while everyone else is holding their breaths preparing for the worst?
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| Circled in red is the foreignn worker running to the scene, as the bystanders watched helplessly. |
Then, I spotted a foreign worker from across the road running towards the ever-growing crowd. He gazed up at what they were staring at, and immediately - without even hesitating for one minute - sprang into action and scaled up the walls to offer his assistance to whoever it was that was on the 2nd floor (I deduced that by now because that was the only unit occupied, from what I could see, except for the 8th floor and up (which was too high from how I observed where the crowd was looking at). People gasped and were calling out in fright. Sirens wailed and the emergency response team arrived on the scene within minutes. They took out a ladder and swiftly climbed up, and upon descending, I watched in absolute horror as I realised that the victim they had just rescued was a small child, probably about Gemini Grrl's age! She was only wearing a diaper and she clutched tightly to her rescuer as everyone heaved sighs of relief.
How the hell did a tiny toddler get herself into such a dangerous situation to begin with?? Where was her Mother?? How could she let this happen??
From the news reports that followed, and according to the short interviews of the child's parents, the little girl was asleep and her Mother had to send her other daughter to school nearby. Apparantly it was about 5 minutes from their house, so she thought she could slip away and be back home again within 10 minutes or so before her younger daughter woke up. Now, before we all start bashing the woman and saying she is irresponsible or stupid or not fit to be a parent, let me just say that as much as I do not condone what she did, nor am I defending her (I don't know her, she is not a friend of mine, we may live in the same neighbourhood but I have never seen her or her kids before in my whole entire life), let us just think WHY a Mother of 3 would even do that in the first place.
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| Circled in red is the unit where the family lives, on the 2nd floor. Their windows are wide open and there are no safety grilles installed. |
In one of her interviews, she explains that she has no help whatsoever from anybody. It has been made known that her husband is the sole breadwinner, so I guess it's right to say that she is a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) with no maid and no help to watch her kids, do the chores, or run her errands. We all know that when babies and toddlers do not get enough sleep or miss their naps, they get cranky as hell and turn into tantrum-throwing unreasonable grumpy things. From the sounds of it, she has probably left her child at home alone before while she quickly popped out to send her other children to school and all that.
Ok, Momma, if you're reading this, please do so carefully. It is NOT ok to leave your child alone at home by themselves, especially since they are still so young. No matter how fast you think you will be, no matter how nearby the distance of the place that you're popping to is, no matter if you're child is asleep and you really don't want to wake her up just so you can drag her across the street to send off her older sibling to preschool for all of 10 minutes - under no circumstances is it ever safe to leave your young child unattended, without supervision, for any amount of time at all.
I am not angry at you. I do not think you are stupid. I do not think you deserve to have all your 3 children snatched away from you, thrown into foster care and all parental rights revoked indefinitely. I do not think you are irresponsible. What I do think is that you are just unaware of the dangers of leaving your toddler all alone by herself at home. What I do think is that you underestimated the life-threatening dangers that surround your small child every corner of your own home. What I do think is that perhaps you were a little overwhelmed by being a SAHM to 3 young children, with no help whatsoever, just trying to do the best you can to keep your head above water. And without a doubt, I know you as a Mother would never intentionally want to put your own flesh and blood in any harm.
But unfortunately things turned out the way they did. I assume your little daughter woke up from her nap earlier than she normally does, to an empty house and started to search for her Mother and siblings. She must have wandered around and eventually ended up out on the balcony where she thought maybe she could get a better view of you crossing the road on your usual routine to send off her sister to school. So she probably climbed up onto something that was there and somehow lost balance, and tumbled over the edge, as there were no safety grilles installed there.
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| My cloth-rack railings which are identical to the ones where the little girl fell through. (And yes, I know I have an animal-print obsession) |
Now by luck and by the grace of God, her body slipped through the metal railings of the clothes-drying rack, but her head got caught and she therefore did not fall through. But she was dangling there by her neck, kicking furiously and crying out for help. She could have broken her neck, or fallen through and fell 2 storeys down - a very nasty fall for a child that small. If the quick-thinking foreign worker had not acted swiftly, then she could have been seriously injured. If a good samaritan did not call for help, then the SCDF would not have reached there in time.
To the Mother and Father of this little girl who is the focus of today's news across the nation - please get safety grilles installed on all your windows and at the balcony, because you have 3 children (and a cat!) living in your house. I know it's not cheap. I know you have mountains of bills to pay. I know you have many mouths to feed. I know that life in Singapura is not a bed of roses for some as others may think. I know you think this freak accident couldn't possibly happen twice. Just please, think about the safety of your little ones.
From what I can see in the interviews, you have a lovely little couch where the family sat on to answer the reporter's questions. Your daughter was fiddling around with an iPad. You have pretty curtains by your windows. You have clean clothes on your back. If you bought all of that with your own hard-earned money, then kindly consider spending part of your budget on such safety measures immediately. If those items were donated to you by generous friends and family members, then please ask them to help sponsor your grilles as soon as possible. The safety and welfare of your children should come first. Maybe it did not cross your mind that it is a vital feature you should consider adding in your home, and your reason is that you do not have the budget for it. If you have the money for all the other things I mentioned above, then you do have the money to get safety grilles installed. I know it'll set you back a couple of hundred dollars. I know times are tough. I know the public transportation fees are rising. I know the prices of everything are soaring. I know, boy do I know. But I also know that you do not ever want this incident to repeat ever again.
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| The foreign worker fearlessly climbing up to save the frightened toddler, who is dangling by her neck. Photo: Youtube/ Alvin Tan |
And if you still are unable to afford it, then ok, I understand. No, really, I honestly and sincerely do. Daily necessities are your top priority and you are just trying your best to make end's meet. Not everyone realises that we do not all have the same privileges or opportunities given to us in life.
Just please, from now on, never ever leave your child alone at home or anywhere else without supervision for that matter. NO that is NOT ok. You may not not have realised the risks of this before, but NOW YOU KNOW. So please let this be a lesson learnt. A lesson learnt for all of you out there as well. It is easy to point fingers and judge others and call them names. But sometimes we forget that we are all human too. We make mistakes as well. We are not all perfect parents. Yes, what the Mother did was wrong, and it was splashed all over the news so she has an angry mob after her now. But haven't we all done something we wish we could undo? Haven't we all made poor choices as parents? Or turned around for one second, only to realise our child has managed to get themselves into a sticky situation?
Just please, from now on, never ever leave your child alone at home or anywhere else without supervision for that matter. NO that is NOT ok. You may not not have realised the risks of this before, but NOW YOU KNOW. So please let this be a lesson learnt. A lesson learnt for all of you out there as well. It is easy to point fingers and judge others and call them names. But sometimes we forget that we are all human too. We make mistakes as well. We are not all perfect parents. Yes, what the Mother did was wrong, and it was splashed all over the news so she has an angry mob after her now. But haven't we all done something we wish we could undo? Haven't we all made poor choices as parents? Or turned around for one second, only to realise our child has managed to get themselves into a sticky situation?
I for one have had my Bad Parent Moment 2 years ago at my own home, when Gemini Grrl was about 1 year's old. I was folding laundry in her room and she was right next to me, sitting inside the laundry basket, pretending it was a boat and giggling away uncontrollably. She then got up and ran into my bedroom just next door. As I called out to her and got up from the floor to go bring her back in, I heard a sickening thud and as I took just 2 steps forward to look into my room, I saw her lying on the ground, moaning. Within the 3 seconds that she had ran out of her room where I was, she managed to clamber up onto my bed and then leapt off, landing in a crumpled heap on the cold hard floor, head-first. I screamed in sheer terror and ran to scoop her up. She was conscious and then started to cry in pain. A humongous bump formed on her forehead and I immediately rushed her to the emergency room, crying hysterically all the way there. She was fine in the end and did not suffer a concussion or any internal bleeding.
But I still feel like that was the absolute worse parenting moment I made in my whole entire life of being a Mother and I was a complete failure. I swear to God it just took 3 seconds for her to run out of the room, climb onto the bed and fall on her head, as I was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, getting myself up and about to walk over to bring her back to my pile of laundry. I was not in the toilet with the door closed while she watched tv alone in the living room. I was not in the kitchen cooking up a 5-course meal as she played by herself in her room. And I certainly did not pop out to the nearby 7'11s to buy a bag of chips while she remained unsupervised at home. The 3 seconds was more than enough for her to get injured and earn her a trip to the children's hospital.
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| The Mother, the child, the Father and her older sister. (Photo: TNP/ Benjamin Seetor) |
We may never know what that toddler's Mother was thinking when she felt it was absolutely fine to leave her sleeping child unattended, and they may never install safety grilles in their house even after this unfortunate incident. But let's not make things worse for them by wishing them ill intentions, or proposing that social services take their children away for good - because no family should be torn apart. Granted that this case did showcase some poor parenting choices made, but do we really want to rip the innocent children from their parents' arms and send them off to a shelter somewhere, waiting in limbo for an unknown future?
Let's just say thank you to the two brave foreign workers who went to the poor child's aid without a second thought. And also to the SCDF team for doing a good job. As well as everyone else who helped in any way. Let us wish the parents well and hope that they will rethink their actions from now on and take the extra precaution to put their children's safety and welfare first.
Please remember that no matter how much or how little money you have, your children are irreplaceable and should always be your number one priority. You are lucky that this story had a happy ending. You are lucky that there were people there to come to her rescue. You are lucky that your child is still alive and well.You are very, very lucky indeed.
*UPDATE: The MP of our Town Council has visited the family and by using some charity funds, has kindly helped to get safety grilles installed on all the windows in the house.
*UPDATE: The MP of our Town Council has visited the family and by using some charity funds, has kindly helped to get safety grilles installed on all the windows in the house.
