Some of the vitriol for the mother on the internets is certainly over the top for sure. I think people are getting a mental image of her sitting on a bench oblivious to anything around her while she posts an "AT THE ZOO!!!!!" Facebook update/selfie on her phone or something. I highly doubt that's the case, sounds like she was overwhelmed with too many kids to watch. Kids get away from people all the time, for sure. It happens. But at the same time, people saying the mother deserves ZERO blame are taking it too far in the other direction.
No the woman shouldn't be locked up in jail or fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, etc, the rage is over the top. I totally get how a kid slipping away happens, like many people are echoing, which helps people relate to and humanize the mother more. But that fact doesn't remove fault from said parent either if the kid ends up doing something bad once they slip away.
If you take your kids to a department store, one of them gets away from you for a minute & ends up knocking over a display and breaking merchandise, the parent is going to be seen as at fault. So why would this incident be any different? The "kids get away from parents all the time" excuse isn't going to get you off the hook with the manager at HBC if your kid runs off, jumps on a couch for sale and ends up breaking it, so I don't understand why it would in this situation. Especially considering said actions resulted in the death of an endangered animal.
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