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Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 16 days ago)
35,665 posts, read 18,029,124 times
Reputation: 50706
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uhuru
I am very familiar with the part of India where Mathew and his wife, Sini, are from though I hasten to add that I don't know the couple.
There have been several posts about India and Indians that are just total distortions or exaggerations. I am happy to answer questions about the cultural and religious aspects of this story. Hopefully we can keep it respectful.
For starters, they are from a state called Kerala that has the highest literacy rate in India and probably among the highest in the world. The population is 33.4 million of whom 55% are Hindu, 27% are Muslim and 17% are Christian.
Mathew and Sini are Christian and based on the name of their church it appears they may be Pentecostal - a branch of Christianity that is one of the fastest growing in India and, for that matter, in other parts of the world.
Christianity came to India in the 1st century AD and the belief is that Christ's disciple, Thomas, is the person who brought it to India. Most Christians in Kerala are followers of the church that Thomas is believed to have started.
Finally, there was a sizable Jewish population in Kerala called the "Cochin Jews" who came there in 567BC to flee persecution and they were welcomed there, built synagogues and practiced their faith freely. Most have emigrated to Israel where they felt there were better opportunities.
Thank you for this informative post.
I think one of my posts may have been part of what you're responding to - a post about Indian father's harsh punishments - in one case denying food for days and in another case forcing an 8th grader to sleep in the backyard for failing a test.
These are true examples, and in both cases, I felt the parents were vigilant loving and caring parents. Just bizarre punishments by my standards.
So. It's appearing this was a lie that he told the child to stand outside off the property for not drinking milk.
Consider this. When a parent harms a child, they will often try to come up with an alibi that sounds like reasonable, good parenting, and offer that. "I went to fix a bottle and the baby rolled off the bed", "I ran inside to get a towel and the child drowned with in 30 seconds", "It was freezing outside so I left the child in a carseat with the heater running while I ran into the gas station for bread and the car and child were stolen". On and on. A parent tries to come up with something that sounds reasonable.
This guy's "reasonable" was that he left his 3 year old in an alley in the wee hours for not drinking milk. So to him, that's a reasonable thing to do, something cops would say um hmm, I can understand that.
I have never seen a case, BTW, where a parent's made-up alibi causes them to get arrested as was this case. This guy makes up an alibi, and it's a crime in itself.
Given that context, I stand by my examples of other Indian parents having bizarre punishments for minor infractions, while in the general context of their parenting they very much love the child. This man thinks leaving her outside, off his property in the wee hours for not drinking milk is good parenting.
My mind is making up a scenario where the disabled child is up at 3AM (non-verbal etc. sounds perhaps autistic and they are notoriously bad sleepers -- my son has never slept through the night that I know and he's 18) and perhaps has an accident in the bed? (Toilet training also sometimes more difficult for disabled).
The father gets furious and kills her and tried to cover up the circumstances by washing the dirty (bloody? ) linens.
Given that context, I stand by my examples of other Indian parents having bizarre punishments for minor infractions, while in the general context of their parenting they very much love the child. This man thinks leaving her outside, off his property in the wee hours for not drinking milk is good parenting.
No parent, Indian or otherwise, thinks that's a reasonable punishment for anything.
And I bet I know a crapload more Indians than you do.
Weird people do weird sh**. Ethnicity is irrelevant.
I think one of my posts may have been part of what you're responding to - a post about Indian father's harsh punishments - in one case denying food for days and in another case forcing an 8th grader to sleep in the backyard for failing a test.
These are true examples, and in both cases, I felt the parents were vigilant loving and caring parents. Just bizarre punishments by my standards.
So. It's appearing this was a lie that he told the child to stand outside off the property for not drinking milk.
Consider this. When a parent harms a child, they will often try to come up with an alibi that sounds like reasonable, good parenting, and offer that. "I went to fix a bottle and the baby rolled off the bed", "I ran inside to get a towel and the child drowned with in 30 seconds", "It was freezing outside so I left the child in a carseat with the heater running while I ran into the gas station for bread and the car and child were stolen". On and on. A parent tries to come up with something that sounds reasonable.
This guy's "reasonable" was that he left his 3 year old in an alley in the wee hours for not drinking milk. So to him, that's a reasonable thing to do, something cops would say um hmm, I can understand that.
I have never seen a case, BTW, where a parent's made-up alibi causes them to get arrested as was this case. This guy makes up an alibi, and it's a crime in itself.
Given that context, I stand by my examples of other Indian parents having bizarre punishments for minor infractions, while in the general context of their parenting they very much love the child. This man thinks leaving her outside, off his property in the wee hours for not drinking milk is good parenting.
There is no way that I would question the accuracy of the anecdotes you have cited. What I can say categorically is that I am not aware of a single instance in my decades of interaction with Indians in the US, the UK and in India where the sort of harsh punishment you describe has been levied on a child.
Now having said this, I will say that many Indian - and Asian parents - do direct their children when it comes to their education and are far less lenient on general issues of discipline. You may recall the "tiger mom" book and controversy as to how she was raising her children. As I read about some of the details of the "tiger mom" philosophy, my siblings and I said almost in unison that we were raised the very same way - and fwiw, we all did very well in terms of our careers and personal life. We were expected to respect our teachers and our elders and in the schools we went to infractions resulted in paddling - and when that happened we would not dare to complain to our parents because the odds are that we'd get punished by them as well. But when our parents were very ill we all went to see them and spend some time with them from the US, the UK and Australia - so the discipline we faced did not adversely impact
our affection for our parents. All of the above is to point out that parents raise children differently and cultural factors do come into play.
However, what this father did to Sherrin is unforgivable if he really left her out in the alley at 3 am at night because she would not drink her milk. If this really happened as the father described - and I am skeptical that it did - what father would then find the child missing when he checked 15 minutes later and then focus on his laundry. This is not a believable story and disciplining a child the way this father did cannot be explained by cultural factors. If it happened, it is an anomaly.
There is much that I admire about the US in various facets of life. One of these is the willingness to adopt children which is not as prevalent in India and even among Indians who were raised in India and emigrated. Indians often tend to view blood relationships as paramount and so an adopted child does not fit that criteria. This couple's adoption of Sherrin is far from typical especially given that they already had a biological child. I think this is where their religion and faith may have come into play - there was probably a genuine desire to better the lot of a child. If I am right in this regard, the fact that it then resulted in the outcome we are witnessing makes what happened all the more tragic.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 16 days ago)
35,665 posts, read 18,029,124 times
Reputation: 50706
Quote:
Originally Posted by uhuru
There is no way that I would question the accuracy of the anecdotes you have cited. What I can say categorically is that I am not aware of a single instance in my decades of interaction with Indians in the US, the UK and in India where the sort of harsh punishment you describe has been levied on a child.
Now having said this, I will say that many Indian - and Asian parents - do direct their children when it comes to their education and are far less lenient on general issues of discipline. You may recall the "tiger mom" book and controversy as to how she was raising her children. As I read about some of the details of the "tiger mom" philosophy, my siblings and I said almost in unison that we were raised the very same way - and fwiw, we all did very well in terms of our careers and personal life. We were expected to respect our teachers and our elders and in the schools we went to infractions resulted in paddling - and when that happened we would not dare to complain to our parents because the odds are that we'd get punished by them as well. But when our parents were very ill we all went to see them and spend some time with them from the US, the UK and Australia - so the discipline we faced did not adversely impact
our affection for our parents. All of the above is to point out that parents raise children differently and cultural factors do come into play.
However, what this father did to Sherrin is unforgivable if he really left her out in the alley at 3 am at night because she would not drink her milk. If this really happened as the father described - and I am skeptical that it did - what father would then find the child missing when he checked 15 minutes later and then focus on his laundry. This is not a believable story and disciplining a child the way this father did cannot be explained by cultural factors. If it happened, it is an anomaly.
There is much that I admire about the US in various facets of life. One of these is the willingness to adopt children which is not as prevalent in India and even among Indians who were raised in India and emigrated. Indians often tend to view blood relationships as paramount and so an adopted child does not fit that criteria. This couple's adoption of Sherrin is far from typical especially given that they already had a biological child. I think this is where their religion and faith may have come into play - there was probably a genuine desire to better the lot of a child. If I am right in this regard, the fact that it then resulted in the outcome we are witnessing makes what happened all the more tragic.
Personally, I think he did something much worse to her than leaving her outside in an alley for not drinking milk.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 16 days ago)
35,665 posts, read 18,029,124 times
Reputation: 50706
Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4
Or he is stupid and babbled out the first thing he thought of.
Besides, you can't use the dingo defense if you don't put the child in the vicinity of the dingoes.
That was one of the hugest red flags. I put her way out over there by that tree. Oh and come to think of it, there have been coyotes around here recently.
GUILTY.
The thing is, by the time the police arrived, he didn't babble the first thing that came to mind. He'd been working on this for awhile, and this seemed like a good enough story - it would exonerate him, and would provide a plausible cause for her disappearance.
Little did he know his idea of realistic discipline is actually a crime.
I didn't bring it up as an example of a lie. I brought it up as an example of people saying that some external force swooped down and took their child or murdered their intern, etc. The coyote being casually and disingenuously mentioned by the father being the American "dingo," as it were.
Everybody in the world knows that they found the clothes of the baby near a dingo lair. And that particular case ended in the mother being exonerated. Even though some people still had suspicions much later.
But sometimes external forces do take children, etc. The way people flippantly say it infers it to be a lie.
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) linens.
