Why did she throw?



Why did she throw? An 18 year old mother was charged at the Penang Court for throwing her baby girl from her apartment on to the backyard of the building. My stomach churned when I read the news. Police arrested the girl and her boyfriend. She had been charged with murder but her boyfriend has been released from remand. 

All that aside, why did she throw? That's the pressing question.

19 years ago in 2001, an 18 year old school girl got impregnated by someone. The baby was delivered at early seventh month and given up for adoption on the same night, hours after birth. The adoption came with a price tag of RM10,000. I suppose the payment was for the mother, her uncle who coordinated the adoption plus the fees for the maternity clinic. At least that baby did not get thrown out.

Teen pregnancy is not something new. Young girls end up in unexpected and unwanted pregnancies when all guards were down, many times due to sheer ignorance. Then again there are couples who remain childless for years. If there could be a meeting point for both parties, there would be less abandoned babies in this country. The Malaysian government had started a baby hatch programme where mothers who do not want to keep their unwanted babies can place their babies in the hatch and the Welfare Department would take it from there. When it was launched many years ago, there was great publicity, but over the years people seemed to have forgotten the existence of the hatch.

However, the lingering question still remains. Why throw? Was it due to anger? The couple had a fight? The young mother did not know what to do after delivering the child so she figured it would be easy to just throw her `problems' out of her window? What was clear was that the couple did not have support of elders, who might not even been aware that their daughter was in such a predicament. Unwed mothers face societal stigma. It is not easy for a young girl to deliver a baby out of wedlock and walk the streets with her head held high. This is the east. Society rarely accepts such mothers, but these things do happen. 

The government on its part had done its best. The baby hatch programme was one. The society cannot be held responsible either, because many a times mothers have abandoned their babies at the steps of places of worship like the mosque, temples and churches and the public and government had stepped in to save the child.

So what's next? It's the mothers themselves who need the mental and emotional strength to do the right thing. There will be a solution for every problem, only time would deliver them. 

For those who have watched the movie Bhag Johnny Bhag would know that we live the consequences of our actions. The more righteous our decisions, the better our lives would be and vice versa. Every time we face problems, there will be multiple solutions available. Some easy ones, some difficult ones. Easy ones would usually be the least beneficial, and the difficult ones would likely be the best. Throwing the baby out of the window was easy (though my stomach still churns) but that brought her murder charges. Life had ended for that girl even before it began. What if she had kept the baby? That would require Himalayan sized demon of strength but she could have raised a winner and someday all her troubles would have been paid for. Only if she had the demon of strength to begin with. 

That demon comes from how children were brought up by their parents. My parents brought me up, well, particularly, late mum, brought me up saying that one who is born must muster more than enough courage to live in this world for this world can be merciless. And, she said, to live meaningfully, one need to succeed - defined anyway, but succeed. Today, I had transferred that demon to my daughters, at times mercilessly. And when one's attention is transfixed onto succeeding, all actions would be garnered towards that, rarely derailing.  

Some of you may find this post disturbing, but do remember, it is the parents who are ultimately responsible for the actions of their children. If the foundation is good, the building would stand tall for years. On the other hand if the foundation is weak, even newborns get thrown out.


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