Thursday, September 15, 2005

Grandma Fired for Not Abandoning Grandchild

In the spirit of shamelessly stealing from other, better blogs, I present you with an Atrios-style "Bobo's world" segment. Seems a factory in Missouri couldn't hold a grandmother's $7-an-hour assemblyline job for her while she cared for her grandchild.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - When forced to decide between caring for her 18-month-old granddaughter whose parents were stranded in New Orleans or leaving the girl with strangers so she could show up for her assembly line job, Barbara Roberts chose to be a grandma. And for that, she was fired.

Now them's family values!

The sad thing is, of course, that parents and other family members often have to decide between caring for babies or sick relatives and going to work. If this grandma had stayed with her grandchild because of any reason besides the hurricane (say, for example, if the parents had been mauled by a bear like this father and daughter), you better believe it wouldn't have been newsworthy. In fact, some might go so far as to assume the grandmother's plight was her own damned fault. Good thing compassionate conservatism is changing all that, right?

3 comments:

Mr Furious said...

Jesus. That bear story is a freaking nightmare...

Otto Man said...

Amen. That's yet another argument against hiking.

Mrs_Thrillhous said...

So the Bushies should all take a hike.