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Mutter und Kind
Leading up to Mother’s Day, two gut-wrenching stories were reported of babies abandoned to die. In Chicago, a forsaken baby was found atop a garbage can in an alley, and in Florida another was found in a plastic bag with household trash and coffee grinds in a dumpster. Both babies survived, thanks to the efforts of concerned citizens and fast-acting medical teams.
What anguish, desperation and mental illness were connected with these heinous acts committed by the women who birthed the babies can only be imagined, but these two tragedies show how much help some mothers may need. The African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” resonates with such tragic stories — not that individual responsibility is in anyway secondary, but that a whole community must contribute to a healthy and safe environment for offspring.
While the focus of Mother’s Day has been anthropocentric, in a time of staggering biodiversity loss due to us — human beings — we need to broaden our vision to acknowledge all nonhuman mothers, their role in the world and their right to survive and thrive. Since 1970, humankind has been responsible for the loss of 60 percent of wildlife — birds, fish, mammals and reptiles. So, it’s not just human moms who often need help.
The common belief is that wildlife fends for itself, that nature is wild and harsh. But it’s harsher today, because of the…
