Think of the Parents

Taken from x.com Written by Carl (Parent)

Think of the Parents

There's a phrase you'll see everywhere if you spend any time in the online arguments about the Countess of Chester. And if not the phrase verbatim, some version of it.

Think of the parents.

It's used like a full stop. The final word. The thing you say to end a discussion, because who could argue with it? Think of the parents. Think of what they've been through. How dare you ask questions? How dare you have doubts? Think of the parents.

I'd like to tell you what some of these people do when they're not thinking of the parents.

The Parents Who Didn't Exist

We are parents. Our daughter was on that unit in May 2016. My family spent ten years asking questions and getting mostly silence back. When we finally talked about it in public, here's what the think-of-the-parents crowd did.

They said we didn't exist.

Genuinely. Five minutes after people heard our voices on the Amanda Knox Doubt podcast, the word went round that we were an invention. A fabrication. Characters made up for a podcast. My daughter's story, my wife's ten years, our boxes of notes and letters, all of it dreamt up for content.

That's why we went public, by the way. We hadn't planned to, not then. But when someone decides your family is fictional, there's only one answer to it. So we introduced ourselves to the Mob.

In that sense I suppose we owe them a thank you. They brought us out and our voices got amplified way beyond a podcast. Thank you to the naysayers, you know who you are.

Then They Posted Our Front Door

And when it turned out we did exist, they moved to the next thing. They posted our details. My name, my age, my home address, my family, pulled off a public register and passed around like it meant something.

Think of the parents, they type. Then they post a parent's front door.

Sit with that for a second. These are people whose entire stated position is that families who suffered on that unit deserve protection, compassion, peace. And their treatment for a family from that same unit, from that same year, is a month-long campaign against us.

The Right Kind of Parents

So it was never about the parents. It can't have been. If it was about the parents, we'd qualify. We were there. Our daughter was there. We've got the paperwork and the decade of unanswered questions to prove it.

It's about the right kind of parents.

Parents are sacred when their story fits, and targets when it doesn't. Trauma gets graded now. There's an approved version, and if your family's experience doesn't match it, you're not a parent anymore. You're a problem.

We Never Asked You to Think of Us

Here's the thing though. We've never asked anyone to think of us.

Not once. Read everything I've written. I've never asked for sympathy, only answers, never waved my daughter like a flag, never used her to win an argument. We've asked one thing for ten years: honest answers about what happened on that unit. From the hospital. That's the whole point. That's the entire radical agenda that warrants my address posting.

The people who did ask you to think of the parents are the ones outside our door. Not literally, mind. A month on, nobody's been brave enough for literally. It's been reposted by their ring leader today. Maybe this month someone will have the stones. I very much doubt it.

At the end of the day, I don't want them to think of the parents. I'd settle for them thinking at all.

A Costume, Not a Conscience

These people hide behind avatars of pets or sunsets or drawings… fake names ending in numbers, children playing characters. All dressed up so they can feel safe enough to let out their darker natures.

Because a principle you only apply to people who agree with you isn't a principle. It's a weapon. And "think of the parents" in the mouths of people doxing parents isn't compassion. It's a costume. It's the away kit of a mob.

Think of the parents.

You just have to think of all of them. Even the ones with the wrong story.

Carl