Mom power washes daughter

[IDrinkaRum]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23518487...storyContinued

5 months pregnant woman power washes 2 1/2 y.o. daughter as punishment for something. She may or may not face charges.

[AFPheonix]

Be interesting to know what the kid did. At this point it's all speculation.

Kind of an interesting punishment, though. Kind of like getting a cat off of a table

[Seshat]

As long as the pressure was low enough for safety. I wouldn't want to use one of those hoses on a person!

[crazylegs]

The kid was two and a half. Thats all, still a toddler, I wouldn't do that to an adult irrespective of pressure, let alone a child of that age.

Water torture anyone?

[Rubyred]

Yeah, but if you watch the video you can clearly see that the child is not being abused in the slightest, the water is not on the high pressure setting..it is actually on the "rinse" setting.

While completely inappropriate and unethical, the mothers actions in no way ever endangered her child. It looks like the kid might have spilled something all over herself or thrown up or had an accident in the car and the mother simply stripped her down and cleaned her up using the first available method of doing so.

The authorities even admitted when they took the little girl (after her mother TURNED HERSELF IN) that they could see no evidence of any abuse or neglect but they were still pressing charges anyway (which is complete and utter bulls**t in my opinion)

The whole thing is absolutely asinine. It's people like these that make parents fear actually parenting their child because some nutjob might interpret it as "abuse" and call CPS.

I am in no way defending what this woman did but to classify it as abuse is going to far.

[Seshat]

If it was no more powerful than a garden hose, and the weather was the sort of weather that kids have waterfights in anyway - seems perfectly fine to me. Especially if the kid would have otherwise had to sit in vomit or pee or something else unhygenic and icky.

My only qualm at that point is whether the kid might be emotionally stressed: if I had a kid I was responsible for and the kid got themselves seriously dirty, I might rinse them down with a hose. But I'd watch the weather, and wrap the kid in a blanket or something to let them stay warm and as dry as possible while we got home. And I wouldn't strip them - I have no idea if this woman did or not. Public is not a place to make a kid go nekkid. And it wouldn't be punishment, it'd be 'let's get that off you as best we can with what's available'.

[Dreamstalker]

The article says that the kid was fully clothed when being hosed down, and the mom stripped her and wrapped her in a towel afterwards.

[DesignFox]

I dunno. The mother tested the pressure before using the hose.

The article even says they examined the child and found no signs of physical abuse.

I think it's an extreme punishment, but not abusive.

If the kid was being a little shit and made a mess, what's the big deal with hosing her off? If that water was cold, no wonder she was screaming to high heaven! Bet she won't misbehave in the car again...

I understand being cautious and checking out what happened (since the child was screaming and all...). But, once it was established (by authorities no less) that there were no signs of physical abuse to the child, the issue should have been dropped.

These investigations and filing of charges are why people are so afraid to discipline their children anymore.

[tropicsgoddess]

The mom did it to discipline the child for throwing a tantrum. Calling that abuse as opposed to some of the bad parents that beat their children to a point where there's blood, welts and bruises is asinine IMHO. Honestly, CPS takes things too damn far with calling just the slightest form of corporal punishment abuse.

[Sylvia727]

Count me in as a vote for "no big deal". The mom tested the hose and told the girl to calm down, that everything was okay and it was just water. Afterward, she wrapped the girl in a towel. Authorities determined that the child was perfectly healthy. If it was a punishment, cold water sounds more effective than spankings, imho. If it was to clean her off, then she did nothing out of the ordinary. My mom hosed me and my sister off all the time.

[Lyra]

On the screaming as if she were in pain or distressed part?

When my son was that age, he hated having his teeth brushed. Talk about screaming! OMG, we always made sure the windows were closed when we brushed his teeth, because we were afraid someone would call CSD because there was a child "screaming from pain or distress" in our house.

We were brushing his teeth. With an non-electric tooth brush. Carefully. From outside the house though, I'm sure it sounded as if we were ripping off an arm.

To this day, he hates water in his face, which brings on the "screaming from pain or distress" noise. It's a BATH. He hates it. He's obnoxious about it. The end.

This mom seemed annoyed to me, but she didn't seem overly angry, or as if it was a 'vengence' thing at all. More like a "See what happens when you do this? Now I have to clean you up, and the only thing available right now is this cold water."

[Seshat]

The child of a friend of mine used to scream when you brush her hair. Even if you do the really, really gentle type of hair-brushing I learned to use on my mother's very old doll.

One day when I was trying to brush her hair, I snapped. Lost it, just momentarily. Threw the brush onto the couch, and yelled at her that if she was going to behave like that, she could do it herself. Then walked off to calm down. (Her mother was in the room, I wasn't abandoning her.)

She's stopped screaming. She's even learned that if her hair gets pulled, she can say 'gently' in a calm voice and we'll back off. Her mother says that I taught her that even adults have limits.

[Hello Kitty]

Serious overreaction. Toddlers *will* scream their bloody heads off for no good reason or little reason. One of mine had a huge fit in a store, because she wanted the big shopping cart with two kid seats. I said "well you should have choose the big cart when we came in and I ASKED YOU WHICH CART YOU WANTED. I am not going back to change carts, deal with it." She screamed so loud and long, we had salespeople running over to see who was being murdered. (Good thing I wasn't touching her, or I could have been accused of abuse!).

[miffed]

At first I was really worried about this considering how powerful those can be. My dad has a power washer and used it on a bench, it left gouges in the wood. but if the woman just gave the girl a cold rinse, no big deal. If she had actually used full power the girl's clothes would likely have been blasted away and she'd have no skin left.

This is just an overreaction, with no help from MSNBC who dramatizes their video report, constantly mentioning how powerful the hose can be.

“When I saw her, her face was red. You could see that she was crying, and that [by] the way she was crying that she was in distress,”

I've seen tots cry like that over just having a toy taken away.

[theredbaron47]

No big deal, and like a previous poster said, MSNBC sure as shootin' doesn't help matters at all. I swear, they could videotape a car driving down a quiet street and dramatize it somehow.

I fear for the future of humanity.