Alice, I apologise for speaking intemperately before. And I quite agree with you that this is a miserable substitute for an ideal world. And you are right, Alice, that what's done is done save for the lessons we may draw from it.
I don't entirely agree that this situation was different from the others in theory, but I was not present, so I cannot judge the pressures Arthur and Frank faced in the moment, nor can I evaluate, except from their description (which was offered for our advice), the danger posed by the father to the mother and perhaps to the child.
I do think this episode shows that we need to re-evaluate our methods for springing this information on unsuspecting parents. I don't believe we've any right to assume that the father would have reacted violently in other circumstances, at least not without giving him the opportunity to show himself responsive to a better-gauged approach.
Perhaps it wasn't possible today to have handled things differently, but I agree with you that we now have an opportunity to learn and prepare and to respond better ourselves to nasty shocks when they spring up against us.
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Date: 2011-02-23 06:26 pm (UTC)I don't entirely agree that this situation was different from the others in theory, but I was not present, so I cannot judge the pressures Arthur and Frank faced in the moment, nor can I evaluate, except from their description (which was offered for our advice), the danger posed by the father to the mother and perhaps to the child.
I do think this episode shows that we need to re-evaluate our methods for springing this information on unsuspecting parents. I don't believe we've any right to assume that the father would have reacted violently in other circumstances, at least not without giving him the opportunity to show himself responsive to a better-gauged approach.
Perhaps it wasn't possible today to have handled things differently, but I agree with you that we now have an opportunity to learn and prepare and to respond better ourselves to nasty shocks when they spring up against us.