My answer to that question is a plain and simple: NO WAY! I'm sorry, but I just can't imagine, not even for one minute, suing my own mother if she happened to fall down the stairs while she was carrying my baby–no matter what the consequences. She's my mother, for God's sake! It's not like she would do it on purpose.
That's why I was livid when I read about an Australian woman who sued her own mother after she accidentally fell down the stairs with her 6-month-old granddaughter back in 2006. Although they both survived the fall, the baby–who's now 5 years old–was injured and is severely disabled.
But I was even more angered when I found out that this week a court ruled against the abuelita, finding she was negligent and didn't show "reasonable care," according to the Australian newspaper the Herald Sun. I must not know enough about the case to understand how a grandmother who offers to help her exhausted daughter by taking her infant child down the stairs so she could get some sleep makes her negligent. I just don't get it.
While I'm obviously grateful that nothing like this ever happened to me, I will tell you that when my children were infants, I was always weary of my mother-in-law carrying them–especially down the stairs–because she's prone to accidents and has had more than one fall during her stays with us. Therefore, I was always careful not to let her go down the stairs with my kids, but even if she had and something horrible had happened, I wouldn't even fathom the idea of suing her–and she's not even my mom! I'm sorry, but I just can't imagine a daughter doing that to her own mother.
Would you be able to sue your own mamá if she fell down the stairs with your baby?
Image via fifthposition/flickr
