Ah... bait.
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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We all have our own models of how the world works. This frames how we understand the meanings of content.
The phrase "baby left alone" in no way implies it's the mother's fault. It is correct, a baby was left alone, in as much the fault of the 'system'.
This meme feels more like something to instil anger and hatred than anything actually useful.
It's not even certain it's reasonably the fault of the 'system'. There's no details about how or why the mother died or why she happened to be alone with the baby for a few days. A mother taking care of a baby for a few days by herself is not a crazy circumstance without further context. At one point my wife had work and I had to take our toddler on a trip for a couple of days and no one could possibly have accused that situation of me being alone with our toddler due to some failure of the system, even if something had tragically killed me along the way.
There are so many stories about the system failing a baby or a mother, we don't need to extrapolate this specific incomplete story with such details until the actual details are available, which may or may not be consistent with the tragic failures of the system.
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I thought you could say "I was left alone after my friend passed" or something. It doesn't mean my friend left me purposefully but rather I was just alone after he died
It's about the framing. The focus is on the baby being "left alone," with passive language implying that somebody did that to them. Meanwhile, the mother's death is treated as an afterthought, only relevant as a circumstance in the baby's story.
It doesn't imply that somebody did it to them. The baby was left alone by the circumnstances. It's kind of difficult to come up with as short a sentence that is reasonably possible to read without somehow using 'left alone' in it.
"Kind of difficult"
I'm not a native English speaker and I can easily come up with many alternatives that don't imply the baby was left alone purposely.
"left" is used all the time where no one was purposely doing anything. It doesn't imply that at all.
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I think you can say that someone was "left alone" without any implication that it was done to them, just that it merely happened.
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Plus, "where was the father? huh??" I understand they could've separated, but he still had responsibilities towards this baby. So, only if the journalists had confirmed he was deceased long ago it would make sense to make this omission... but they should said so.
Seems like the authorities didn't release a lot of actionable details to the press. They only see the baby and have a short description of the scene. Not where the scene was or the identity of anyone or a hint as to how the mother died. The journalists are simply reporting the partial story without anything further to go on at the moment. The press likely will be bored of the incident well before the details would be available.
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"Baby rescued from apartment after single-mother tragically died days earlier"
Didn't think it was that difficult
I think that's a worse headline because it doesn't involve the sad imagery of a baby alone for 4 days. "Tragic" is a kitschy word to include in a headline. And neither your headline nor the one in the meme place the mother up-front.
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They don't know she was a single mother. They don't know who she was because they weren't told. The father could have been on a business trip for all we know. That proposed headline injects one plausible guess as to why the baby would have been alone, but without any actual data to back it up.
It also fails to indicate that the baby was alone. You try to imply it by 'single mother', but whose to say that there wasn't someone else in the house that might have been important, like a sibling or extended family member? The detail that the infant was alone was key, but omitted in your version. Of course it's awkward to try to indicate the baby was alone without using the word 'left' in the context of a headline appropriate short sentence.
They could have injected the word "tragically" before dies for a bit more consideration, though people can see that the tragedy is pretty self evident.
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Twatter and ShitGPT have a lot to answer for. It seems like a significant amount of people have forgotten how to read.
I don't know, maybe I don't realize the actual connotations of the phrase "being left alone", but IMO she's not just overreacting - she's gone absolutely batshit nuclear over some fucking (actually not) inadequate wording.
"Left alone" is an intentional act. The mother died so unless it was suicide she didn't leave the baby alone. And then it was in the US and the US has the highest maternal mortality in the West. The headline downplays the tragedy of the mother's death, ignores the tragedy of the high maternal mortality, makes it sound a bit like she was a bad mother rather than a mother that society didn't do right by.
Edit: even a suicide isn't leaving the baby alone because if you are that far out I'm not going to hold you responsible for the baby (although if I knew you I might have a very hard time forgiving / be unable to forgive you).
“Left alone” is an intentional act.
Not necessarily. "The man's death left his wife alone." There's no intention in that, nor even a hint of negligence.
It seems an absolutely utterly normal phrase to describe what happened to the infant in the wake of her mother's death.
They can't say much specific about her death or circumstances because her identity and circumstances of death were not released. They can't claim "orphaned" because they don't know enough about the family. All they know in the reporting is that circumstances left an infant alone with her dead mother's body. The only thing they have is the bodycam footage of an infant and terse description of the scene. No idea if her death was particularly related to maternity. They could have tossed the word 'tragic' in there but it seems self evident.
I... don't know, man, the info that she died is right there in the headline. I'm struggling to compose that sentence in English without using the word "left".
"Police rescue baby alone for days after mother dies" doesn't sound like English. "Police rescue baby alone after mother dies" sounds like the news is the baby doesn't have any other family and also sounds weird.
If you take motherhood out of it altogether it becomes more obvious, I suppose. "The man was left alone in a deserted island after the rest of the plane's crew died in the crash" is a perfectly valid way to frame that.
Blame English for using adjectives weird sometimes.
It’s not even badly written. The Twitter user is just looking for an excuse to be offended and rage against babies.
rage against babies
That's what you got out of this? That she's raging against babies and not against a system that forces women to give birth but does nothing to support mothers or their children afterwards?
ETA: oh wait you're that same fucking pronatalist cockthistle that's been crawling all over this post. Hail Satan, and have a lovely afternoon.
https://www.azag.gov/issues/reproductive-rights/laws
On November 5, 2024, the voters approved Proposition 139, which establishes a fundamental right to abortion under the Arizona Constitution.
So what’s this about being forced to give birth?
You know there's an entire country outside of Arizona, right?
You understand this is in the context of the woman dying in Phoenix, Arizona?
You have been implying that she was or could have been forced to give birth.
Given the age of the child the constitutional amendment had already been passed, meaning you have made misleading statements.
I hope that when the mother died, that all of her hardships and burdens sloughed away, and that she knows that her loved ones are safe so that she can rest in peace.
Then, I hope that all of that negative shit condenses itself into the world's most pristine Lego that haunts whoever came up with that tone and headline. When those who are responsible wear shoes, I hope that ghost Lego becomes a puddle.
I'm with you in the first half, but people are reading way too much into the connotation of "left alone". Anyone who at least read the full headline would not see the mother being accused of anything. "left alone" is merely descriptive and does not demand nor suggest that someone's actions or even negligence caused it.
Trying to write an accurate, comprehensive, short headline is tricky if trying to dance around this level of presumptuous offense.
I think it’s because left alone implies intention, and an explanation is only offered at the end of the headline. Whereas other phrasing can avoid that. Baby found alone after mother dies, for instance. Or even Baby found alone by police after mother dies.
Honestly, if I’m going to overthink it, I think it’s because of the cultural tropes of the U.S. and advertiser-driven media. Saying that the police rescue the baby sort of sets up the sentence for misinterpretation, but police rescuing the baby instead of merely finding it is more emotive - it drives engagement, it reinforces the notion that police are protectors.
And following, left alone vs found alone. Police rescue baby found alone […] is sort of narratively poor. There’s a disjoint that I’m sure someone smarter than me can describe, but Police rescue baby left alone […] is a better ‘fit’, even if it’s factually looser. It may have to do with cultural preconditioning where people expect police intervention only when the parent has taken an action.
Heck, Baby left alone after mother dies is saved by police, establishes the narrative without burying the lede, and it even keeps the left alone phrase intact while establishing context before moving to other narrative.
But anyway, my point, I guess, is that the title is editorialized for the wrong kind of drama, and that’s dumb. The situation has its own drama if they would appeal to empathy, rather than people’s desire to bootlick and see evil everywhere.
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I’m surprised this shit is still up considering one of you fuckers bombed an abortion clinic recently.
That was an antinatalist community, this is child free.
That's like saying if a group of people don't like apples, they're the same as a group of people who have philosophies about wanting apples banned.
Similar general idea, completely different reasonings behind it.
I'm child free and not anti-natalist.
Buddy the Venn diagram between those who choose not have children and go out of their way to join communities about it and those who dislike children being born at all is basically a circle.
If this was simply about people who didn’t want to have children, you’d have nothing to discuss except the posts here are all celebrating declining birth rates, complaining about children, etc.
Wait why in the fuck would antinatalists bomb an abortion clinic???? That doesn't make an ounce of sense?
It was a fertility clinic
It was literally the Lemmy.world antinatalist mod that did it.
And nothing about these clowns makes sense.
It doesn't, and that is the only confirmed thing antinatalists have harmed, it was a suicide bombing where I believe the only confirmed death was a bomber.
Needless to say, didn't understand their own ideology they claimed to have very well.
Wait what? What connection is there between the bombing and this comm?
It was the other antinatalist comm, but same demographic.
And now they are forced them to be raped and give birth since the birthrate is plummeting
what the fuck are you talking about?
Probably abortion bans and our abysmal rate of testing rape kits.
I think they're talking about the woman in Georgia who was in a coma but forced to have a child despite it being unhealthy for her and the child.
doesn’t quite sound like rape.
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Just antinatalist things