Thank you a million times for this post!
It makes my heart hurt when I read posts slamming her mom's parenting. It's the equivalent of saying, Well you could have prevented this if you were a better parent", and we can't know that. I am sure Coley's mom is going over everything she has done, or not done, in her own mind, and will likely revisit that the rest of her life. No need for a Pile-On.
Such posts are usually thinly disguised as a "cautionary tale" for others, in order to make them seem relevant, but they are really cruelty dished out by judgmental know-it-alls imo.
When my son was 10, he got hit by a car, he was crossing at a cross walk with a friend. There was a van parked curbside, and he neglected to peek out around it, stepped off the curb and got hit. He almost died. Couple weeks later, I was pushing him, in his wheelchair, into a little corner store, and there was a group of people gathered around the counter, with a news account of his accident open in front of them, and I heard one woman say, "what kind of a mother let's a little kid run the street like that?! ya that made me feel real good. NOT. I quietly wheeled him over, and introduced myself and my "little kid"... you could have heard a pin drop. People need to learn to stop being cruel and judgmental.
A little kindness and support is what is needed when people are suffering.
