To wonder why on earth somebody would do this ?

[butterdaisy]

The findings chime with a story that viral last week of a Kenyan widow who was found cooking stones for her eight children to make them believe she was preparing food for them, saying: "I could do nothing because I had nothing."

It seems really cruel to do something to make your children believe you are preparing food for them when there is no food.

Hopefully international aid will provide food.

Stone soup is a Thing, old as the hills.

Wikipedia link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup

Stone soup is a Thing, old as the hills

Yes but it has nothing to do with the story in question.

I don’t think the woman was re enacting a folk story though, or trying to teach people the moral of sharing, in this particular instance.

That's right. This desperate woman who has nothing to feed her eight children is 'cruel'. I genuinely can't believe I'm reading such privileged, unempathetic shite.

It seems really cruel to do something to make your children believe you are preparing food for them when there is no food.

Just for a second, think how desperate she must have been. If her kids were hungry, God only knows when she last ate. Hope is an undeniable force.

Meanwhile in the USA and Europe, farmers and manufacturers pour milk down the drains and burn foods to maintain control of the markets.

Yay capitalism.

Op did you read the link that you have provided? How then can you not understand how desperate that poor women must have been? Her children would have been crying and asking for food for a while. I fail to see how she has been cruel in her desperation. I hope some of the following post have provided some clarity for you.

Why are we taking food from those countries still. We should be exporting agricultural know-how and IP rights.

If they’re growing the food, then they have the agricultural know how. Many countries there developed their own strains of drought resistant crops for their local environment using the latest technologies. Why are you assuming African countries can’t grow food or use modern farming as well as any European?

Bloody hell that poor woman. It’s the most primal instinct there is to feed our children. Which of us can judge? Which of us have been in the same situation to even begin to think what we would do?

It's rather simplistic to suggest that if we stopped importing food from these countries, the food would be grown anyway and distributed to the natives.

Do you lack empathy @butterdaisy?

All I’ve taken from this story is that this desperate mother took heartbreaking measures to allow her starving children to rest easily, at least for a very short while. She must have been at her wit’s end. I can’t fathom it.

But you appear to think she just tricked her children...

This breaks my heart, I admit I've moaned about the quarantine situation and felt sorry for myself. Hearing about this poor woman and her family really puts everything in perspective.

Utterly heartbreaking for anyone to have to do that. Not cruel at all. How can anyone think that this poor woman was cruel?

If she then used the water then ok, but if not sounds like a complete waste of resources (which she wouldn,t afford.) and cruel to the kids.

Agree with pp first heard this story years and years ago

Heard it on BBC news, hardly a glowing reference. I trust the Sun more than the BBC these days.

Oh for fuck sake, poor woman’s husband was murdered last year, she has nothing, 8 hungry kids and not a penny. This wasn’t a fucking practical joke for her amusement.

Fuck you.

I don't think this woman being 'cruel' to her children is what should be focused on here Have you ever been in a situation where you cannot feed your children, have no way of getting food and no idea what to say to them? This way, they got a few more hours of comfort, perhaps, thinking that food was on the way. She was not cruel. She was fucking desperate. Christ almighty.

Very sad and I’m glad she has been helped, but I can’t say I’m surprised (I would be in pretty dire straits if I had eight children, and I suspect I’m in a far better financial position than that lady).

OP, are you getting confused between a tragedy and those viral YouTube videos where parents pretend to have eaten all their kids Halloween sweets? Do you honestly think a woman who has nothing to feed her children thought she'd make some stone soup for a lol, to taunt them?

If she then used the water then ok, but if not sounds like a complete waste of resources (which she wouldn,t afford.) and cruel to the kids

I have actually heard it all now. FFS.

I can't believe you would judge the mother.

YY to Burritofan's post.

When i was 14 a family friend fostered a child around 11 years old and her brother who was 4 from Africa and it was such a heartbreaking story that i cried for weeks because they were so lovely and i heard some gutrenching storys, she was a friend for many years but i still tear up thinking about it.

Sadly this sort of thing is not uncommon in developing countries. This is why I choose to sponsor children in Africa. I can't change the world for all those kids but I can and will change it for the two girls I sponsor and their families.

What must have been going through that poor woman's mind?

I think we (in the West) can shut ourselves off to the fact that these are real people suffering these conditions - we can somehow mentally compartmentalise it as though 'they can cope' when actually this story shows that is a real person having to cope under awful circumstances.

I may not be articulating this well, so I apologise if this comes across wrong. We have dehumanised those who experience such atrocities somehow - as if they can cope or expect it.