Exodus Tyson Could Have Been Any Child

By Akela Talamasca on May 26th, 2009

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Mike Tyson’s four year old daughter Exodus was found by her seven year old brother hanging from a cord attached to a treadmill this past Monday morning. Police have investigated, but were unable to explain how the accident happened. It’s not known how long Exodus had been hanging; she is now in critical condition and on life support.

Depending on how long her breathing had been blocked, which is likely given her type of injury, her brain will have been deprived of oxygen for any length of time. Prolonged depletion typically results in some degree of brain damage.

Many news outlets and blogs are calling this a wake-up call for childproofing one’s home, but let’s take a step further back and talk about responsibility.

Any accident is immediately followed by remorse and condemnation of the lack of foresight — why didn’t we better protect our child? But one can childproof to the best of one’s ability and still fall victim to the unforeseen. The only thing that takes the place of strong childproofing is direct supervision; this cannot be overstated.

A four year old cannot be responsible; only an adult can be responsible. No matter how safe you think your home is, it can never replace direct adult supervision. Not only can kids get into mischief, they’re somewhat hard-wired for dangerous behavior. It’s part of their organic programming to push their own boundaries and learn their limits. And these accidents can happen in the blink of an eye. I’m reminded of Eric Clapton’s son falling to his death from several stories high, and the nanny was present when it happened.

It’s impossible to know when a child is ready to be left alone without supervision, but if there is any doubt, good parenting demands that it’s later, rather than sooner. You can never err too strongly on the side of caution, and it’s difficult to imagine a scenario when a young child simply MUST be alone without supervision. This sad story is the proof positive of that idea.