My Second Worst Nightmare

My worst nightmares are the ones where my kids, especially Sonshine, wander out into roads, railroads, or other dangers, and get hit by cars or trains because they don't listen to me calling to them to stop. But my second worst nightmare is this (emphasis mine):

A ten-month-old baby girl is recovering this morning from chemical burns after getting toilet cleaner on her legs.

Deputies say the baby's mother said she was doing housework yesterday when her daughter somehow got under the sink and got into some toilet bowl cleaner.

Authorities say the chemical burns on the baby were reportedly severe.

Deputies say they found the little girl and her mother living in extremely filthy conditions. The state Division of Child and Family Services have been notified.

You get behind on your housework, so you're cleaning up. Your kid has a horrible accident, so you take her to the hospital. But then you're turned over to the authorities, because your house wasn't finished being cleaned.

What are you supposed to do, let the kid suffer longer so that you can finish cleaning up the house? Because in my opinion, if you did that you'd deserve to get your kid taken away. At least the woman was engaged in the act of decreasing the filthiness level of the house, and did right by her kid instead of covering her own @$$ while her daughter suffered.

I don't know how "filthy" the house was or if it's comparable to mine-- I'd call my house "filthy" but it's mostly clutter; it's not attracting cockroaches or anything, even though Bagel has probably stashed a few half-apples or sticky suckers in every room in the house in places where they won't be spotted for a long while. Still, though, I have rings around my toilets and tubs, and I'm not exactly inviting people in to show them off. I just shudder to think that if (God forbid) any accident should befall my kids, they'd be taken away from me because my house isn't perfectly tidy.