Ethical dilemma here - pointing fingers, blame goes around but nobody responsible - how?

Clearly a tragedy of epic proportion! While there is a fair amount of information in the article, I cannot help but think there is much more not offered. It’s a complete cluster that took eight lives, seven of which never had a chance to truly live and experience life.

Difficult to blame the utility company, as it would seem they were in their rights to remove the stated illegal and unsafe connection. Further, they were not contacted after disconnect.

Difficult to blame the father as he was man enough to take on full custody of seven, worked, and purchased a generator to keep his children warm. He was clearly trying to take care of his children.

Difficult to blame the State, unless the father asked for help and was turned away. Perhaps the father feared he might lose his children to foster care homes if it were determined he was not capable of providing.

Difficult to blame the mother unless the father contacted her and stated the issue. The father had full custody, and the report did not say what visitation was awarded to the mother after the divorce.

Yet, there must be accountability. The father is mostly to blame because he had full custody, and failed to know the dangers of carbon monoxide. Yet, I’m sure the mother will most likely never move past the end result of her failed marriage. I’ve witnessed a couple completely fall apart after the death of their child. I cannot imagine what it would be to lose seven.

This is a tough question to answer; firstly you emotions want to answer the question. It is hard to give a rational unbiased answer when children are hurt. The poor guy who had to disconnect the meter probably feels like the depths of hell. The corporate fat cats in charge are probably going into damage control mode to save face, on the other hand they have customers by the family jewels as there are few option when it comes to utilities.

The father buys a generator to protect his family, and runs it inside of the home! His intentions were most honorable; however, he did not get the concept that internal combustion engines give off toxic gases. This is hard for me to understand but I come from a rural area and have worked with equipment all my life. I suppose some one not having been raised in an environment where you work with engines and motors may have never learned this most basic of safety rules.

Did the father ask for help? Pride comes before the fall. I think most people who were not strapped them selves would have pitched in, I know I would have. Did anyone in the family have the means to help them out of the situation that led to a tragic ending?

Are the mother and father to blame for having a large family; well, hind sight is twenty twenty. Therefore it is not a rational question because the children were born and then died. The problem is the here and now and what can be done to prevent this from happening again?

Having worked for a utility company I can tell they don't care at the highest levels when some one looses service for non payment. Unless there is threat of legal recourse, profit is King. The folks at the lowest levels are forced to do the dirty work of disconnecting services and making the rude collection calls. On the other hand can a business stay solvent if they are forced to leave services on for those who do not pay their bills? In some areas where the economic situation is bleak the answer is no, businesses too have bills and wages to pay. The generating facilities will not give energy to a distribution company and the businesses that provide the Coal, Gas, or what ever else are not going to give their product away.

We as a people have to improve the socioeconomic conditions for all Americans. This no simple task and I am not the expert to give the solution. I do no that far to many things are made in places other than the USA. Bringing Jobs home is one part of the puzzle in my opinion. Labor unions demanding wages that are unsustainable is also a problem. So who is to blame? To some degree we all are CSM Michael J. Uhlig.

CSM Michael J. Uhlig
Sir, I don't know if I can answer this one as it appears to be "too grey". It appears that he was doing all he was capable of (perhaps a case of he was in a position that was as high as he was capable of achieving in life?). Should the utility company have advised them that they disconnected everything? most likely, yes as it would have helped avoid this situation - they could have advised not to use interior generator due to the dangers presented.

A sad situation all the way around.

As a father, I couldn't imagine. I just couldn't. But responsibility where it's due, I think the father is to blame. I mean I have personally gone through winters in the midwest with no electricity, I've even lived out of my car before. I'm not in any of those situations now, but at no point did I ever think it would be a good idea to use a generator inside like that. (In my case it would have been something smaller, like my propane camp stove)

I am new to this story, but the father appears to have made a tragically bad choice.

It appears to me that society (perhaps even our beloved military as well) have moved away from taking responsibility for one's own actions. The responsibility of taking care of ourselves and those we are responsible for has been "delegated" to others. Our society needs to move back to "personal responsibility", meaning we don't rely on "others" to take care of ourselves or those we are responsible for. Occasionally, everyone goes through a "hard time" but that should not be years and especially not generations. Some time ago discipline was "passed" to our educators. Now that "power" has been revoked and very few are being disciplined. We (society) need to get back to self-discipline and start taking our responsibilities more seriously and stop allowing (or forcing) the government to "keep us safe".

This is a shame. He was working but using the illegal meter was stealing. It is possible that pride got in the way. He was trying to do what he felt was right. This is a truly sad situation.

Its really hard to tell about blame in this. The situation is past blame here as it doesn't matter whose fault it was because the children are already deceased.
Without a doubt that father should have never had a gas powered generator running inside that house. That's common just common sense and just irresponsible. I do not see it as Delmarva Powers fault based on that fact that it was a stolen meter powering the house and there was no record of request to have the power turned on. They just did what they would have done on any other home as well.
Regardless of all this it is a tragic loss of life and I hope that this awful tragedy can educate others about the dangers of what seems to be something harmless.

Oohhhh!!!! Im going to have a lot to say about this tomorrow! Gotta get on a computer

Tragic. Parents own responsibility for their children, no one else.