A few months ago, I posted about about a horrific child abuse story involving a mother, the child of course and paramour. No I am not some kind of strange child-abuse junkie (totally swore off late night Discovery Channel), but whenever I sit down at breakfast, open the front page of the paper, here are these stories.Years ago it seemed you would hear about one of these stories every ten years, now it is every ten weeks. Whenever I read them, I feel like someone hits me in the chest with a sledgehammer, and I walk around with that "ummph" feeling for a couple of days. Then I wonder if there is something I can do...
In our local paper on Saturday, we were graced with another front-page story about a 16-year old and her boyfriend abusing their (or her? they do not specify, but simply refer to him as "boyfriend") child. Again, to summarize without having to read the gory details, the boyfriend is in custody, the baby is recovering in the hospital, and they are looking at prosecuting the mother as well.
The reason why I wanted to blog this is because I found the end of the aricle interesting:
The case is one in a rash of child abuse around the Capital Region by inexperienced, young parents and their companions."We have to break this cycle earlier," said Albany Police Chief James Tuffey, who blames parents for ignoring their teenage children.
"There's a serious problem," Tuffey said. "We as a society have gone soft and we have to return the envelope, in particular, to parents and say 'postage due.' My parents knew where I was at 9 p.m."
Without my usual "family values" tirade, I am sure you can guess what I am thinking.
I know how you feel. When I lived in NY I read a daily paper and had similar reactions. But it can also become mind-numbing -- not in the sense of boring, but that I'm just left unable to imagine these things being real, asking, "Who punches babies?" I know. People do :(
It's the least of his troubles but I also wonder what she/they were thinking to name this child Jihad. It doesn't sound like they were radical Muslims, if Muslim at all.
It's the least of his troubles but I also wonder what she/they were thinking to name this child Jihad. It doesn't sound like they were radical Muslims, if Muslim at all.
I doubt they were practicing anything. The mother was 15 when she had him. It probably just sounded cool.