Random Rant: WTF is it With People Brutally Killing So Many Children Right Now?

Caution: This rant discusses some pretty painful and awful material from the news, so please skip this post if you only want to read cheerful news on the RandomAnna blog.

Every time I boot up the computer and take a peek at the news headlines these days I am confronted with absolutely horrifying stories about adults killing children in hideous, brutal ways. Some examples from the news in recent weeks:

Honolulu: Man drops 2 year old child he is babysitting from overpass.

Washington, DC: Mentally ill mother kills her 4 daughters.

Georgia: Man has fight with wife, retaliates by dropping 4 children off of bridge.

Texas: Body of "Baby Grace" washes ashore inside storage tub.

Massachusetts: Woman decides to take her niece and nephew with her when she commits suicide by stepping into traffic.

Washington: Woman and her boyfriend kill 5 members of her family over Christmas, including her niece and nephew.

I have had enough of this! These stories make me absolutely sick. Here I am dealing with infertility and wishing I had an extra $10,000 so I could adopt a child while other people are literally throwing children away and murdering their young family members.

First off, I just don't understand why anyone would want to kill a child. Even if you think your kid is possessed by demons (as apparently Banita Jacks of Washington, DC did), why would you kill her to stop the demons? Wouldn't you want to take the child to a church or a doctor to heal them?

I know, I know, Ms. Jacks is mentally ill--so they say. But I don't think that's an excuse. I've been incredibly depressed before; I've even wanted to die before. But never once did I want other people to suffer along with me--I just wanted my suffering to stop. I think some of these killers are just evil and callous, like Kimberly Ann Trenor and Royce Clyde Zeigler, the mother and stepfather who beat "Baby Grace" to death rather than just giving the girl back to her loving father and grandmother in Ohio (who had been looking for little Riley Ann Sawyers since Trenor ran off to Texas to live with Zeigler.) There is no excuse for what they did to Riley--it is just pure, unadulterated evil.

So many of these cases make me so angry on so many levels. How come so many birth moms in the US are able to kidnap their children and yet our family courts do nothing about it? How come our Child Protective Services let children slip through the cracks despite reports of neglect in the home, as in the case of the 4 Jacks daughters of Washington, DC? Something has to change or children are going to keep dying. How many more corpses of youngsters will need to fill our urban morgues before people finally stand up and try to stop this slaughter?

There is so much to be done...

Our family courts need to stop assuming that children are automatically safe with their biological mothers just because women are supposedly nurturers. Many women certainly are wonderful nurturers, but so are many men as well. Physical custody should not be awarded based on gender alone. It is imperative that our family court judges, guardians ad litem, and childrens' legal representatives thoroughly evaluate each parent before awarding custody. Don't gloss over the paperwork--investigate each parent and their background before issuing your opinions on physical and legal custody. Everyone makes mistakes, but if a parent's background includes a pervasive history of drugs, violence, or mental illness, then those factors need to be explored in detail before any decisions are made. I am not saying that someone who experiences a bout of mental illness is automatically a bad parent; all I am saying is that if such an experience is in someone's background, then at least ask a few questions about it before making assumptions.

Our social services clearly need to be overhauled, and they also require more funding so that all accusations of abuse and neglect can be investigated properly. In the Jacks case, at least one report was made stating that the children were in a household where neglect was clearly occurring; Jacks herself admitted that last year she was starving the girls to clear them of their "demons." A social worker visited the Jacks home and noted that the mother seemed to be having some problems with mental stability, yet the case was subsequently closed because the Department of Social Services assumed that the Jacks family had moved to Maryland. In fact, they had not moved at all. Jacks remained in the apartment with the corpses of her four children (who may have been dead since last May) until the sheriffs arrived to issue an eviction notice last week. Outrageous.

And I'm not the first person to decry our health care system for the shoddy job it does handling patients with mental illnesses. Insurance barely covers weekly visits to psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists; millions go uninsured every year, including children; medications are extraordinarily expensive and out of reach for many people who desperately need them. It is patently absurd. If the woman in Massachusetts had received adequate health care for her depression and suicidal urges, then most likely her young niece and nephew would still be alive today. If Banita Jacks had been treated for her condition, then her beautiful girls could have had a chance to go live with relatives or in a foster home (which would at least have given them a chance at life).

Somehow as a culture we need to send a message to stressed out caregivers, be they biological parents, step-parents, aunts, uncles, or any other babysitters: If you can't handle the present situation--whatever that situation may be--and you need to get away from the child, then take him or her to a church, a police station, a fire hall, or someplace else where other people can take care of him or her. Then just walk away.

It's absolutely cold and callous, yes--but so much better than beating or slaughtering the child.

I wish there was some way I could intervene in one of these situations and take over as guardian of one of these endangered children. I have room in my house and in my heart for another child, and I have enough love and patience and money to help another kid live a safe and normal life. It's not right that these kids are being killed when there are open homes like mine that would gladly take them in. 

This massacre of children in America needs to stop.