The death of two children at the hands of their mothers’ boyfriends has once again put the spotlight on the risk of childcare at the hands of inexperienced adults.
Eight-month-old Jayden Davidson and 2-year-old Nicholas Shaw were both healthy babies when their mothers left them in the care of their respective boyfriends. The men who had no parenting skills and were not related to the children brutally them beat up when they didn’t know how to pacify them.
What’s shocking is the way that these men treated the children. Jayden who was barely an infant was beaten up so badly that he had a fractured skull, brain hemorrhages and a torn tongue. He died on June 26. Nicholas died on September 10 from head and neck injuries.
Earlier, cases of children deaths - due to the negligence of their caretaker - were heard off once in a while. But one does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that children so young cannot take the kind of beating that Jayden and Nicholas went through and live. People, who do such things and claim to not have parenting skills, should not be excused easily. These people are either very daft or very wicked.
Take the case of the man who put his girlfriend’s baby in the freezer. The 10 month old baby was lucky to survive, the stupidity of this 21 year old man, who put her in the freezer to cool off because she had been ‘crying her head off.’
As such cases become more common, people need to ask themselves whether they have given up something precious by destroying the institution of the family. While earlier, women could leave their children with their husbands or in-laws. Single moms don’t have that choice. Most of these children belongs to single mothers who cannot afford childcare and had leave their children with their boyfriends. The boyfriends who have no relation to the children obviously do not feel any guilt when they mistreat these children.
Perhaps it’s time for people to weigh the pros and cons of staying faithfully married to one spouse rather than having a new boyfriend as and when it catches their fancy. But that will only happen when people start thinking about their life in a holistic way rather than only from an individualistic perspective. Till then sad incidents like these will continue to make headlines.
Comments
I’m going to have to disagree with the way this story ended. There are other reasons why people aren’t married besides wanting ”a new boyfriend as and when it catches their fancy”. I’m a single mother because my daughter’s father disappeared while I was pregnant. From that point on it wasn’t about me anymore so I choose not to date. I choose to work my ass off and go to college so I can support her in whatever she wants to do as she grows up. You blamed child abuse on people not getting married. I’m aware of a few cases where a seemingly normal family, with a monogamous husband and wife, were discovered to be abusing their children. By the way, where did you get your statistic that most single mothers can’t afford child care and have to leave their children with their boyfriends? Does that mean that single mothers without boyfriends leave their babies home alone? That appears to be what you’re implying.