Making Punishment Fit The Crime...

Unless you've been on a sabbatical to Nepal, you've probably heard about this Fort Wayne couple that have been charged with child neglect and abuse. It's a situation of shall we say, less than stellar parenting or guardianship (and that is a huge understatement). But if you haven't heard about it, here's the *411* on the incident.

Seems that 22 year old Juquita (I know what you're thinking about the name) Pledger and her 19 year old "boyfriend" Christopher Woods don't know the first damn thing about being a parent, or even a responsible caregiver of small children. Her 6 year old girl was bound with duct tape, hit with a TV cord, stuffed into a clothes dryer, and threatened with drowning. The girl also told police her mom TRIED to force her to drink bleach (that's right...you read it correctly). The girl's 3 year old brother was burned (by the boyfriend) on the stove, and was made to go around with no diaper or underwear, and to wear clothing with dried feces on it.

Now I don't know about you, but being incensed over this doesn't quite fill the bill for me. I'm a tad beyond that after reading this on other blogs, the paper, and seeing it on the news. What breed of monsters are we creating these days? Dr. Frankenstien's creation pales by comparison...he was a creature with a damaged brain, and not capable of rational thought or action (as these people are "supposed" to be). How dysfunctional can be considered dysfunctional enough?

The mother claims the 6 year old girl was "getting under her skin"....OK, well that makes perfect sense now. Your daughter bothers you, so you TORTURE her. Because whether people want to believe it or not, what these children were subjected to goes way beyond abuse....THIS IS torture. Cripes, the detainees in Gitmo (and even Abu Ghraib) are treated far better than these "people" treat their small children. In this person's opinion, this duo of human flotsam isn't fit to have a pet cockroach, let alone rear a child or two (with another on the way). And therein lies the irony in all this... this woman is PREGNANT AGAIN with her THIRD child (lawdy, lawdy have mercy). Where do we, as a CIVILIZED society simply say "Enough is enough"?

Again, my personal take on this would be to take ALL the children as far away from these two creatures ASAP (already done by CPS, except for the fetus, which should be taken as soon as it's born), and THEN have the both of them get their respective tubes TIED. I'm all for burning the guy's jewels off on the same stove, but that's just me. Bail for them is set at ONLY $5,000, which means they could most likely make bail (10%), and "book outta Dodge" to start this all over again somewhere else. I hope such is NOT the case. And at this point, I don't honestly know what any sort of "counseling" might do. It woukld be interesting to hear from Pledger's and Wood's PARENTS on this (my baby wouldn't DO such things...yeah right).

And you know what the SCARY part about all this really is (you mean it gets worse)? This scene (or many like it) is being played out in most every major city across the nation, and they're getting "under the radar" on a daily basis. So who is going to help THESE kids when they're part of this "invisible" society? Damn good question. Wish I knew the answer.

Now there will be those who will claim it's all about POVERTY, and I will simply retort with a hearty "Bull$hit"! Claiming poverty has nothing to do with this. Generations of kids grew up with a lot less than kids get (for free) today, and they made it through childhood just fine. It's all about this "lifestyle" the older kids embrace. And I say older kids, because who the hell is MAKING all these babies in the first place? We have kids raising kids, and since the older ones don't have a frigging clue as to HOW to handle life and it's vicissitudes, how the hell can we expect them to raise kids with concepts they cannot grasp, nor ever achieve in their current state of development?

THIS is exactly the type of situation I expect the community leaders to act upon, LONG before it ever gets as far as the incident with these two local kids. The police knew about this woman, the neighbors knew there were problems, and yet NOTHING was done...CPS had apparently never been notified until NOW. That is simply just NOT acceptable to me, the kids, or society as a whole.

Again, we see the lack of the word "RESPONSIBILITY". And face facts, bringing a child INTO this world (and raising them to adulthood) IS a HUGE responsibility. Being able to instill a sense of self-worth, morality, ethics, and integrity is something (hopefully) every parent strives to foster in their children. But not in this case. Here we have two of society's dregs, obviously falling through more cracks in our system than we can shake sticks at. They have played the system to make it work for THEM, and them alone. Forget the small lives they are in charge of who depend upon them for most everything in their lives at these ages. Again, not an option in MY book.

If there is a silver lining to this cloud of depravity, it can be said that these children WILL have the chance they are MEANT to have in this life....a chance to be so much more than they have been to date...and much better people looking out for them than those that failed miserably in the past.

It would be interesting to revist these children in say, twenty or thirty years. Who knows, one of them might just wind up winning a Nobel prize.

At least the chance is there...NOW.