Tragic - 3 year old killed by mom

[Nancy]

Our city has been looking for a 3 year old boy whose mom said went missing from a park they were in. She claimed she turned her back for a few seconds to push his 5 year old brother in a swing and when she turned around he was gone. Last evening they found the little boy in a trash bag in a city dump. The FBI just happened to notice a garbage truck in her neighborhood the day he went missing and had a hunch. She has been arrested for her son's death. The security cameras in the neighborhood show her going to the park with the other two children, not the three year old.

This mom is 20 and had three children, the oldest was 5. Do the math and that means she started having children at 15. This is just heartbreaking. She was in the foster care system until she aged out and has received many services and counseling over the years, and yet this awful tragedy.

This is so wrong on so many levels.

 

[Hopeless]

I saw this to in my local news. Very sad

 

[DDD]

I'd like to jump in on your post with my personal political views on "choices". I won't. The world just can not expect children to safely and appropriately raise children. So sad. DDD

 

[Hound dog]

I have some how missed this one. I'll have to look it up. Sad.

 

[buddy]

Terrible!

 

[flutterby]

Sadly, in the world we live in today, when I read that he went missing from the park and how young the mom was, my first thought was that he wasn't missing but was dead. I, of course, chastised myself for thinking that immediately. We've just seen that story too many times. So very sad.

 

[DammitJanet]

Yes DDD, babies raising babies often doesnt work out to well. I heard recently of some state or doctors who are pushing for teen girls to get the Plan B pills available to them even before they supposedly are having sex. Sort of like an extra surprise in a box of tampons or kotex pads. Im not entirely sure how they would be distributed. Also they want to make birth control pills available OTC. Im not entirely sure how I feel about OTC birth control pills but I do think they should be free. No young girl should have to have a baby because she doesnt know what else to do. I hope the male pill comes out soon because I would have force fed it to mine even if I had to hide it in snickers bars.

I know I wish I had waited on my first one at least a couple more years. Even 3 more years would have made a world of difference. I cant imagine having a baby at 15.

 

[Nancy]

It turns out she was 14 when she had her first and recently posted on the internet that she would like to put him up for adoption but couldn't find toddler adoption agencies.

 

[Hound dog]

I dunno that I'd do as much blaming on her early age of motherhood as anything else. We must remember there once was a time, really not that long ago, when having a first child at 15-16 yrs of age was a common event. It's too easy to pick out that one thing and say that is the reason. Which is "assuming" when so many other parents are committing similar crimes and that is not the case. When I read about such cases I figure there are usually multiple factors, both known and unknown, contributing to the situation. With this one? How many different foster environments was she exposed to and what was the quality of care? Since she was in the system, what was the family background medically ect? Said she'd been in treatment quite a while........says a lot right there.

 

[Nancy]

I'm not blaming her age for everything but things,were much different in the,world years ago when girls had babies at 15. And I'm fully aware of all her other issues. But babies should not be having babies. And the fact that she had issues is another reason why she should not be having children that early. I also will not blame the foster homes necessarily. Where were her parents.why don't they carry the same burden we put on foster families. And the system did not fail her. She has been receiving services even after she turned 18 in an attempt to help her care for herself and her children and receive education. She was far too young to have three children by the age of 20 when she couldn't take care of herself.

 

[Fran]

Nancy, it seems mother's or father's killing their children was so rare 20yrs ago that it would absolutely stun the country. Now it's not uncommon. It's a horrible thing to see.
In my mind sex happens. As a parent, I prepared both boys over the course of years about responsibility, birth control, no meaning no and serious consequences of STD's and fatherhood. It's no guarantee but pretending that they are going to be celibate until we parents thinks is appropriate is ridiculous. There would be no abortion issues if birth control was used more and treated as acceptable.
This young girl was ill equipped and had no family supports as our kids have when our kids pull a bone headed manuever and get pregnant. Her having children may because she is looking to have a family of her own and to belong or she has less mental capability than average. It's absolutely no excuse for murder and never will be but were there signs? Truthfully, what do you do if, as a mother, you can't manage and are in danger of harming your children? It's such a new phenomena that there isn't anything in place that I know of. Such a sad sad story.

 

[Hound dog]

I'm not blaming her age for everything but things,were much different in the,world years ago when girls had babies at 15. And I'm fully aware of all her other issues. But babies should not be having babies. And the fact that she had issues is another reason why she should not be having children that early. I also will not blame the foster homes necessarily. Where were her parents.why don't they carry the same burden we put on foster families. And the system did not fail her. She has been receiving services even after she turned 18 in an attempt to help her care for herself and her children and receive education. She was far too young to have three children by the age of 20 when she couldn't take care of herself.

I'm not placing blame on the "system" either, necessarily. I was just pointing out that it can be easily to look at what appears to be an obvious reason and ignore other multiple contributing factors both large and small. It's just human nature to do so when faced with such a horrible thing as this. We have a need to understand, even though we most likely never will.

 

[CrazyinVA]

Horribly tragic story, and obviously there are many details we don't know regarding her history. But just as we don't want people to judge us by the actions of our own children, I don't think we can point to to her parents or anyone else here and place blame. We all know that sometimes, despite our best efforts, our children do horrible things. Thankfully none of mine ever did anything remotely close to this, but I've no doubt people saw Youngest drop out of school, have babies with two different abusive men, put her children in dangerous and neglectful situations, milk the system, and thought "why didn't her mother stop that?" Believe me, if I could have, I would have. I think that's why that many times these days, when I hear a tragic story about a young person committing a horrible crime, I immediately think of their parents, and what they must be going through knowing their son or daughter did such a thing.

I pray that young mother's other children are kept safe by someone that loves them.

 

[SuZir]

I don't know about your statistics but at least here parents killing their children has in reality become drastically less common. It feels differently and we too have had some very high attention cases there parents have killed their kids and there has been a lot of talk, how nowadays this happens. But facts are different. In old times kids got killed by their parents much more often. It just wasn't so public knowledge.

And I have to say that I agree with babies not having babies. Again, I don't know about your situation, but at least here younger teens becoming parents has never been that common. Okay, I live in north, and not only plants and animals but also people are slow to grow and mature around here (I think in average our kids are year or 18 months later in hitting puberty than for example NA Caucasian population, or at least our boys are.) And in old times because of the lack of food we were even later. Hundred years ago 16-year-old girls were just expecting their first menstruation, not their first baby. And because of economical things (highly agrarian economy with most people living in small farms) parents needed to keep their kids home and learning skills long enough for them to survive all the responsibilities. Because of that average first time moms in our society even in old times were more like 23-26-year-old. Nowadays few years older, because our kids start school late, many go for post-graduate degrees (masters tend to be a standard university degree here not baccalaureate) and take gap years and women want to be comfortably working before starting family. I was considered very, very young mother when I got difficult child because I was at my early twenties and hadn't completed my masters degree yet.

Tragedies do happen everywhere, always has, always will, but society should do things to prevent them. And one of the ways would be lowering teen pregnancy numbers (that I have to say you have really, really high compared to other western countries. You have about five times teen mothers compared to for example my country and also double or triple teen abortions. Then again there is not much difference between our countries on when kids start their sex life. You have bit more of those, who start really early but also much more those, who don't start before 18.) Also all kinds of supports and realistic chance to get rid of your kid without killing them would help. I think we have before wondered some very tragic cases here there it has seemed that parent had killed a difficult child and wondered if it was because they were not getting supports etc. That kind of things can prevent at least some of the tragedies. Not all, but some.

 

[Nancy]

I agree Fran, there should be some alternative for mothers who find they can't parent their children without having to have them "taken" from you but certainly prevention is the key before it even gets to that point. And if you find you can't parent one then goodness sake you shouldn't have two more. If she had had alternatives or gone somewhere where she could have gotten birth control I can't help but wonder if that would have saved her from having three.

The other two are now in the foster care system, just perpetuating the cycle.

I don't know the whys. I just have questions like everyone else and some anger.

 

[Star*]

There are choices.....sadly, not many girls know about this one as opposed to the tragedy that happened to this family. This is incredibly sad.

 

[Nancy]

More is coming out now about the mom. She and her siblings were abused, starved, beaten and neglected by their mother. They were removed from their home and placed in foster care. She was placed in some of the best foster homes and received excellent care but her wounds were too deep and she had two children by the age of 17. It's another example of a woman who never should have had children and then her child having children when she should not and the cycle being repeated over and over. And now her children are in foster care because there are no relatives willing to take them. Records show that she received counseling, therapy, education services, housing services, many many services over the years and nothing could undo the damage done by being raised in such a dysfunctional environment. That doesn't change by taking the child out of the environment.

It makes me angry when the politicians talk about birth control as if it was a luxury when often it is a necessity. I don't see one of them or anyone else stepping up to take in these children.

 

[Fran]

You are absolutely right about lots of talk and no follow through or plans Nancy.

 

[Mattsmom277]

As a former foster kid, from a dysfunctional and abusive and neglectful home chalk full of mental illness, and as a teen mom (pregnant at 17, had difficult child at 18) without a single source of familial support, and a list of supposedly provided services via child services (which were a joke and not as would have appeared on paper), this story breaks my heart. As repulsed as I am contemplating snuffing the life of ones own beautiful child, and as angry as I feel in my gut that this woman knew she needed out of her parenting situation but instead of surrendering care of her children to the state, instead killed her child, I also can't help but not allow myself to blame the parents, the system, the mother. I can practically assure myself without a doubt that it is a little bit of a whole heck of a lot of factors, that came together to create this horrific situation. The lost child is a clear victim, as are the surviving two children who now have this legacy to live with for their natural lives. On some level, not excusing in any sense the mothers actions resulting in a poor innocent child's life being taken so tragically, I also clearly recognize the mother as a victim in her own right. I somehow just can't bring myself to hate her. Her act, yes. Her? I feel for her. Some kids never have a chance, sounds like she didn't either. What a emotional series of questions to ask about the lack of proper protection of children, in so many cases in this story. We are failing our young people. I know first hand. I thought when reading this, there but for the grace of God, go I. May this poor child rest in peace and the surviving children find homes full of love and true family support which they will need to overcome this.

 

[CrazyinVA]

Here's the thing about birth control: even if they have free access to it, they have to *take* it. Youngest had birth control. Before her first child was born, she was on birth control. I took her to the doctor myself. She simply stopped taking it, and didn't insist on a condom. She *wanted* a baby. Second time, she wasn't living with me, but I still paid for her prescriptions. I bugged her about birth control, believe me. Again, she didn't take them. Didn't use a condom. She *wanted* another baby.

There are no simple answers here -- only tragedy. And in this story, it seems it's a legacy of tragedy. The cycle just goes on and on... heartbreaking.