WHY? Why? Why?

[peaceful2100]

Excuse me if I vent tonight but I am furious and very sad. Before I left for my night class this evening I was watching the first part of the news. Police found a 23 month old unconscious. This poor little baby has been severly bruised and beaten. She is in Critical care. Neighbors believe this has been going on for quite a while. As a mater of fact some of the neighbors have hotlined several times and nothing was done about it. According, to the DFS in my area (Division of FAMily services) there was not enough evidence for a investigaion. They told the one's who hotlined that even if they hear something nothing can be done unless they actually see something. Neighbors said they heard this little girl crying several times for very long periods of time. Yet, DFS has done nothing about it. This is not the first time something very traumatic has happened and DFS did not intervene in enough time. A couple years ago or so in my city there were two little twin boys who were only 8, they were abused and starved and kept away from the public by their mother and sadly they got very small and too malnourished and they died. Again back with that case with the twin boys DFS did nothing when several people hotlined. One person claimed they were hotlining for 3 years and still nothing was being done. I don't know about anyone else's DFS in their STATE or whatever your family services is called but I think the DFS system in my state is horrible and has serious, serious flaws. I just cannot stop crying tonight thinking about that innocent little girl and several other children who are crying out for help and who go through this but their voices cannot be heard. When are they even we going to wake up? When are these children going to have someone advocating for them? When are they going to listen to someone who is calling the hotline and giving the information? I am just furious and for anyone who believes in it please say a little prayer for this little girl in critical condition. I have not heard anything else as I have missed the late news this evening but I sure will watch the news in the morning as I always do before leaving home. Last time I heard the mother is not a suspect, the mother has a boyfriend that was there at the time they found the child and the boyfriend was arrested but he was arrested for giving a false ID and other charges he had on him only.

I really want to do something. I have seen WAYYYYYYYY to many innocent children be victims of abuse of all kinds especially when I was working in the daycare center. I just don't know how to get in and become an advocate for them. The one's who need an advocate the most are the one's who cannot speak up for themselves.

[peaceful2100, BSN, RN]

CRNAsomeday I see what you are saying and I talked to my cousin's wife today and she use to work for DFS and she told me that there is an EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY high turnover rate and that there is not enough people to do the job. She said the PAY is also very horrible she said she barely made $25,000.00 in a year and she said it is very stressful and there is just NO WAY they can answer every call. She also said sadly enough children will continue to be seriously injured and killed because she feels there is not quick solution. DFS is all for keeping families together whenever possible and many times they do not intervene until the VERY last minute IF AT all.

There was more info on the story, although the mothers boyfriend has not yet been charged he is now being looked at as a suspect and it is also believe that the mother of the girl and the mother's five year old son are also victims of abuse from the mother's boyfriend which makes it even sadder. I know this is a public board but please don't turn the posted I created into a pro-life and pro-choice debate. That is the last thing I want to be the cause of.

Thanks.

[NurseDennie, BSN, RN]

((((((((((((((((((((Julielpn)))))))))))))))))))))))))

I'm so sorry. That had to have been one of the hardest things to write about in your life.

I have to respectfully disagree with phandomrn. Child abuse is not about unwanted children. Now-a-days people who want abortions have them - even if they DO wait too long, there are people who will accommodate them.

IMHO, child abuse is about sickness. Other people have given examples, but sometimes people who very much wanted to have children end up molesting them or neglecting them through some mental deficiency on their part. I've even heard of people who adopt children (and you KNOW that isn't easy) and abused or neglected them.

And Julielpn, I'm very sorry if by that you feel that I've insulted your daughter. I cannot understand it, but it seems to be a fact that there are some women who are so afraid of being alone, or perhaps afraid of the man in their life, that they choose the abusive man rather than their children.

Love

Dennie

[jschut, BSN, RN]

NurseDennie~

I don't feel that you have insulted my daughter in any way shape or form! Please don't think that.

My daughter has always been as strong and as bull headed as I am. She just chose a different direction to apply her bull headedness... toward me.

At age 17, when her son was born, she was incredibly protective and a very good Mom to him. She continued thru school and worked till she finished, and I was extemely proud of her.

At age 18, she moved out, and that when "all hell broke loose" as one might say. She decided to be a stripper."Good money" she says. She got into drugs. "Not her fault, of course...the boyfriend...." We rescued our grandson from an abandoned house they were living in about this time. I can't describe the conditions... it was horrible. We drove to see her (3 hours away) and found him this way. We took him the same day. He was 2. She straightened up shortly there after, and found a nice apartment, and though she was still stripping... she found a nice man to marry. We all liked him, and our daughter said,"Oh Mom... this is it!" So, of course, we believed her and everything was wonderful for about a year. Then, she disappeared from her husband and the baby for a week. No one knew where she was. We ended up with our grandson again. But, true to form, she showed back up, crying and begging forgivness and swearing she'd NEVER do such a horrendous thing again. Well, she didn't. For about 2 months. Disappeared again. This time for a month. The very day we had an appointment with our lawyer to fight for custody, she she comes and gets him. Nothing we can do... we have no legal right to keep him. So we have to let her take him. The bruise on his lip happened this past August. He was here visiting us for a couple weeks with MY Mom and told us about how he gets hit all the time, and about how he gets whipped if he wets the bed, about how he has to sleep on the floor because he wets the bed, and so on and so on... I got tired and thought I could call CS to help me maybe just keep an eye on him, so nothing happened.

I called and got a recording. Left a message. This went on a good 7 times. A month later, my daughter blows up in my face about how it's all my fault, how he's NOT abused and all I want is to take him from her and so on.... This happened because the social worker called my daughter to set up an appointment with her and told her that her Mother had called to report a bruise on the baby's lip! (Are they allowed to tell?) So now, I haven't seen my Grandson since August, I miss him terribly and as soon as I finish Nurses School, I am taking my daughter to court for grandparents rights. I can show her where her stobborn streak came from! ANd if I see one single bruise on that boy, I won't call any more CS people, I'm going straight to court and fighting. I'm tired, and I won't see him abused in this manner any longer.

Sorry about rambling, but I wanted you to know the story....

Julie:)

[AZBRONXBABY]

Julie...

I just wanted to say that your signature line is very descriptive of you...God has placed you in your grandson's life for a very important reason. It may take a while, but I believe that you will be able to change his life for the better. I know that you already do just by keeping him in your thoughts and prayers (as I will) and by the amount of love you have for him, which I believe is evident in your writings. No, you're not rambling...you've chosen to share something quite personal with us and I thank you for that. I hope that venting here in this forum allows you some peace until the time you and your grandson are reunited. I really believe in my heart that will happen for you and him. I send you my love and prayers...stay strong...good things (and the right things) will happen for you...

God bless,

Christine :)

[NurseDennie, BSN, RN]

Julie -

I second what Christine just wrote!!!! I have to say that I admire you for more than one thing in this whole situation. For one thing, you are not dumping abuse and dislike on your daughter. For another thing, you're not defensive about your daughter and her choices. It sounds like you really are very, very, unusually realistic and objective about these people that you love so very much.

She's lucky to have you for her mum, and your grandson is lucky to have you too. Because I know from what you write and the way you write it that you are going to support and love both of them until she's well, and he won't be nearly as damaged through all this as he would have been if he didn't have you.

I'm proud to "know" you!

I can tell you're looking forward at the next few years, and thinking "ooooh, this is gonna Hurt." God bless you Julie, and you know that a bunch of us here are praying for you, and a whole bunch more who don't pray or don't believe in prayer are sending you warm, strengthening thoughts and "vibes."

Love

Dennie

[MickeymomRN]

Anyone have the same thoughts as I do....

I was just thinking about what these posts had in them.

Why is it that we applaude when the government steps in. ie, DCF into a family situation, but want them to keep out of other personal family situations, ie. a woman's choice to abort an innocent child?

Isn't abortion the worst kind of child abuse there is? We are shocked to see a child even so little as 2 mos old, be shaken to death or thrown across the room or burned with cigerettes but when a child is sucked out or chopped up and removed from it's warm home it is alright with some?

Just some thoughts....

Heartbroken to see all this violence to a small defenseless beautiful gift born and unborn.

To those out there that have been touched by this form of violence in one way or another, I pray that peace will fill your heart where the hurt lies. God bless the children, young and old!

[KellieRN]

The only thing I can say is people who abuse are sick-they are weak-cowardly people. I was abused for three years by my ex step father, who has been serviing 16 years now for what he did to me. I will say that kpeople who are abused must take what has happend to them and make themselves stronger. I think there is a big fall of American children who are abused, I think it is important to always let children know that people are there to listen to them no matter what. It is important to never give up on children.........................and most importantly NEVER give up on fighting for what is right and what you believe in.

[Doc@UAFS]

Some people say that I'm a hypocrit for being pro-life and pro-death penalty. And maybe I am. However, let me give you the reasoning. First, all babies are innocent regardless of the circumstances of their birth. I think we can all agree on that. Second, every child, from conception, deserves to be taken care of and loved. We call all agree on most of that. Third, every child deserves an equal opportunity to have a decent life and to succeed. That takes care of prolife.

There are some people who are so evil or so worthless that they deserve to be deprived of their most basic human rights. And I know the arguments that when we take away one persons rights, we weaken the rights of everyone else. There are simply some people who do not deserve the most basic of human rights.

And it has been said that some people will never be good mothers. I am not a mother, or a father or a brother. I am, however, a human being and a lover of people. If I did not love people, why would I be in this line of work? It certainly isnt for the ease of the job.

Quite simply, it is idiotic to continue to blindly follow the social norms in deciding what is best for a child. Whoever the governing agency is needs to place the child where he/she will be loved and have the best opportunity to have a good life. As much as I am a liberal, and very proud of it, these liberal judges make me physically ill. Their willingness to keep giving the undeserving, uncaring and completely unfit to abuse their children while the goverment (and ultimately the people) pay their bills has got to stop.

I suppose this has gotten way beyond the scope of the original post, but I felt like saying these things.

Yesterday in the SNA meeting, one of our clinical instructors talked about being politally active. His focus was on a state program called TEFRA. It provides funds for children with lifelong illnesses, regardless of family income. However, the state's economy is doing very badly. Therefore, the funding to DHS and TEFRA had to be cut. This would have left 3300 seriously ill children without healthcare. The parents, understandably furious, stormed the capital, and the governor found the money to keep it going for a while. The moral of the story is the same. We just have to talk long enough and loud enough and things will get changed. We just have to be willing to come together on the big issues, ignore the minor ones and work tirelessly to make things better.

The blame no longer lies on others when we see these horrible injustices, it lies on us when we are complacent.

Try something new: Thinking!

Doc

[KellieRN]

I agree with the Pro life/ pro-death penalty thing myself. I am 23 years old from houston texas. When I was about fifteen years old, my mother and step father were moving me and my sister into a new house. So the both of them took the day off to unpack the house together, and my step father took the boxes that were un packed and threw them into a dumpster behind a local grocery store. He noticed in this dumpster were a lot of sewing patterns that the near by fabric store had thrown out, so he decided to go home and get my motherm, bc she likes to sew, and take her to get the patterns out of the dumpster(pretty grosss i know) .....so they went back to tthe dumpster and my step dad starting digging ........and heard what he called a cat sound, so he thought, "oh I better get that poor cat out of here"......and began to dig in the dumpster........and discovered it wasn't a cat making the crying noises, it wasa little girl no more than five hours old, wrapped in a plastic baggie..........this was in the middle of Jan. in houston Tx........it was about 40 degrees outside................needless to say they took the baby out of the bag, and wrapped her in my dads shirt he had on...........and went tot he nearest phone and called 911..........then they went to the hospital with her...............she was eventaully adopted out to a loving family. What is sad is that this little girl would have never been found, and never given a chance at life,,,,,,,,,why ciouldn't the girl just have left her somewhere to be found.....all of this was on the news, we had news channels all out at our house, ...................and when the baby was in the hospital...........a young girl had called the hopsital and asked about the baby several times, but every attempt at finding the mother was a failure..................i think its important to educate young girls about this............also intresting to note, I am from Houston Texas.........and im sure a lot of you have heard something about the Andrea Yates trial, the mother who claims insanity after drowning her five children one by one in the bath tub................well my best friend that is teh 22 year old juror on the panel...........and i hope that this woman is put to death........not becasue of what she did, simply b/c she is already dead,,,,,,,,, look at what she has done...........anyone that knows anything about psychology knows that there is no life left for her.......................theres my 2Cents

[MickeymomRN]

I am too appalled at what Yates did to her 5 beautiful children. It all makes me sick. Remember Susan and the 2 boys in the car? I though don't have thoughts of giving the death penalty to these kinds of people. That's how pro-life I am. I actually don't think it's the pro-life thinking but my belief. (I don't want to bring religion into this b/c it's all screwed up) But I purely believe that if Jesus can forgive these women (if they had asked) then I can do the same. That's what God's grace is all about. I understand what Yates went thru. I too had PPD. I too had thoughts go thru my head about getting rid of the children. But I had one difference. I believed in life way too much and got help. Fortunately there was somewhere to go. With unknown or unidentified medical situations, people are just too naive to help out. Especially the doctors. Healthcare workers should be trained to recognize all these crisis situations and send out help. Maybe if we had more programs out there these mothers would have somewhere to go. As for these babies being thrown away, hopefully this will all change with the laws that protect them if they do it for the safety of the child. I know in Florida that if you leave the baby at a firestation or hospital you aren't going to be charged. Just imagine how many othr babies weren't discovered and no one knows about them? It just makes my stomach turn.

[nursedawn67, LPN]

Julie your story brought tears to my eyes! How sad for you to have to go through this! Sad not just because you are not getting to see your grandson, but the uncertainity of the situation and I can't imagine how you feel knowing your own child could do something like this. You are in our thoughts and prayers!

Originally posted by Julielpn

NurseDennie~

I don't feel that you have insulted my daughter in any way shape or form! Please don't think that.

My daughter has always been as strong and as bull headed as I am. She just chose a different direction to apply her bull headedness... toward me.

At age 17, when her son was born, she was incredibly protective and a very good Mom to him. She continued thru school and worked till she finished, and I was extemely proud of her.

At age 18, she moved out, and that when "all hell broke loose" as one might say. She decided to be a stripper."Good money" she says. She got into drugs. "Not her fault, of course...the boyfriend...." We rescued our grandson from an abandoned house they were living in about this time. I can't describe the conditions... it was horrible. We drove to see her (3 hours away) and found him this way. We took him the same day. He was 2. She straightened up shortly there after, and found a nice apartment, and though she was still stripping... she found a nice man to marry. We all liked him, and our daughter said,"Oh Mom... this is it!" So, of course, we believed her and everything was wonderful for about a year. Then, she disappeared from her husband and the baby for a week. No one knew where she was. We ended up with our grandson again. But, true to form, she showed back up, crying and begging forgivness and swearing she'd NEVER do such a horrendous thing again. Well, she didn't. For about 2 months. Disappeared again. This time for a month. The very day we had an appointment with our lawyer to fight for custody, she she comes and gets him. Nothing we can do... we have no legal right to keep him. So we have to let her take him. The bruise on his lip happened this past August. He was here visiting us for a couple weeks with MY Mom and told us about how he gets hit all the time, and about how he gets whipped if he wets the bed, about how he has to sleep on the floor because he wets the bed, and so on and so on... I got tired and thought I could call CS to help me maybe just keep an eye on him, so nothing happened.

I called and got a recording. Left a message. This went on a good 7 times. A month later, my daughter blows up in my face about how it's all my fault, how he's NOT abused and all I want is to take him from her and so on.... This happened because the social worker called my daughter to set up an appointment with her and told her that her Mother had called to report a bruise on the baby's lip! (Are they allowed to tell?) So now, I haven't seen my Grandson since August, I miss him terribly and as soon as I finish Nurses School, I am taking my daughter to court for grandparents rights. I can show her where her stobborn streak came from! ANd if I see one single bruise on that boy, I won't call any more CS people, I'm going straight to court and fighting. I'm tired, and I won't see him abused in this manner any longer.

Sorry about rambling, but I wanted you to know the story....

Julie:)

[nursedawn67, LPN]

All these stories show what sick people live in this world! We have to let our children know that any touch is not good and to run and tell, unfortunately some kids slip through this theory because they are not in school and not being told by some elder. Also some are so young, that they never had a chance. I was 12 when a step grandfather tried this, and I didn't tell anyone until I was 16. In my case as it was beginning one evening I knew something was wrong and I ran to be where my cousins were, I was more afraid for my cousins who were younger then myself. But the brief encounter has affected me to this day, more on a subconcious level then myself thinking about it. It's hard to explain. But if it can affect someone who got what little abuse I did, imagine what it does to the children who abused and neglected daily, for years!?!?

Love your children, tell them daily, tell them daily how important they are to you, tell them about the difference in bad and good no matter how bad and awful it seems they have to know! It may save their precious lives or a friend of thiers or even just an acquaintance!