M
manny15
Guest
Every once in a while, I write an essay for the Daily Dose about the rapid demise of responsible parenting in modern America. Some of these items really press people's buttons - as with the article I wrote back on May 10, 2005. That article got more reader responses than any other Daily Dose article I can remember.
It was about an incident that made national news in which a kindergarten student became so unruly and out of control that the classroom was evacuated and the police had to be called. They put her in handcuffs, which she deserved (and were required to keep her under control), and summoned her mother...
Naturally, the woman planned to sue the school board.
Yes, instead of looking in the mirror and seeing the problem (herself), she - like so many others these days - sought to blame the state or society at large. If recollection serves, this woman was a single mom, and clearly she suffers from a victim mentality herself. She also clearly seeks to profit from her child's unruliness by painting her as some sort of victim. That's a good example to set, isn't it?
My point in that essay was that this berserk child WAS a victim. But not of the police or her educators - rather, she was the victim of what I called "malparentitis." Translation: Bad parenting disease. I'm telling you, even though the medical mainstream hasn't given this rampant condition an official name or diagnosis yet, it's every bit as big a health-care concern as any number of other bona-fide medical conditions...
How is this possible, you're asking?
When improper or destructive parenting leads to things like drug use, promiscuity, violent rebelliousness, murderous rampages in our schools, or reckless (or drunken) teenage driving, we ALL pay the price. Bad parents truly are a killer disease, when their negligence results in others' deaths.
Here's why I'm bringing this up again now: I've just finished reading one of the most shocking, horrifying, gruesome and incomprehensible accounts of parental abuse I've ever come across - and I've heard and seen more than a few. Keep reading, and make sure you're sitting down, because you're about to be outraged in a manner that likely doesn't happen to you that often...
According to a recent Associated Press article (surprisingly, the story wasn't picked up by nearly as many other sources as I though it would be), a Pennsylvania woman used her 4-week old baby AS A WEAPON...
Apparently, a domestic dispute between the mother and her boyfriend (the illegitimate baby boy's father) escalated to such a degree that the woman seized her infant out of his bed by the feet and swung him like a war club - striking the father in the head.
When asked by investigators, she claimed she'd been drinking and just "snapped."
The child, at the time of this writing, is in a medically induced coma at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Doctors there hope the coma will help the child recover from his injuries - a fractured skull and a bruised and bleeding brain...
Authorities are holding the unemployed mother, 27-year-old Chytoria Graham, on $75,000 bail for charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and simple assault. What about attempted murder? They've also taken custody of her 4 other children and placed them with the state's child services department. I'm no fan of the state raising kids, but in this case it's clearly for the best...
Of course, lawyers for Graham are claiming she suffers from ailments like the very real post-partum depression and the so-called "battered woman syndrome."
But I know a case of malparentitis when I see it - especially when it leaves fractures, bruises and scars...
Lamenting today's parenting,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
It was about an incident that made national news in which a kindergarten student became so unruly and out of control that the classroom was evacuated and the police had to be called. They put her in handcuffs, which she deserved (and were required to keep her under control), and summoned her mother...
Naturally, the woman planned to sue the school board.
Yes, instead of looking in the mirror and seeing the problem (herself), she - like so many others these days - sought to blame the state or society at large. If recollection serves, this woman was a single mom, and clearly she suffers from a victim mentality herself. She also clearly seeks to profit from her child's unruliness by painting her as some sort of victim. That's a good example to set, isn't it?
My point in that essay was that this berserk child WAS a victim. But not of the police or her educators - rather, she was the victim of what I called "malparentitis." Translation: Bad parenting disease. I'm telling you, even though the medical mainstream hasn't given this rampant condition an official name or diagnosis yet, it's every bit as big a health-care concern as any number of other bona-fide medical conditions...
How is this possible, you're asking?
When improper or destructive parenting leads to things like drug use, promiscuity, violent rebelliousness, murderous rampages in our schools, or reckless (or drunken) teenage driving, we ALL pay the price. Bad parents truly are a killer disease, when their negligence results in others' deaths.
Here's why I'm bringing this up again now: I've just finished reading one of the most shocking, horrifying, gruesome and incomprehensible accounts of parental abuse I've ever come across - and I've heard and seen more than a few. Keep reading, and make sure you're sitting down, because you're about to be outraged in a manner that likely doesn't happen to you that often...
According to a recent Associated Press article (surprisingly, the story wasn't picked up by nearly as many other sources as I though it would be), a Pennsylvania woman used her 4-week old baby AS A WEAPON...
Apparently, a domestic dispute between the mother and her boyfriend (the illegitimate baby boy's father) escalated to such a degree that the woman seized her infant out of his bed by the feet and swung him like a war club - striking the father in the head.
When asked by investigators, she claimed she'd been drinking and just "snapped."
The child, at the time of this writing, is in a medically induced coma at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Doctors there hope the coma will help the child recover from his injuries - a fractured skull and a bruised and bleeding brain...
Authorities are holding the unemployed mother, 27-year-old Chytoria Graham, on $75,000 bail for charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and simple assault. What about attempted murder? They've also taken custody of her 4 other children and placed them with the state's child services department. I'm no fan of the state raising kids, but in this case it's clearly for the best...
Of course, lawyers for Graham are claiming she suffers from ailments like the very real post-partum depression and the so-called "battered woman syndrome."
But I know a case of malparentitis when I see it - especially when it leaves fractures, bruises and scars...
Lamenting today's parenting,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
