My Rant For Today

I have been at my “new” job for almost 2 years. I work approximately 2 blocks from a Planned Parenthood. Almost every day, rain or shine, summer or winter, I see an older woman standing on the curb in front of the building holding a sign that reads “I regret my abortion”. Yesterday as I was driving home, she wasn’t there but two girls who looked like older teenagers were there instead. They were holding up a sign that read, “My body, my choice”.

Contrary to what you may be thinking: this post isn’t about abortion, pro-life or pro-choice.

But I digress.

A big story on the news for the past couple of months has been about this mother who hasn’t been able to produce her 7-year-old son or 17-year-old daughter since September. She said they were fine, but no one has seen them. When the heat got too hot, she and her new husband high-tailed it to Hawaii without telling anyone. But they were found, she was arrested and extradited back to Idaho to face the music. No one thinks those poor kids are still alive, especially since the woman’s ex-husband, brother, and the new husband’s ex-wife are dead.

My thought on this, like every time something happens to a child, is hey terrible parent: you might not want your child but there are thousands of adults who can’t have children that would have happily adopted yours. And loved them. And taken wonderful care of them. But you were too selfish or deranged or adrenaline-fueled to let your child live. It’s tough enough for children these days without the parents killing them. I’m sorry: allegedly killing them.

I wonder why, at this time in history, children seem to be so expendable. They get bullied and shamed into suicide. Parents up and move away: leaving the children to their own devices. Moms have done the mom thing, and the wife thing, and now they want to do their own thing. They abandon their child if they don’t live up to the parents’ standards, or go in a direction that contradicts the parents’ beliefs. They’ll abuse their child or let someone else do it. The child is an “inconvenience” to the parents’ “freedom”. Should have thought of that before you had kids.

The excuse that really makes my blood boil is when a parent gets into a new relationship and the new “love” doesn’t want the children. So instead of letting the other parent have the children: the children are killed and the parent lies about it. Seriously? WTF? And the name that immediately springs to mind is Susan Smith. She killed her two beautiful sons for a man, Tom Findlay, who didn’t want kids at all, much less her kids, instead of giving them to her ex-husband.

Take a look on social media on any day and you can find a story about some atrocity that was done to a child. Or watch Steve Wilkos. At the end of the day that child didn’t ask to be here: you brought that child here via birth. Again: there are thousands of adults who would love to be parents and would have been thrilled to raise that child for you.

This post wouldn’t be complete without me voicing a pet peeve of mine. It’s when parents leave a young child in their car seat in the car and then forget the child is in the car and leave them to die in the heat. How in the world do you forget your child is in the car? Do you never look in the rear-view mirror? Does the child not make any noise? Don’t you live with that child and see it every day? Isn’t putting the child in the car seat a regular practice with you? And then, when the parent remembers the child hours later, or someone happens to see the child in the car and it died, the parent is so broken up about it that it’s pitiful. Then everyone says that the parent shouldn’t be charged with criminal negligence or anything, because the loss of the child is horrific enough and the parent gets off.

BUT if you leave a dog in the car in the heat, you’ll get arrested if anything happens to it. So does that mean the dog’s life is worth more than the baby’s life? Again: children are expendable.

Okay: rant over. I knew my share of “expendables” when my daughters were growing up. Thankfully, I took most of them in and what a difference it made, no matter how long or how short a time they were with us. I’m so glad I was able to help them feel like they were worthy to be loved, and that they had someone who believed in them. Even to this day.