Bringing the full weight of the legal system down on all parents whose children were harmed by third parties, regardless of whether the parents even knew anything about it, is monstrous cruelty.

Pray tell where did i say that all parents should be responsible whose children were harmed by a third part? I’m specifically talking about this case.

Unpredictable random acts of violence happen. Would be lunacy to punish the parents for that. On the other end of the scale here we are talking about abuse ongoing for years. By someone who the mother brought into the child’s life. Somewhere between those two ends of the scale i run out of sympathy for the excuse of “she didn’t know”. Where exactly the bundary is I don’t know. What i know is that in the scenairo described in the article i strongly believe we are in the “she should have known” territory.

Think it through. Do you think that the kid who was praying for someone to come help her, and for whom the law enforcement officers were sufficiently concerned about that they started learning brick manufacturing, do you think that kid was not at least a little bit off? You know, just enough for their mum’s to become concerned and start looking for an explanation?

You call what i say monstrous cruelty. I tell you what i think is monstrous cruelty: no kid, ever, in the history of humankind has ever had the opportunity to consent to being born. Giving life to a kid is a choice. Especially in this day and age. By choosing to father a kid or give birth to a kid one becomes responsible for the wellbeing of said kid. How far and how deep that responsibility goes can be debated. I strongly believe that the parents (both the mom and the dad) is responsible who they bring into their young kid’s life. They are responsible for knowing what is going on with the kid. (Not necessarily every step and every breath of the kid, but you know the large stuff, like for example are they being sexually abused.) The parents are also responsible to have a relationship with their kids where they would be confided by their kids if something goes terribly wrong. So the kid would go ask them for help, before praying for some help comming from who knows where. These are basics. And these are separate but interlacing failures on the part of the mother. And that is why i think what she did (or didn’t do) is monstrously cruel.