Saturday, July 14, 2007

Some People Should Not Be Allowed to Have Children!

ARLINGTON, Texas — A 24-year-old Texas mother is in jail after she treated her 2-year-old son's head injury with a Popsicle instead of calling 9-1-1.
Ebony Thorne's son Joshua later died of the injury.
Arlington police said the boy fell eight feet down a U-shaped stairwell in Thorne's apartment Wednesday morning. Investigators said instead of calling for an ambulance, Thorne placed a Popsicle on her son's head and put him to bed.
When the boy's father arrived later, he found Joshua unresponsive. Police said he called Thorne's mother, who drove to the apartment from Fort Worth and called 911.
Officers found bruises and marks around the toddler's head and dried blood on his nose and mouth.
Thorne's charged with injury to a child by omission/criminal negligence. Her 3-year-old son and 10-month-old girl were returned to their grandmother, who had custody of all three children.

HERE'S ANOTHER ONE -

POLAND - A baby boy in Poland was born drunk.
Doctors decided to check his blood-alcohol level because his mother was drunk when she arrived to give birth.
What they saw frightened them.
A doctor tells the PAP news agency that 12 hours after he was born, the boy had a blood-alcohol level six times the legal limit for driving. That means he was drunk before he was even born. He weighed five pounds, seven ounces at birth.
Doctors say the baby will likely suffer permanent neurological damage from his mother's drinking.

OH WAIT! HERE'S ONE MORE!!

RENO, Nev. — A couple authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect.
The children of Michael and Iana Straw, a boy age 22 months and a girl age 11 months, were severely malnourished and near death last month when doctors saw them after social workers took them to a hospital, authorities said. Both children are doing well and gaining weight in foster care, prosecutor Kelli Ann Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts each of child neglect. Each faces a maximum 12-year prison sentence.
Viloria said the Reno couple were too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing "Dungeons & Dragons" series, to give their children proper care.
"They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games," Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.
Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking, investigators said.
The Straws have been given public defenders. The Associated Press left a message Saturday with the public defender's office.
Michael Straw is an unemployed cashier, and his wife worked for a temporary staffing agency doing warehouse work, according to court records. He received a $50,000 inheritance that he spent on computer equipment and a large plasma television, authorities said.
While child abuse because of drug addiction is common, abuse rooted in video game addiction is rare, Viloria said.
Last month, experts at an American Medical Association meeting backed away from a proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder, saying it had to be studied further. Some said the issue is like alcoholism, while others said there was no concrete evidence it's a psychological disease.
Patrick Killen, spokesman for Nevada Child Abuse Prevention, said video game addiction's correlation to child abuse is "a new spin on an old problem."
"As we become more technologically advanced, there's more distractions," Killen said. "It's easy for someone to get addicted to something and neglect their children. Whether it's video games or meth, it's a serious issue, and (we) need to become more aware of it."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally Agree with you here

There should be some sort of state controlled breeding program, because some people are not fit to procriate

Jilly said...

"Last month, experts at an American Medical Association meeting backed away from a proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder, saying it had to be studied further."

I'm no medical professional, so I'm certainly not qualified to say whether or not video game addiction should be a recognised condition or not.

But in the case of the Straws, I'd question whether this was an addiction in the true sense of the word, unless they were failing to attend to their own needs as well. If that were the case, I might be more willing to believe that there was some kind of impulse that they couldn't fight against. As it is, I'm more inclined to believe that it was just some of the worst kind of parenting. If you can call even it parenting.

But I'm not going to fall into the trap of blaming the video game. It's too easy and detracts from the real issue. Child protection is one of the most important things in society but flying the flag against video games isn't going to help in the slightest. The way I see it, if you're even capable of neglecting your children in favour of a video game, there has to be something very wrong with you in the first place. And that would manifest itself in one way or another.