Having children is not a right; it’s a privilege. A few recent high-profile news stories demonstrate ample evidence why this philosophy should be followed more closely.
On Aug. 3, seven-year-old Katelynn Sampson was found dead in her caregiver’s home, the victim of alleged abuse. Her mother, who according to reports was battling a drug addiction, left Katelynn with this family as she tried to straighten out her own life.
Katelynn wasn’t her only child; two other children had already been removed from her care or relinquished by her. There’s no doubt addiction is a debilitating disease, but why did this woman think she had the right to bring Katelynn into the turmoil that was her life?
The woman she entrusted her youngest child to is a convicted felon who also had children that didn’t live with her, and yet, had borne two more children, now in the care of children’s aid, into the world.
Another case of questionable parenting and parenthood involves Stanley James Tippett, who was recently arrested for kidnapping a 12-year-old Peterborough girl. Never mind the fact he was a suspect in the 1999 death of another teenage girl or had been convicted of harassing a 21-year-old female neighbour, he is also the parent of five children, well, maybe six now that an alleged mistress has come forward.
Let’s not only discuss the wisdom of a man with alleged predator tendencies fathering children in the first place, the logic of his wife should also be examined. This woman knew about the crime of which her husband was convicted, and I’m sure there were signs of danger ahead, yet she continued to let him father her children.
“I love him so much, I just wish he could be good once in a while,” she was quoted as saying following a court appearance by her husband this week.
Tippett’s mother was also present and commented to the media that “he’s not the son I raised.” She then went on to talk about the stress she’s feeling because her other son was charged with second-degree murder last year in the death of an 11-month-old child.
Not rushing to judgement, it’s safe to assume this woman didn’t deserve any mother-of-the-year awards when her sons were growing up. If that wasn’t enough, her mothering “skills” are still being tested on a 12-year-old daughter.
Last but not least, we can’t forget about the parents of the baby girl abandoned in the freezing stairwell of a Toronto apartment on Jan. 3. Although they deny they are the parents of the girl, even if DNA evidence supposedly indicates otherwise, both were arrested in May and charged with failing to provide the necessities of life, assault and abandonment.
In June, other charges of assault and failing to provide the necessities of life were laid against the couple, this time in relation to their other three children, aged six and under.
In a court hearing this week, as the father was deemed a flight risk and denied bail for the second time, his once-again pregnant wife sat in the courtroom supporting him.
The children born into all these families are starting life with the odds stacked against them. Debate the nature versus nurture argument all you will, but family dysfunction is likely to be repeated, regardless of how young these children are when and if they are removed from these environments.
Born innocent, but guilty by association, their only crime was the misfortune of having parents who, despite not being in control of their own lives, were misguided or selfish enough to assume they should be put in charge of someone else’s.