Comments on Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father...

These stories make me want to cry, to hold my own son and never let anyone near him.

Lock 'em up for good.

Jesus Christ!

why didn't the pediatrician who examined her a month prior report anything?

God Damn, Savage. This has to be one of the sickest "Every Child"'s that you've ever posted.

@5. Agreed. For some reason, this one struck me as more egregious than most of the other posts. My stomach actually turned...

Perhaps the Chairman Mao method of dealing with particularly undesirable behavior would be appropriate:

One in the head and one in the neck.

At least then there's no risk of "re-offending".

Criminal negligence is the best they can do? Jesus.

@5 agreed. These posts do nothing but make my heart ache for the innocent child victimzed. But I guess if it serves Dan Savage's purpose, then it hasn't been a death in vain.

Again, way to spot an opportunity Dan. It's vile and vulgar, but it's serving a purpose. And I'm sure my comment will be censored before noon anyway, seems to be happening a lot lately.

I appreciate the reason for this segment, and the point is well taken. Many of these "Every Child..." articles are disgusting examples of bad parents, and of kids who would be better off with loving gay parents than dysfunctional, cruel straight ones.

But this one is too much, Dan. Please remove. That poor little girl - and this graphic description could be a trigger for some abuse victims, not to mention could be a turn-on for pedophiles.

Please, please remove this post or redact the graphic portions.

StotheL, it's not a work of fiction. Pretending this write-up doesn't exist doesn't mean it didn't happen.

A good reason to bring back burning at the stake.

like @5 said and ... oh hell...

We should have our faces rubbed in these notices on a regular basis. People are complacent and children die as a result. If you don't like hearing about incidents like this, I ask you: What have you done to prevent them?

Dan, you should restrict these to US-based crimes only because Canada...well they're right in so many ways that we shouldn't rub their noses in this kind of yucky maple syrup.

@15 - Well, gay adoption is illegal in some provinces/territories of Canada. I continue to be unnerved by Dan's cheerful reporting of the latest parental crime against humanity, but the Canadians probably have it coming as much as anyone.

14, What on earth could I have done to prevent this? Assholes will have kids. Assholes will abuse their kids. I see them every day. I met a 15-year-old kid yesterday who suffers from shaken baby syndrome. He was thrown against a wall when he was two months old. If I could go back in time, I couldn't have stopped it. No straight couple needs a license to raise a kid.

Dan, I know why you post these stories, but I wonder if they actually achieve anything. Can't you consider finding a better way to make your point?

And WTF has any of this got to do with CANADA???

@11, totally right. Closing your eyes and plugging your ears doesn't stop bad parents from fucking up innocent kids till they die. It happens, all the time. My adopted cousin has shaken baby syndome because his alcoholic mother hit his head against the crib when he wouldn't go to sleep. There are always going to be unfit parents, and pretending they don't exist doesn't make them go away. The more people who read stuff like this, the more likely someone will be moved enough to work towards preventing this sort of thing (and it CAN be prevented).

Perhaps one of the sicker things is that I don't remember seeing this story in the paper here, in Canada's largest city. But we did have a front-page headline about hockey!

...and please don't tell me the fact that this happened in New Brunswick has ANY BEARING ON THE POINT AT ALL.

(For the sake of argument: Chris, most of the people who romanticize Canada are AMERICANS.)

Sorry, I've been kind of ranting, but Erin @19 -- how? It seems to me there have always been horror stories like this, and there always will be. Am I just being pessimistic? (This story depressed the hell out of me, I'll admit).

Irena, as far as what you can do about this....

Pay attention to the part of the story where social workers claimed that they were unable to do something because they were overworked. Voting, volunteering, and talking can affect the work of social services.

Yes, this is disturbing to hear about, but turning a collective blind eye isn't a good remedy to being disturbed.

@23, overworked? Did that excuse ring true with you because it just made me more angry. Everyone I know who says they're overworked is full of shit.

Glad to see everyone calling Dan out for this callous, meaningless post. Give it a break Gloria, this is on the CBC website, and the Leafs almost never win.

Left coast @ 24, clearly you don't know much about being a social worker. Most of these people have a caseload of hundreds of kids. They're supposed to visit families at least once a month in most states, and spend enough time to make sure the kids are doing ok, work with parents on how to do a better job, keep an eye out for abuse and negligence, etc.

Maybe you should try visiting 150 families in 30 days, as well as doing scads of paperwork after each visit, as well as responding to new cases when doctors or teachers report suspicious incidents, before you start saying social workers aren't overworked.

23 is dead on in saying that if we'd do more to fund, support, and staff social services, then there would be many fewer cases like this for Dan to post.

And like always, idiots who post to say Dan shouldn't be writing about these incidents, YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ IT. If you want to ignore this kind of stuff, the title of these posts is a dead giveaway as to the content, so why the hell don't you just scroll on past and stop whining so much?

Just to add on to what Megan @25 said, try doing all that while making less than $25k a year (and in some counties/states, less than $20K).

Our priorities are in the US are so screwed up. My state has an election soon. One of the most hotly debated issues is whether or not to subsidize the professional football team, with most of the electorate coming down on the "pro" side. There has been no discussion on how to fund our way underfunded child welfare system, or what to do about the thousands of kids in the foster care system.

Thank you for posting Dan. It's a horrible thing and it wouldn't have made a blip on my radar if you didn't report it.

And I don't want to live a life ignorant of what other people suffer... if you don't understand what's going on, you can't work to change it. I want to change it.

Seems to me that the voters have made their choice. Care for children (beyond a blanket denial of homosexuals raising them) is not very important to voters.

Other things (like their own kids, pro football, hockey, their own job, etc.) are more important to them.

Hell, evidently, most of us don't even like hearing about the failures to take care of kids.

It's pretty clear to me that people don't care that much. Leave it be.

Um...we should now censor and redact news items because some of you find them distasteful or because they might "trigger" abuse victims?! I'll tell you what triggers abuse victims: the conscious desire of the public to NOT listen to stories of abuse. You know what else such active refusal to see or listen might trigger? Abuse. Get your heads on straight and remove your hands from over your eyes and ears...

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Perhaps, they should start charging with criminal negligence those judges that send children to mothers only for obvious political reasons; but in a justice system as totally anti-father biased, and protected by equally anti-father biased governments, as is the case in Canada, this remains a dream.