Who Will Care For the Children?

Another horrific case of child abuse has hit the papers, bringing with it a little girl lying in what doctors believe could be an irreversible coma, questions of accountability, fingerpointing and blame-placing on the part of a government agency, and the question of "the right to die."

It also brings with it a larger question -- when families, government agencies, medical professionals and society fail, who will care for the children?

Ironically, the substantive debate and attention to child abuse started here in Everett over 20 years ago when the beating death of 3 year old Brandy Mallett by her live in babysitter Elizabeth Hutchison threw the spotlight on the Department of Social Services and their ability (or lack of it) to track and oversee cases of child abuse and neglect. We've heard of many cases over the years since Brandy's tragic death of children beaten and abused or neglected by their own parents or by foster parents while DSS seemingly appears unable or unwilling to take substantive action to protect them. Now 11 year old Haleigh Poutre lies in a coma at Baystate Medical Center as a result of repeated abuse by her aunt/adoptive mother and her husband.

All the signs were there to indicate there was abuse taking place, but authories, from DSS to medical professionals charged with caring for Haleigh's many injuries, took the word of her monster-of-a-"mother" that the child was injuring herself. They accepted this woman's contention that Haleigh was a young girl with severe emotional problems who often hurt herself. They chose this woman's word above overwhelming evidence that Haleigh was being horribly abused.

It's the headline grabbing cases like Haleigh's that make us fear the worst -- that Haleigh Poutre or Brandy Mallett or Lisa Steinberg (who was beaten to death at the age of six by her adoptive father Joel Steinberg in New York) are not anamolies, but a growing symptom of a society that can neither control nor police itself. What does it say about us that these types of tragedies can happen?

That the Department of Social Services is overworked and understaffed has long been the battle cry . . . and it may well be true. What does it say about about us as a society that we do not demand of our elected officials that they provide the services needed to protect the most vulnerable among us?

When Brandy Mallett was murdered, there was testimony from neighbors, from police and from medical professionals about reported incidents of abuse that went uninvestigated. Brandy's father also abused Brandy and her older brother and had actually held a knife to the boy's throat. Yet there was no one there to save these children -- attention didn't come to them until it was too late for one of them.

Social Services had been to the filthy apartment Lisa Steinberg shared with her younger brother and the people who dared to call themselves her parents, and yet she was kept in that "home" until the day she was beaten so badly and left on a cold bathroom floor unconscious for hours before her "mother" called for help. She died three days later from "blunt force trauma to the head" inflicted by her "father."

And so our greatest fear is becoming our tragic reality -- Haleigh Poutre, Brandy Mallett and Lisa Steinberg are not anamolies. Yet where is the sustained outrage?

Some people will say that it is up to the parents to take care of their own children . . . and in a perfect world, they would. Have you looked around lately? We don't live in a perfect world. And the outrage we hear now over Haleigh is not that she was allowed to stay in a situation with horror beyond description. The outrage we hear now surrounds whether she should be allowed to live or die. It seems that now that DSS has custody of her, they're not quite sure what to do about her. Her "stepfather" wants to continue life support -- because if it's removed and she dies, he could be charged with manslaughter or murder, not just the assault with which he is currently charged. Her biological mother, who gave up her parental rights several years ago and has no legal standing, wants her to be allowed to die. Her biological father has not been in her life since she was three years old.

The right to life people want her to live; the right to die people want her to be allowed to die with dignity.

If only we had all cared so much about Haleigh before her "parents" smashed her skull with a baseball bat.

If only we could all pay a little bit more attention, speak up a little more, be a little more insistent when we suspect that something "isn't quite right." Is that a lot to ask of our society? Is it a lot to ask that we all care for the children?