As I’ve mentioned before, every time I write about one of these kinds of stories, that I have spent most of my adult life working with the basest forms of humanity. I’ve done that sort of work long enough to know that a woman giving birth to a baby does not necessarily translate into that woman being a mother. Human beings have the ability to be completely selfish and evil. Human beings will treat their children in a way that no other animal on earth will treat their young. We are capable of great things. Unfortunately, we are also capable of great evil.

Here’s yet another example of how a woman giving birth does not make her a mother …

A Harris County woman could face child endangerment charges after allegedly leaving eight children home alone while she traveled to Africa to marry a man she met on the Internet, authorities said Thursday.

Charges are pending against the woman, whose name was withheld Thursday. She reportedly flew to Nigeria on Monday, leaving the children with little food and no money.

Veteran Harris County authorities said the children’s case is one of the saddest they’ve seen.

“It’s just terrible,” said Lt. John Martin of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

A deputy making a welfare check at a home in the 11000 block of Barker Grove Lane in Cypress about 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday found six children between the ages of 1 and 9 alone inside, Martin said.

“At first the children would not answer the door, but the deputy managed to persuade them to let him in,” he said. “What he found inside the house was just deplorable conditions. There was trash everywhere, roaches everywhere. He said every item of clothing in the house was dirty and there was very little food.”

The children told the deputy their mother had left several days ago and they didn’t know how to reach her, Martin said.

“The children were given no way to contact the mother, even if there was some kind of emergency,” he said.

Later on Wednesday night a 15-year-old girl arrived at the house and told authorities her mother had flown to Nigeria on New Year’s Eve.

The teen said her mother left her in charge of four siblings — a 1-year-old boy, a 7-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy, said Estella Olguin, a spokeswoman for Child Protective Services. The teen was also caring for a neighbor’s 3-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, Olguin said. [Houston Chronicle]

In recent years our society has moved in the direction of leaving children with their birth parents no matter what the circumstances. I have personally seen children returned to birth parents who have had other children in the home die from neglect. Unfortunately, these children do not carry political weight so they don’t have the power to improve their own lots and are generally used as pawns in political maneuvering. Politicians tend to talk about how important it is for children to be with their natural parents, etc. and then go on to tell everyone how they are setting up parenting classes and all kinds of support to teach parents how to parent children. In my experience, and I have a lot of experience in this, when a parent is willing to use their child for prostitution, beat them nearly to death, leave them to starve or other unbelievable abuses, they generally don’t benefit from parenting classes. But it sounds good for a politician to make those kinds of assertions and if you aren’t closely involved with these people you are none the wiser. Bravo for the ever brave politician who wants to make everyone happy and give parents repeated chances to learn to be parents. Forget the kids and whatever chances they might deserve. The bottom line is money, of course. But they never say that. Its not really about what’s best for the child, but its cheaper for the state to leave the children with their biological parents rather than put them in foster homes or children’s homes where the child might have a chance for a better life.

This case is a perfect example of how these policies perpetuate the cycles of abuse. These kids didn’t have a chance and now they themselves are in the system, at least the older ones are. Heaven only knows how much abuse and neglect they endured before their mother finally did them the favor of leaving for another continent so that they state CAN’T make them go back to her and whatever man she happens to be with at the time.

But I got off on one of my soapboxes.

I hope the kids who are still salvageable get to have the opportunity to live in more loving homes with more opportunities to make their lives better. I hope the mother stays in Africa and doesn’t come back to interrupt and interfere with their lives again. She’s blown her chances as far as I’m concerned. Its time to give the kids a chance.

h/t: Conservative Thoughts