Failing the Family Unit: The Caylee Marie Anthony Story

is it a matter of guilt or innocence or should it be a matter of culpable neglect? It is presumed one is innocent here until proven guilty, and we would all like to think that is how the system is run but significant changes have changed the way things are done.

In the old days it was a matter of "he said/she said" and the belief that the person could do it. And now it seems we have slipped into the old mentality of long ago. Media and music and paper and video make it all to easy for "Joe Public" to prosecute, judge, convict a person based on very little evidence at all. Keep in mind that when you hear of an event or crime being investigated, they don't tell you about all the facts that were purged in the hunt for the truth.

I am a mother and I know what searching for facts can do as far as "convicting" my little one of whatever infractions she has done. I refuse to punish her unless I have a confession or viable proof as to what has occurred. Yes, there are times she gets away "scott-free" with her little misdeeds, but most often will come and tell me about it later and take her lumps or another day she will slip up and be found out. Today a woman was found innocent of a most heinous crime.

Her crime was that of killing her child to suit her own ends and terminate her responsibility of parenthood. Over the course of the last three years I have watched that state to which I live and the country to which it lies in slander and rake her over the coals. I myself considered her a failure as a parent and thought to myself out loud and quietly that if they can prove she did it, that no one would like to see her hang, fry, gassed or whatever more than I. But I reserved the thought of deciding she was a murderer. The truth was I wouldn't have wanted to be in her shoes for all the peanuts in Alabama! Once the evidence was unrolled and the child's body was recovered, she was subject number two, yes...you heard correctly-number TWO. There was a man before her who found the little girl that was subject number one and then, even still, she's two and a half because they speculated her tales about a nanny(non existent)thus making her two. So much evidence was recovered that you would think we had our woman.

Unfortunately, thinking gets us all in trouble and Casey Anthony was found not guilty on all three charges resulting in the death of her child, Caylee Marie Anthony. She was found to be guilty only of providing false information to a law enforcement officer on four counts and with her three years incarceration while waiting for her wheels of justice to spin, she has served more than what would be deemed her time. She will be a free woman come tomorrow, Thursday July seventh. She will be able to pick up her life and be dragged in and out of court in civil cases and also the possibility of lesser charges being brought into her future life to try and re-convict her to appease the unhappy masses. She has no home to go to having it been completely destroyed in the quest for truth, she may even not have any possessions left of her daughter's. She cannot go home to her parents' home either. That bond was broken violently in the need to construct her case. She cannot go to the town over, a friend's house a new job and new state. She would be better off staying in jail, and having the option to bail out, she chose to sit there the next day to await sentencing because she knows she has no one, nothing to take her in. Thank you media and the information highways and byways and the me mechanism of the whole circus.

My issue is this. We have spent millions of dollars to prosecute this woman, by all degrees who is a failure of a parent based upon her need and actions before and during the days her daughter was missing, and not one word has ever been mentioned of rehabilitation or counseling for her. It is obvious she learned her parenting skills from somewhere. It was even more apparent her mother and father know more than they are telling as her father admitted he failed not only his daughter but his granddaughter as well. Now I don't think she deserves the death sentence by far. I don't even think she deserves a life sentence, but based upon her actions I felt she was admitting guilt to some degree and so did a few billion others in this country. And yet we paid to feed her and clothe her and what-nots for three years, and we are letting her go without any intervention program to prevent this from happening again. She didn't want to be a mom. That was apparent and her neglect of her child and her flaunting of her freedom once the child went missing was our proof. So where was this child's father? Not once in three years have I heard anything about him in this deal or what he thought. Not once did I see evidence that he was an integral part in this raising of his offspring. It wasn't Casey's parents that failed her. It was us.

The "us" that teach our kids through popular music and exploitation of thug lifestyles and pimpin' ways that taught her and other women and men(like the father of the child)that to shirk their responsibility that it is cool. Taking for truth that the child drowned accidentally like the defense has claimed, she was negligent. With proper morals and rules to live by NO child will drown because no mother will answer her cell phone or go fetch a beer for her man while bathing, swimming with a child. My daughter is fifteen and I still am present when she bathes and within earshot of the bathroom in case I hear her fall. It is my duty to protect her and to keep her safe. It is never enough to teach them to write their names and walk away. I see mothers abandon their kids in the seats of carriages at shopping places to go a few steps over. I watched in horror as my own daughter kissed asphalt because her stepfather did this while we were getting the groceries loaded as I started the car. He walked home. All ten miles. And I learned I cannot trust anyone with the responsibility of watching over her.

We failed the system and these children daily. The teen television stars getting knocked up and being allowed to have things just because they can afford them and flooding our phones and computers and tvs with images of kissing in public and sex acts and drug and/or alcohol abuse is unacceptable. The parents who turn a blind eye because they want to live vicariously through this is unacceptable. The people who parade their five year olds in pageants dressed like twenty dollar country whores is unacceptable. Today this mom holds her head low for mothers everywhere like Casey Anthony. Not for my own shame and part, because no people, I am one of the few who actually teach her kid morals and take the tirade of abuse and temporary "hate" from her that we get when we've done our jobs properly. I hold my head and shame for everyone of you who didn't watch your kids, who chose a tv or computer as a babysitter or figured someone else will do your job or who couldn't ever say "No" to your precious child. Parenting isn't easy and being the bearer of bad news isn't either. Nobody wants to be told no. But it is your job to tell them that and yes, even to explain why you are telling them no and standing firm. Today we failed a little girl, her mother and a neighborhood. Today I am disdainful for the health and de-gression of the human family. Today a mother weeps for the child she is unable to care for until she comes home in six days....~soberly and morbidly yours, mobe...my love to my all and my all to my loves.