Ok, so the widget is way to big for the sidebar and I don't give a shit. I want that sucker as visible as possible.
Go sign this petition, please. It isn't about what this woman did or didn't do to her daughter, only God knows and will be the judge of that. But to not report your child missing is...heinous. My four year old wouldn't be missing for more than five minutes without me screaming down the police, national guard, ninjas, bloodhounds and that guy that lives in remote areas and eats bugs and shit to live. He seems like he could find anything.
What astounds me is that there are people AGAINST THIS. How can you be against a law that would basically put you in jail if you don't report your child missing? Am I crazy or does that seem like it would be something childless people would rally for? (and I'm not pointing fingers at people who have no children, there are millions who are just as appalled and hurt by what happened to this little girl). But I just can't imagine a parent not agreeing with the petition to change this. It never should have happened this way and it's not fair to Caylee to just let this go as if it were an oversight or a one time mistake. Bullshit. It wasn't a mistake, it was negligence. Plain and simple.
If you have a child, it's your responsibility to protect them and nurture them. If you can't do that, give them to someone who can and will. You had the baby and the fucking stork didn't bring it so kiss my ass with the whole "Can't take it anymore, must rid myself of my children" crap. I'm so tired of people killing their kids (and I'm not saying she did) because they can't handle it anymore. DROP THEM OFF AT A POLICE STATION OR A HOSPITAL. No child should be murdered, but my God, no child's last moments should be the image of the person they trust and love most in the world ending their life prematurely for no other reason than you're cramping their style or ruining their dating life.
I can't tell you how many times I've thought about getting in my car and driving away. But I don't do it. I understand that this is the most difficult and frustrating job in the world, but they didn't ask to be here. I get angry, upset and yes, sometimes I wonder, just for a moment, what my life would be like if I hadn't had children. And then Harmony comes in the room for no other reason then to tell me she loves me before going back to play and I feel like crap. But everyone has thoughts. Never once have I ever envisioned hurting my children. And if you do, that's okay AS LONG AS YOU SEEK HELP BEFORE YOU ACT UPON IT. Otherwise, you're a coward. And your children got the shit end of the stick for ending up with you.
34 comments:
I hope i'm not the odd duck out for saying this but it feels like a reactionary law and obviously parents who truly care about their children would report it immediately. I'm not against it but it doesn't feel like the law will do much in the end except perhaps be used against one parent by another in custody battles.
not arguing at all i totally respect where you are coming from!
Celia
Celia,
I understand your point of view. I have several littles, and if heaven forbid something happened the entire world would know. I agree, it seems reactionary. Something should be done. While I feel Casey is guilty as the day is long, I am not sure how this law will achieve a different outcome. I think the gesture is beautiful and noble. People just want justice for Caylee, but if a parent is so jacked to hurt a child or kill them, they are not going to be motivated to report them missing because of a law on the books.
Crystal,
I think some of those (not all) that are against it have stated that that sweet baby, Caylee, wasn't merely missing during that time so what would this law achieve if the child isn't missing if a parent/guardian knows that a sweet child is already dead. So if they they report a missing child that isn't, we are back to the whole lying to police issue. Hopefully that makes sense.
I hope that God deals with Casey as He sees fit. I pray for everyone involved in this horrid situation.
I hope that being against this law does not make me out to be the gloating accomplice to child murderers across the land, but there it is.
We do not need any more federal laws interfering with our personal lives. Whatever law you think this petition will get you, that's not the law that will be signed.
It will be a horrible, hundred page monster that will give some bitter, never-married, childless federal bureaucrat who cannot keep the potted plant in her office watered judgment over how well you care for you child.
How quickly do you think the law will expand from not reporting a missing child, to not submitting regular status reports on children the government allows you to raise?
In ten years, at most, I expect the hideous seed will grow to a thousand pages of impenetrable federal regulations, standards, and specifications for how children must be raised.
Look at your home, your kids, your husband, the life you have so beautifully and heartbreakingly described for us here.
Do you think your life is MILSPEC? Why would you want it to be?
Pass this bill, and you will not be a loving parent. You will yourself become a government bureaucrat, allowed to manage the wards of the state that came from your womb, if you toe the line hard enough, and if you take the proper training and pay the proper fees.
It will not protect children from neglectful parents, it will allow the feds to ruin lives on mistaken, weak, or false pretexts. (Not that they don't do that already.)
The Department of Education now has SWAT teams. On one of their very first raids, they busted the wrong house.
The Department of Parental Responsibility will be born with SWAT teams, and they will be no better.
No parent is as neglectful of the needs of their children as the blind behemoth of government is of everyone's.
This will destroy families, imprison perfectly good parents, and render children wards of the state.
What state child welfare agency, honestly now, what state agency really does more good than harm? And you think the feds will do better?
What federal program, of any kind, does not in ten years morph into a giant, mind controlling tape worm?
Please, please reconsider your support for this.
I guarantee that if this well-intended measure passes, loving parents and bereft children will curse your name for the rest of their lives.
I need to emphasize:
If the law would do exactly what you want, no more, no less, no mistakes, I'd be fine with it.
I would be queasy about this law, even it strictly held to the proposal, because I know it will administered and enforced as clumsily as every other law currently on the books.
I am terrified of the law I know would eventually be passed, and of the thicket of regulations I described that would grow from it.
No.
Please no.
On my mother's womb, on the lives of my nieces and nephews, on the happiness of children yet unborn, please, I beg you, please withdraw your support for this.
"It's for the children." No law for the children ever does more good than harm.
While I agree it's insane to not report a cold missing imagine a split family where perhaps one is less honest, so that one does something to the child then uses this law to say they never got the child and turn it around on the other parent....
The problem with this law is the same as the problem with the current law and why she wasn't found guilty of child neglect... her lawyer stated she was already dead. No proof but believed anyway.
The law needed to be that a parent must report the death of a child or that they are missing within 24 hours or it's a felony.
A better law would be to give jurors a three day crash course in the law before they step into a courthouse. They grossly misunderstood the law and worried about concepts like motive and punishment that they weren't supposed to consider. More understanding of the law would benefit all of us more because the more a juror knows benefits BOTH sides with a more fair jury. But when a juror states that if they'd charged her with anything less than M1, they'd have found her guilty of it and they had M2, M3, Agg. Manslaughter and Manslaughter to consider, it just shows that they were so confused and still unwilling to ask the judge any questions and turn a quick verdict.
@The Hoodies The law isn't motivated to force parents who did something to their child to actually report it, in the end, it's to give the jurors something to find them guilty of since the CSI generation doesn't understand circumstantial evidence anymore and somehow believes that it's less important even though it's most of what we've had all throughout history until Jeff Ashton pioneered DNA science in the courtroom.
So.... I really hope this means your back, I really enjoyed your blogs and your perspective on things.
I also loved the stories you wrote . your are an extremely talented writer.
I know some made your life miserable with some rude(to put it mildly) comments, but opinions are like butholes everybody has one!
Please don't let some get you down.
Reading your blog lifted me up,and gave me perspective on things.
We were going through similar, although not exactly the same things and it is nice to know that there are others that go through trials and tribulations too!
I am one that likes to read alot of blogs ,and your Humor ,and perspective, and honesty, is award worthy.
Thank you for what little peak you give us in your life.
A fan,
Jay.
Sorry I got excited to see you posting again!
Any law that protects innocent children is ok with me
I have four from 23 to 9 and i still want to know they are safe all the time.
Casey got off by manipulating the legal system. and poor evidence by professional prosecutors and Detectives.
any new legislation cant bring Caylee back but may help the next child (God willing this will never happen again)
The thing about the casey anthony case is this. She may have killed her child who knows. But she knows something at the very least. For me it could have been anyone in that family (trust me on ths one)I do think it was an accident though. I think this law is two fold. One to protect children and in some really sad cases...evidence. and two for situations like this. Casey should have been punished more I belive...but her mom and dad who know the child was "missing" (again trust me) and did really nothing. They imho got off scott free.
I have thoughts, respectfully disagreeing with some of you, and I need to think on them. Oh, and work :)
Have a wonderful day and I'll be back this evening to respond.
I'm going to guess that I'm one of the ones you'll respectfully disagree with.
That's fine, it's your blog, not mine; and I know that your position here grows from you being a decent human being and great mom who loves her children, and cares about all children.
However, I do want to point Radley Balko's article on Caylee's Law, which is considerably more temperate than my response here.
Core excerpt:
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Crowder concedes that she didn't consult with a single law enforcement official before coming up with her 24-hour and 1-hour limits. This raises some questions. How did she come up with those cutoffs? Did she consult with any grief counselors to see if there may be innocuous reasons why an innocent person who just witnessed a child's death might not immediately report it, such as shock, passing out, or some other sort of mental breakdown? Did she consult with a forensic pathologist to see if it's even possible to pin down the time of death with the sort of precision you'd need to make Caylee's Law enforceable? Have any of the lawmakers who have proposed or are planning to propose this law actually consulted with anyone with some knowledge of these issues?
Jamie Downs is the Coastal Regional Medical Examiner for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and co-editor of a forthcoming book on forensic ethics about Caylee's Law. Downs also formerly served on the board of directors for the National Association of Medical Examiners. Contrary to what you may have learned from watching CSI, Downs says, there's no way for a medical examiner to determine time of death in the sort of narrow window that would be necessary to enforce Caylee's Law. "I understand that people are outraged, and I understand why they'd want a law like this, but I just don't think it's a good idea. I don't see how you would enforce it," Downs says. "You just can't say for certain that a person died an hour and five minutes ago as opposed to 45 minutes ago."
If medical science can't pinpoint the time of the child's death to the minute, how else are authorities going to determine it? They can't ask the parent. A guilty person isn't going to give you an honest answer, and even an innocent parent may lie if they fear the truth could land them in prison. It also seems safe to assume that a parent's first instinct upon witnessing the death of a child isn't to look up at the clock to take note of an official time of death.
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I'm glad you're back! Your blog is one of my favorites, and I have missed reading it. So, thanks for changing your mind and take care :) -Suzanne
To anonymous at 6:14 pm.
You are a classless dick or bitch, I dont know because you are to much of a coward to go by something other than anonymous.
Bet you sat waiting, watching praying to satan that this blog would come back up.
Hmmmm is your name Casey by any chance?
Stop throwing stones , you may break your house.
How about we try and remember that what Crystal decides to post is per her own opinion and chooses to share with the rest of us. Maybe part of the problem in all of this "hidden" communication is that we fail to move past our own simple minded thoughts and realize that if this was really a place for criticism then why would anyone choose to write? Thank you to those who have kept your comments tasteful, even if you disagree with the subject matter. Hopefully others will strive to follow a similar level of self respect. I enjoy your writing C, keep it up!
-Leigh
Crystal -- re your comment that if your 4-year-old was missing for minutes you'd be screaming down the police, national guard etc. -- it made me laugh but I have to COMPLETELY AGREE with you. When my 5-year-old disappears around the corner in a store, I panic. When my 13-year-old is late coming home (5 minutes!) I start to panic.
I absolutely will never, ever be able to fathom how someone could not report a missing 2-year-old.
And while I can't say "I KNOW she killed her," I can say I absolutely believe she had something to do with it.
Lisa T.
Hey Anonymous,
Fuck off. "the internet has a really long memory" blah blah blah. No, you have a really bitter heart and way too much time on your hands if the best you can do is wait FOUR MONTHS for me to come back so you could post your ridiculous crap.
Guess what? I'm not giving you a voice here any longer. Anything you post will summarily be deleted so knock yourself out, Mare or Kristen or whatever. You hateful women are so transparent. Grow up. Get a hobby. Or better yet??? STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER, LOSER. THERE'S A LIFE OUT THERE AND PEOPLE IN REALITY I'M SURE YOU COULD MENTALLY TORTURE WITH YOUR MINDLESS, SPINELESS BULLSHIT.
Stop acting like a child and move on. You're pathetic.
I really thought there already was a law? But it was very minor? Is the law to make it like more severe??
Crystal,
Glad you're alive and well! I miss you. xoxo
Dammit...wish there were a 'like' button for Crystal's comment. :)
I really understand the horror, and the indignation that make people want this law; I don't want it, so I thought I would share my view (just an FYI of how someone cna disagree with the many laws like this).
There will always be occaisional monsters. The world can't legislate decency, sanity and safety, no matter how hard we try. A law like this wouldn't have changed Caylee's situation, except possibly put her mom in jail for longer.
Therein lies the problem. It seems like a great idea to create a law in response to a certain circumstance where it feels lke there should have been more consequnse. But that law stays on the books, and can be used when it's not justified.
I've read many stories where police and politicians search for anything they can charge someone with. In a light-hearted example, a woman near detroit was threatened with with almost 100 days in jail because she planted a vegetable garden in her front yard. When publicity made the town drop the charges, they suddenly charged her with having an unlicenced dog (In July, when she took care of the licence in June), punishable with... about 100 days jail time.
If Kasey Anthony deserves justice, I fully believe that god, and the universe (and perhaps a couple of vigilantes with bats) will give ti to her. I don't need to put a fairly useless law on the books to be a tool for bullies with badges in the future.
I don't know much about Casey Anthony nor do I know much about "Caylee's Law". All I know is that All of the people involved in Caylee Anthony's disappearance and murder will HAVE to face judgment either here or in front of God Almighty. If won't be fun either way. From what I know of the law, it sounds like a reasonable law and a reasonable expectation of a child's parents or caregiver.
On another note, I'm glad to see you back, even if it is for a limited engagement. I've missed your writing.
Ok, to respond about my vehemence and why I support this potential law: (and I have to do this in 2 comments because it's too long, apparently):
Had this been a law already, someone may have been more inclined to step forward and alert the authorities that Caylee was missing. Had that happened, the ball would have rolled faster and evidence that was useless could have been viable. Time is of the essence when piecing together a murder like this and I truly believe that if it were a felony to not report the child missing, the person who was responsible for this little girls death may have come to justice.
Additionally, I have no issue with a swat team for the benefit of children. If someone busted into my house thinking I was abusing my children or not honoring my parental responsibilities, I would be shocked, but truly grateful that such a team exists. Why? Because, especially in this part of the country, child abuse and neglect is rampant. It is far to easy to abuse children here and it shouldn't be. It is far to easy for one of them to slip through the cracks because there is no strict law in place about reporting a child missing and it leaves the door open for more people to do ghastly things to a kid and then ride the days out until someone steps forward. In the meantime, evidence is deteriorating, memories of witnesses are fading and the case is slipping away.
As far as it being used in issues such as custody, there are too many variables there. If my ex were to say my daughter was missing and he never got her when in fact he did? Almost impossible for him to truly prove that, but more importantly, if she were missing and I had no idea? At least it brings the situation to light and Ill deal with whatever accusations I have to AS LONG AS SOMEONE IS ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR MY CHILD.
cont.
To me, this isn't about children being used by vindictive parents against one another or a swat team busting down my door, it's about children being reported missing in a timely manner and steps being taken to find those children. As much as I would like to think that everyone would report their child missing, I know the awful truth is that there are too many who won't. One is too many.
This law, to me, is about the children who can't speak up for themselves. If that means me and my family get caught up in a myriad of laws where I have to report my children safe on a weekly or monthly basis? So be it. I'm all for it if it means children that are being abused are being heard and taken out of harms way.
Bottom line is this: yes, there are parents who will hurt their kids. Yes, there are parents who will hurt their kids and not report it. Yes, there are parents who will not risk a felony by waiting to report their child missing because if you're whacked out enough to kill your own child then you're probably whacked out enough to think you're going to get away with it.
I don't know if I'm making much sense, but the bad far outweighs the good in my estimation, because no matter what, if a missing child is brought to someone's attention, then I don't care much about who did it or why. Just find that child or what remains of that child with enough non-compromised evidence to piece together what happened.
I have no idea if Casey killed her daughter. But, at the very least, she should have been punished for not reporting her missing.
And if there are more standards for how people should raise their children? I'm all for that, too, because I'm sick to death of seeing kids get the shit beat out of them in the aisles at Wal Mart by some ignorant parent who collects a welfare check every month and keeps having more of the children to keep receiving assistance. It is rampant here. These children are not loved or wanted. They are a meal ticket, plain and simple. I honestly think that parenting should be more closely monitored and if that means some inconvenience to me while it's saving some of these kids, so be it.
Again, I don't know if this makes sense but I at least wanted to respond about why I support the proposal. Thanks so much for allowing me to see your side, as well.
I signed the petition a while back when I saw it on Facebook. It was a gut reaction to a terrible situation. Then I read this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/caylees-law-casey-anthony-_n_893953.html
The article makes a lot of sense.
Hey Guys!
I've only commented one other time re: troll feeding, but I'm forced out of lurkdom once again. I may be being sensitive, but it bothers me the way that "childless" people were depicted in the post and in one of the comments. I'm childfree by choice and feel that my choice is very compassionate. I choose to not have children that I could not properly support or care for. I don't think that means that I want children to go missing and not be found or that I'm a bitter office dweller who "probably couldn't even keep a plant alive". If Casey chose to be childfree through careful self-examination of her ability to parent, then this would never have happened to a little defenseless person whom most certainly did not deserve the irresponsible, and ultimately deadly, “mothering" that she received. If folks continue to shame and demonize people who choose not to have children, then people who shouldn't breed will continue to mindlessly do so. Every child should be wanted and cared for properly. I feel that way even as a "bitter" and "childless" monster.
With Respect and Thought,
Leslie S.
Amen, Crystal!!! Your last post really tells it all for the area that we live in. They are just a meal ticket. It is so sicking!!!
I have signed the petition and I am proud to say so.
I hope that you are back for along time, we have missed you.
I have to agree with ya on all counts Crystal! Unfortunately, we now live in a society where there have to be laws to teach people right from wrong on EVERY FREAKING THING!
And did you delete the nasty bitch before I had a change to read what she wrote and tear her a new one? :(
Crystal
I've lurked a loooong time [love your style!] and this subject finally got me to speak up.
'Caylee's Law' wouldn't have saved Caylee, because she was never missing. Her sociopathic mother silenced her before she could innocently expose Mom's lies - and the only thing that makes it just short of unbearable is believing that Caylee simply went to sleep [with chloroform] and didn't suffer.
Casey will never be happy - I'm sure of that, at least.
And wise people have pointed out so many ways this law could be used against innocent parents, that I think it should at least be discussed a lot more before saying it's a good law. [Reactionary laws seldom are.]
Those of us who love our kids are sick over what happened to Caylee, but we need to make sure we don't rush into bad law to 'balance the scales'.
PS Thank you for putting yourself 'out there' for your devoted readers - we miss you when you're gone.
Sorry, but this it's misguided.
I understand the outrage, but the LAST thing we need is another stupid, unenforceable law.
Anyone who could harm their child isn't going to be deterred by this, and innocents don't need the tyrants to be given another bludgeon with which to earn themselves a headline.
The turd in question ultimately spent three years in prison, which is more than she'd get from this...
No law passed in response to something like this has ever been good.
This can be no different...
Balko nailed it, heck, even HUFFPO managed to spot the problems!
Just saya NO!
I just have two words.
Unintended
Consequences!
When my little man says to me "you're the best daddy in the world" for no reason, it's worth all the other child raising BS. When he says "yes please, sir I KNOW it's worth it...and he's only 2.
Remember, honest people already know what's right, they don't need a law to tell them. Casey Anthony, and her ilk, will still break the law (she did), and crappy prosecutors and dimwitted juries will still acquit them.
I live in the fucked up state that created that horrid bitch. Ugh. I vote for this law!
"How can you be against a law that would basically put you in jail if you don't report your child missing? Am I crazy "
Very very easily, and yes. In order to pass such a law, it is necessary to define "missing"; specifically, to define how long the child has to be away. What are you going to do for that? 2 hours? Then a kid who goes off into the woods or pastures to play (as I did, and my parents did) is missing and the parents who let them do it go to jail. 6 hours? Then the kid who falls off a cliff 20 minutes after wandering off is left to bleed to death because the emergency services won't budge until the specified time has elapsed, just so things are done according to procedure. Yes it would happen that way; there've been multiple cases in the past year alone of emergency services sitting on a shore watching someone drown and both not jumping in to rescue them AND preventing anyone else from doing so because their personnel or equipment didn't quite match spec.
You pass a law about this, you are going to make both parents and children victims of a one-size-fits-all bureaucratic machine that can not and will not adapt. You will create disasters far worse than what you think you are fixing, and you won't fix that either.
Passing laws about this stuff is stupid.
As a final note - and, in the end, this is the most important point - you simly don't have the right to dictate to me how to raise my child, and if you try, you will run into a buzzsaw of trouble. Don't do it.
My daughter as a toddler walked away from me in a department store (Bloomingdales, in NY)
It wasn't more than a minute when I grabbed for her hand and she wasn't there. I was all over that store whistling for her -- and found her on the second floor!!!!! In the telephone booth - "want to talk grammy."
My mom never called out our names - and my brother and I came to her whistle within seconds!!
Although my children said they felt like I was calling a dog, they came to my whistle, too. I didn't need anyone knowing their names!!!
My dog came to a different whistle, and my cat had her own. My husband and I had our own, too.
Caylee chose the wrong parents. I know she's got good ones now.
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