Gray Column: Value the important assets: our children

I had to interrupt myself this week from some of the other things I wanted to write about.

I wanted to write more about health-care issues or possibly a follow up to my column on race relations, but something more important came up.

You see when I hear about a child being abused it just does something to me.

I wasn’t abused growing up but nevertheless, the thought of a child experiencing mental and physical harm makes my blood boil.

I think I reached that boiling point last week when I heard about a series of stories beginning with an 8-year-old girl being brutally gang raped in Phoenix, Ariz.

My sense of horror about this turned to surprise when I found out the accused rapist were children themselves, ages 9, 10, 13 and 14. But then that surprise turned to anger when I heard the parents of
the young girl seemed to disown her and disavow what had happened.

The mother of the girl was reported to have ask the police to take her away and not bring the girl back because she brought shame on the family by saying she was raped. “Nothing has happened to my
daughter. Nobody has touched my daughter,” said the mother.

Even the child’s older sister said she only has herself to blame because she warned her about hanging around boys.

The child was eventually taken to protective services, which took custody of the child. I kept thinking, what kind of a parent does this to a child?

I guess the child being taken away is both fortunate for her and unfortunate given her circumstances. The child, her parents, the accused rapist and in fact the entire neighborhood is from Liberia. So
basically this child is being plucked away from everything she knows into the unknown. But given the circumstances, there really is no other choice.

All I can say is that my heart goes out to this young girl and those like her.

I would like to think cases like these are isolated and not the norm. But then there were the other stories.

Last week a mother decapitated her child and was eating the brains. Then there was a story about someone cutting a baby straight out from the stomach of a pregnant woman.

But the stories don’t stop there. Just this last Friday there was a report from Massachusetts of a 27-year-old mother locking her three year old son naked in a sweltering 100 degree heat attic. When
police came they found the child literally covered in his own filth. The child told them, “Mommy does this when she gets angry.”

These stories sound like something you would find in some obscure tabloid magazine or a horror flick, but they are not. They are real live stories front and center in the news.

The only thing I can think to say to all of this is . . . well nothing. I am speechless. If people really don’t want their children, they should give them over for adoption or place them into alternative homes
because these stories are heartbreaking.

We must begin to value children again. More importantly we have to value our children’s innocence again. Innocence is something you really only get once and the children I mentioned in this column
have lost theirs. When children start raping children and mothers start eating children, something is terribly wrong.

Even here in Prince William County there have been some high profile cases of child neglect to include death. Our bedroom community here in Northern Virginia isn’t immune to this craziness.

My point in all this (and maybe I am ranting a bit) is we talk and discuss a lot of issues, which are important in their rightful place of priorities. But there is only one issue that our entire future is wrapped
up in.

It’s our children.

Davon Gray works in Washington, D.C., and resides in Woodbridge. Contact him at davongray@verizon.net.