Parental Guidance

The role of being a parent is an essential one that requires a firm commitment to protect, nurture, care and love your child. Some parents take on the role of becoming a friend to their child which in some ways may work especially if it allows your child to feel comfortable enough to confide in you with the various uncertainties that they may have. In some cases, the dialog may be one that can help your child in making decisions to avoid drugs, alcohol, sexual transmitted diseases, abusive relationships and many other challenges that he or she may encounter in their lives. However, there are those parents who are friends on a level where they believe that their child should be allowed to do whatever he or she wants. They host parties in their homes so that they can drink alcoholic beverages and smoke with the idea of it being in their own environment, safe at home. What happens when the role of parenting becomes blurred?

A child loses her life to diabetes when her mother fails to take the appropriate measures in ensuring that her child followed the specific guidelines necessary for her to maintain as close to normal childhood or receive urgent medical treatment when the child became very ill. Georgia Lee Jones is a mother of five who is now facing felony charges in the death of her 9 year old daughter Chasity Butler. According to the reports, Chasity was often sick and in bed. The day before Chasity died, she had stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting. Chasity did not eat that night or the next morning. However, when mother checked her glucose level and found it dangerously high, she failed to seek medical intervention; instead she fed Chasity noodles and let her eat cupcakes and candy. Needless to say, Chasity died.

A 7 year old Nixmary Brown died at the hands of her mother’s abusive boyfriend. Nixmarry was brutally beaten and tortured while her mother sat silently in another room. This is nothing new as it has happened many times over the years. Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nassbaum were both charged with the death of their unofficially adopted daughter Lisa. Lisa a 6 year old girl was brutally beaten, neglected and malnourished. Unfortunately, there are many other stories that do not make the headlines of major newspaper articles, radio or television broadcast news.We have heard the stories of parents who have hosted parties for their teenage children and their friends in their homes where they serve alcoholic beverages and partied the night away with drugs. In some cases, those parties were responsible for drunk-driving incidents, alcoholic poisoning, and deaths to drug overdose.