How could you ever, ever hurt a baby?
I just saw this story in the Post, it's unbelievably tragic: In 43 Days, a Future Shattered.
Rafael Pearson will never know how close he came to a normal life.
He was going to be adopted by his extended family. He was going to grow up in a nice home in the suburbs. He was going to be loved.
All he needed was a safety net in his first fragile weeks, after he was taken from his troubled mother.
Instead, a few days after he was born, he ended up in the hands of Tanya Jenkins.
When Rafael was taken from her 43 days later, he was nearly dead, the victim of a desperate foster parent and a dysfunctional child welfare agency. Beaten and shaken by Jenkins, the baby suffered catastrophic brain damage. He was on life support for days, not expected to survive.
Today, he is 19 months old. He has doughy cheeks, carefree curls and a sweet spot for anyone who'll rub his back.
He also is profoundly disabled. He cannot see. He cannot walk or talk. He cannot hold his head up. He has the mind of a child of two or three months. He is likely to develop cerebral palsy. He lives in a Dunn Loring nursing home for disabled children.
And little change is expected.
Convicted of cruelty to children, Jenkins, 38, will go before a judge in D.C. Superior Court today, facing the possibility of years in prison for what she did to Rafael in fall 2005.
I'm heartbroken.
Why was that woman a foster parent? Why didn't she give him back when she couldn't handle it?
Would you ever consider being a foster parent? What "ifs" would you have to meet first? What about if there weren't any - you didn't have to quit your job or school, or be married, the kid's expenses were paid for, and it wouldn't be expected to be a lifetime commitment? Would you then?
At what point are we obligated as humans to help each other? I don't know, for real I don't know.
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Oh Ginger, that is such an unbelievably heart wrenching story. The pain that people are capable of inflicting upon one another, especially to the helpless, is really unfathomable. What could possibly be more innocent than a baby? All of little Rafael’s potential squandered because of one woman’s selfish rampage. Now he’s sentenced to a life like that. What a tragedy and a waste.
That is a horrible story. In Missouri it seems like there is a foster parent story everyday...of course not a good story. I don't see how people like that think what they are doing is okay? There are so many messed up people out there.