Walmart Children

By Nancy

How many Wal-Mart kids do you know? You know the kind that have been produced just because being pregnant keeps mom on the welfare list, getting WIC, and generally well cared for?

Think about this: A woman has given birth to seven children. Two of these children were given up for adoption in one state. Two of them were removed from her in another state and placed in foster care. The older of the children was three but weighed less than most children one year old, although it had apparently been a full term birth with no complications. The younger of the two was over six months old, but could not even roll over by itself. The older child did not speak, was not potty trained, could not feed itself. The infant would not sleep unless in the infant seat and the older child would sleep wherever it dropped. About 6 months after the children were removed, mother matter-of-factly produced another child. This child was removed immediately upon birth and placed with foster care. It is now growing and progressing faster than the two who remained with their parents for a time. Mother informed the world that she would get pregnant again. A year and a few days later she gave live birth to another child, twin did not survive. She announced that she would be pregnant again, and within four months, she probably will. One of the children has had every tooth capped and has multiple health problems. It is becoming more and more obvious that this same child has been severely abused, sexually emotionally and mentally. Doctors are unsure at this juncture that the child will be able to live a life out side of an institution somewhere. In a shorter space of time than most of us make car payments, the state has paid out over a hundred thousand dollars in healthcare for Wal-Mart children. The children are up for “sale”, and mother is still on the production line.

All of the children have show evidence of fetal alcohol and prenatal parental drug use. The mother makes no bones of it and sees no value in changing her life style. She has developed a means of income that enables her to continue in the same manner she has always behaved. Granted, neither of the parents are rocket scientists, and the problems of ensuring that they understand what they are doing and why they shouldn’t be doing it are endless. There is little hope that any of the children are apt to be rocket scientists either, and so restocking is ensured.

Just roll them off the production line, and put them on the market. Mamma doesn’t need to take care of herself for the sake of the baby, she won’t keep it anyway. Sooo, if the goods are inferior, who cares? In the meantime, the rest of society pays for these babies to be born, and then pays for foster care while the rights of the parents are being terminated. If there are birth defects because of her life style, oh well, society can deal with that too, there will always be some poor couple who will take the child in. They can deal with the FAS, infant withdrawal, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, and whatever else has been thrown in the pot because of the actions of adults who don’t care. Then there is the rest of the child’s life, the part when the child has passed the cute and cuddly infant part, and is so difficult to care for that he will need specialized care for the rest of his life just for minimal quality of life. The part where the child grows up so damaged and angry that he begins at a very early age to damage others in the same fashion he himself has been damaged. And so the cycle begins again.

During all of this, what about mom’s life? Well, she continues to make her choices, but because of the many welfare programs, she is free to make them without fear of being hungry or without a place to live. The child is dealing with the cards dealt him by a crooked dealer, he had no choices, and she is scot free. What about the rights of society? Does it have an ongoing obligation to a parent like this? Does it have any choices in this matter? Can a society force an individual to accept responsibilities or impose consequences?

. But what is wrong with human beings who produce children merely for what they can force from another human being, or from society as a whole. Even in our "not under God” society, it is still a “God-given” right to reproduce children when and with whomever the individual seems to feel like reproducing. Does that right cancel out the right of a child to at least an even start in life? For that matter, what about the child’s “God given” right to smile, to run in the spring breezes, to laugh at the clowns, to live without fear or to choose the one with whom they would like to reproduce ?