Heartbreaking
13-Year-Old Mom Reportedly Buries Her Newborn in the Woods
It's one of those stories where you want to hate the accused, but you're having a hard time summoning the appropriate anger. A 13-year-old girl has been arrested outside Atlanta, Georgia on felony murder charges. Cops say the teen mother buried her newborn baby in the woods behind her house.
There's no answer yet from medical examiners of how the baby died, but it's almost beside the point. A child is dead. And a slightly older child, but a child all the same, is behind bars ... after giving birth.
Perhaps seeing teenage mothers splashed across the covers of the tabloids has made society inured to the horror of mere children giving birth, but I can't get out of my mind the image of a 13-year-old girl, scared and confused, trying to figure out what is wrong with her body as a child grows inside of her. I flash too to the image of a 13-year-old girl giving birth.
More from The Stir: Mom Flushes Newborn Down Plane's Toilet
At 13, I wasn't even wearing a bra yet; at least not on days when I didn't have to change in front of my peers in gym class. I probably had a Barbie or two still lying around my bedroom. I know I still slept with my stuffed rabbit. Because I was still very much a child.
That is what 13 is. It's the very first of the teen years, a far cry from womanhood.
It's not an age when someone -- anyone -- should be pregnant, forget being an actual mother. At best, this child's child should have been whisked away into an immediate adoption, the new "mother" already in therapy to help her deal with the tragic circumstances of her life.
The fact that this 13-year-old girl somehow ended up with a dead baby -- remember, despite the murder charge, we do not know how this baby died -- shows an apparent failure of the adults in her life to protect her.
If this girl somehow caused her baby's death, she needs punishment, yes. But let's not forget that she is a victim too, a child victim.
What do you think should be done with this girl, this 13-year-old mother?
Image via banspy/Flickr
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mrssundin
Kelly Bach Render
I love how this 13 year old is a child but when you did a story on the 14 year old who gave birth to her child in a toilet and strangled it she was an adult......and should be put in jail for life. Seriously? 18 is the legal age of an adult for a reason and that's because your brain doesn't start to think "adult like" until that age.
Millie Dearwester
Susan Rowe
Crissy Cosby Howell
Ms black
Christina DeRyke
How is the way that the baby died beside the point? Was it still born? Did it die naturally? Were it's airways clogged? There are several ways for an infant to die other than murder. What if she gave birth to a baby that died and, in a panic, hid the baby to keep her parents from kicking her out, beating her, or worse. Being buried alive would have left signs: dirt in the airway and lungs. No one should be rushing to judgement yet.
Crystal
Sarah Greer
cathyc.