When Juan Gonzales and his wife were sent to prison they left their toddler daughter, Cyleste, and her four-year-old brother with a good friend of theirs, Sarah Sifuentes. But they trusted the wrong woman. Cyleste ended up in the hospital with blunt-force trauma to the stomach, bruising all over her body, and a broken arm. And because the 22-month-old girl didn't get medical attention early enough she died.
Sifuentes was found guilty of injury to a child and serious bodily injury by omission. Now it's her turn to go to prison. Gonzales later said, "We thought she was a nice friend. We trusted her, and I mean, obviously..." Obviously she was a horrifically incompetent care-giver, at the least! Was Gonzales too trusting? And didn't he and his wife have better options for their children?
I wonder why the Gonzaleses would leave their children with those friends, rather than with grandparents, or siblings, or at least more reliable friends. Maybe they don't have family they can rely on. Maybe they've always associated with people who just barely have their own shit together and can't handle more kids. They must have been desperate for someone, anyone to take their kids. And they must have thought even their friends' home would be better than a state foster home.
I know we're all supposed to have a living will with plans for what to do with our children in the event of our death -- or anything else that might happen to us. (I'm not planning to do anything that sends me to prison, anyway!) But it's hard to think about putting that burden on anyone else. Another mouth to feed, another child to raise. And it's even harder to decide who you really trust.
But this should make all parents think extra hard about who they can trust to care for their children in an emergency. You may think your friends are "nice" -- but are they loving, compassionate, patient, and emotionally strong? That's more important.
Do you know who you would leave your children with in an emergency?
Image via KENS5 News
Tie-Dye for the Fourth of July!
Mom Survives Horrific Domestic Abuse
Kim and Kanye's Baby Name Predictions!
Moms Love Birthday Parties, Too!
Comments 64
The flake parents dumped their kids on this low life -birds of feather flock together - because not even the parents realized how much responsibility kids are - plus the fact that the baby had just been abandoned by its mother (child does not know mom's in jail) just knows that suddenly the person she is bonded too is gone - that will cause the child to have crying fits and adjustment problems for quite a while - the caretaker being the flake that she is couldn't handle the stress.
I did foster care years ago and had a child placed in my home because her mom was going to be in the hospital for a week. I asked the case worker why the child was with me instead of with family. She told me that some families are so "dysfunctional" or "unavailable" that you some people don't have that option. So this woman put her child in foster care for the week. Maybe these parents had the same problem. I don't condemn them. They trusted this woman and now they have lost their daughter. I feel for the parents.
This is a sad, sad story. I would have rather seen those children in a foster home as oppose to seeing them left with those murders. I came from a dysfunctional family and I KNOW THAT I WOULD NOT LEAVE MY KIDS WITH MY "MOTHER", EVER. People remember, ALL FAMILIES ARE NOT ALIKE.
It's hard to say this without knowing what crime they were put away with. There's a big difference between writing a bad cheque and murder, obviously. But just to put it out there, maybe Juan Gonzales and his wife's parents weren't all that great if they did raise two adults who managed to do something bad enough to go to jail? And that's why they didn't leave Cyleste with either of them?
And statistically relatives are more likely to abuse a child thana friend so...