Psst, have you heard about Washington County's dirty little secret? It's the state poster child for child abuse, relative to our population. I recall the 7-year-old boy escaping to a convenience store to call police because he and his 3-year-old brother were being abused by their mother's live-in boyfriend. How many times does this have to happen? Too many single mothers go looking for love in all the wrong places. They frequent the local bars and bring back home these beer bellied bozo boyfriends to suck off her welfare check and abuse her children.
If you read the local birth announcements in the local paper, many births are to single women. It used to be a scandal for an unmarried women to have a child ... it still is. It seems that marriage is no longer necessary for starting a family, and that's a big problem.
It's a fact that children having a father and mother living together in marriage fare much better in school and their future. The large number of divorces are also a huge problem in destroying the family unit. Those that re-marry wind up with children who are hers, his, theirs or other peoples, who have little in common and dysfunctional.
In the past, we used to have crime and punishment. Now we have crime and therapy. In cases of child abuse, I think the abuser should have therapy that includes a large amount of pain. Let him feel the pain he inflicted on the child.
It seems our traditional values are no longer relevant and God is no longer in Heaven, but now resides in Washington, D.C., God help us.
Paul Mallamaci
Marietta
