Article: Don't make your child a victim of your messy life; Parents have duty to keep kids away from volatile situations
Article from:
Chicago Sun-Times
Article date:
October 19, 2010
Author:
Mary Mitchell CopyrightCopyright (c) 2009 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Some stories are just not fit to print.
The messy tale of what happened at a home in West Pullman over the weekend is one of them.
As a black woman, I cringe knowing that a lot of people will judge young African-American mothers in neighborhoods like Pullman based on this violent episode.
According to police, a 4-year-old boy allegedly witnessed his surrogate father stab his biological father during a fight over the boy's affection.
Only in a nightmare that scares you awake should a situation like this exist.
The most shocking aspect of this Saturday night killing is that the presence of a 4-year-old boy, who supposedly was loved by two fathers, was not enough to stop the bloodshed.
The victim, Nick Lamar Seay, was the boy's biological father. According to other adults in the home, Seay was at the home where his son, son's mother and her boyfriend lived to celebrate his 30th birthday.
That, of course, didn't make any sense and, frankly, was a recipe for disaster.
Seay had recently been released from a state prison where he served three years for armed robbery with a firearm.
That would mean that his biological son was a toddler when Seay went away.
In his absence, another man acted as a surrogate father to the incarcerated man's son. But his was not an act rooted in benevolence. The man also had a child with the boy's mother. So you can imagine the confusion that the 4-year-old already has weathered.
At some point during the celebration things must have gotten out of hand because, according to initial reports, the surrogate father pulled a knife on Seay, who was trying to comfort his crying son.
As of Monday afternoon, the surrogate father had not been charged. The police described the case as an "ongoing investigation," which means more sordid facts are likely to come.
But incidents like this just don't happen in a sober world.
I don't know if any of these people were drinking or smoking dope, but it was 2 a.m., and the kids in the house were up watching videos.
That's a dead giveaway that no one was acting responsibly.
More important, the biological father should not have been at the house in the first place. He should have picked up his son and spent time with him somewhere other than at the home his ex now shares with another man.
Although one of the boy's relatives told a Sun-Times reporter that Seay "got overprotective of the boy," and that "too many people love the boy," what happened is not a reflection of anyone's love for a child.
This violent confrontation is a reflection of extreme selfishness.
Ten days ago, another 30-year-old father was charged with murder in the death of his 14-month-son.
Dontrell Johnson was found floating in Lake Michigan. An autopsy revealed that the toddler had been strangled.
The boy's father, Donald Johnson, allegedly had threatened the child because the boy's mother refused to resume their failed relationship.
Apparently, the father had a "long history" of domestic violence. Yet there was no order of protection in place. That would have at least made it much more difficult for Johnson to have unsupervised visits with his son.
Before allegedly strangling his son, Johnson called the boy's mother and told her he planned to kill himself and their son.
He didn't kill himself. He allegedly killed his son.
These stories should make every single mother take stock of what is going on in her own home.
It is hard enough for children to grow up in a single-parent household. But when that household is held hostage by chaos, the damage it does to children is almost criminal.
As my own mother used to remind me, kids won't be kids long. One day, you look up and the toddler is towering over you.
And the problem with living a messy life is that it never seems that messy when you are the one living it.
Too often, it is only after the damage is done does one realize they have not only wrecked their own lives, but the lives of their children.
We can do a lot better than this.
