Is Caring- That Human, And Parental Instinct, Out of Commission?

So often we read of severe abuse and death of our children at the hands of parents . . . by a family member or a sibling. Have we become so mechanized that maternal and paternal instincts are extinct? Has brotherly love become a thing of the past?

We so often hear of a child gone missing, of an infant being found in a trash-dumpster or thrown into a body of water, and off overpasses. So often we read of a missing child believed deceased and buried in an unmarked grave somewhere unknown.

Sometimes I feel an overload and can’t center my thoughts or my prayers on just one missing child or just one missing adult. I can’t sit and write about just one bruised, battered body of an adult or child found murdered at the hands of those entrusted with their care. With the one who promised in marital vows to love, honor and obey (meaning to respect the others wishes) until death do us part - not until they cause the death.

Today, as I sit thinking of children, little Jaliek Rainwalker comes to mind - a child yet found but believed deceased by the many not the few, allegedly at the hands of a person supposedly to have loved and cared for him. I think of little Trenton Ducket - another precious child unfound but believed deceased. I think of Josef Smith- brutally treated like a a possession and killed by his parents in the name of ‘spare-the-rod' love. I think of Sean Paddock horribly abused by his adoptive mother and died due to her punishments. I think of Caylee Anthony believed killed at the hands of her mother. I think of Daisja Weaver, an infant, yet found but believed deceased, whose parent allegedly threw off a bridge into a body of water. I think of little Laycee Johnson a 13-month-old whom her babysitter brutally beat about the head so badly her abuser killer’s knuckle prints were allegedly visible when she reached the hospital. I think of Emma Lee Barker, 18 months, allegedly smothered at the hands of her mother and left in tall grass on the side of an interstate. I think of Alycia Mesiti, age 14, allegedly killed by her father. I think of Ebony Dorsey, age 14, sexually assaulted and murdered by her mother’s boyfriend.

I think of all the child victims’ at the hands of those entrusted with their care, those who should love and protect them - those whose names I only recognize when hearing them. And all those I do not know about, or whose names have vanished into my memory so deeply that I can’t recall their names. Sadly, I’ve read of so many murdered children that I can’t readily list them.

Is this our children their children’s future? Will what we have always thought of as ageless and undying - that natural and instinctive parental love - become obsolete?