The Barbeardian

If you've been anywhere near a newsstand or a television lately, you've probably at least heard of Baby Lisa. Being from Kansas City, we here at The Barbeardian have been hearing about this since it happened, weeks before it went mainstream.

For those of you who are somehow unaware, Lisa Irwin is a 10-month-old infant who went missing on the early morning of October 4th. At first, everyone in the news media were calling it a kidnapping, but have not yet ruled out the possibility of infanticide. Lisa's specific details, however tragic, aren't necessary to the point I'm trying to make.

Childhelp, a national organization dedicated to stopping child abuse and neglect, reports that as of 2010, approximately 5 children die every day in America because of abuse and neglect - 80% of which are children under the age of 4. According to The Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 115 children are kidnapped every year. And they call those "stereotypical" kidnappings - where the guy rapes, murders, or intends to keep the kid unrelated to him. Kidnappings where it's the father or someone related are called "family abductions" and number in the hundreds of thousands per year, but "non-family abductions" are [only] around 60k per yer.

But we, as a society have chosen, out of the thousands of kids who are kidnapped every year, of the 5 that die every fucking day because of terrible unfit parenting, to focus and obsess over one. Six months ago all anyone could ever talk about was Casey Anthony. "That bitch is guilty. She killed her beautiful baby girl." I'm not here to debate whether she did or didn't kill anyone. That's besides the point. This week, Baby Lisa was on the cover of People Magazine. The situation is being covered extensively on national news every day, updating everyone with the most banal minutiae of the case. "Were the brothers able to hear anything?" "Where is the father's cell phone?" "Was the mother really drunk?" Should a mother of three even be getting drunk? Especially to the point of using the term "blackout drunk" as an excuse to why she doesn't know where her baby is? What would have happened if one of her sons needed her for something? Why didn't anyone say "Blackout drunk you say? That's enough there for us to take away your other two kids."


But here I am doing the one thing I have a problem with. Judging and speculating about one family. I guess the difference with me, is that I'm using the Irwin family as a litmus test as to what's really wrong with this country. Not only is it media and social fixation, it's our out-of-whack priorities about what terrible things really happen in our neighborhoods.

What I'm getting at is that we find ourselves entitled to scrutinize and focus on one family's tragedy or alleged crime while ignoring the, most times, far worse things that happen on every fucking street corner, every fucking day. This isn't to say that whatever has happened to Baby Lisa or Caylee Anthony isn't terrible and tragic to all those involved.

But what is worse, a child that dies in a family unfit to provide for it? Or a child who is sexually abused for 8 years by mom's rotation of boyfriends she has watch her kid, or a step-grandpa that diddles all the cousins? Both appalling to be certain, but couldn't the argument be made that there is a greater evil? A loving family wouldn't let a child die of neglect. Which is to say, that child probably wouldn't have grown up in the best environment to begin with.

Now kidnapped, murdered, or teleported to Mars by the Tharks, we have no way of knowing what happened to Baby Lisa. But everyone has to give their fucking opinion. Why doesn't George Stephanopoulos go up and down the block making sure everyone else is taken care of? Why? Because it doesn't make headlines to say "A lot of kids sure have it fucked in this 'greatest of nations'" the way "Holy shit white baby girl has gone missing" makes headlines. I can't begin to speak from the heart and mind of a father, so I can't say that I'd rather my own child be kidnapped or killed than molested for 6 years. But the abused, neglected, and molested child will grow up more likely to be in prison, more likely to have a mental disorder, far more likely to be victimized or raped as an adult, have a harder time with friendships and healthy romantic relationships.

To quote Adam Carolla:

What is the one topic we never hear a goddamn thing about? Idiots having kids. Idiots churning out kids. What is the one universal topic that applies like an umbrella over every other topic? Who is it that's running up the credit card debt? Who is it that's filling the prisons? Who is it that's unemployed? Who is it that's uneducated? Who is it that's getting pregnant in their teen years? Who is it that's getting strung out and filling up the clinics? It is unwanted kids. 99% of the time. That's it. The second people start getting responsible with the goddamn birth control, the second parents start focusing on the children, keeping it intact family, having 2.3 kids instead of 14.9 kids, the second they start focusing on the kid's education, the kid's future, the second parents start parenting instead of just effing, is the second ALL - not just this country, but the world's problems go away. That's when the prison guards get to go home...Every problem we have, magically goes away. The congestion, the pollution, the crime - it all just goes away. It is unwanted children, who then by the way, go on to have more unwanted children and so on and so forth. Never addressed. Never touched...Always talking about the hard working families...and the mothers who have to hold down 3 jobs. Right. They have to hold down 3 jobs because they 33 effing kids! And they can't take care of those goddamn kids...Let's address the root of the problem.

This sums up my point better than I can say. Everyone has an opinion about the families we become fixated on. We watch these dramas unfold like we're watching LOST. "Oooh, what do the missing cell phones have to do with it? I can totally tell she's lying. I can't wait to find out where the dad was." We as a collective people should focus on what is important in our own houses, instead of the national equivalent to staring through the blinds when the neighbors are fighting - while the whole time, our own kids are putting a phonebook on the stove. If we actually start to focus on our children, think about what kind of parents we are, worry about what we expose them to, and teach them the right way to live, we might not have to worry about the new kidnapped white kid every six months.