There's no illegitimate kids, just illegitimate parents

A news story out of Milwaukee a week or so ago told a distressingly familiar tale: A 21-year-old woman was accused of letting her 1-month-old son starve to death. Yes, in this wondrously bountiful country, where we have far more food than virtually any other nation, the most helpless among us still die for lack of nourishment.

This story is tragic beyond words. Yet the circumstances might just sound like a situation or six that you've heard about before, and that often end up with children dead, abused or neglected.

The dead boy was at least the mother's third child. Now, can anyone tell me why an unmarried 21-year-old woman has three children? It's obvious that she is unable, unwilling or maybe just incompetent to care for three kids on her own - one of them is dead! Need we any more proof?

Oh, the details get better (or I should say they get worse). The woman was earlier accused of using a car to try to run down the father of her two older children! Where was the father when this happened? At his girlfriend's place - and this wasn't the woman with whom he had the two children! Who knows if (or how many) children he might have with this other woman!

What's even sadder about this episode is what supposedly happened to upset the mother so badly. She had taken her two children to stay with their father. After she brought the children inside the other woman's residence (this is the father's girlfriend - admittedly it's hard to keep the people in this ugly soap opera straight), the father took them outside and put them back in the car. He didn't want to deal with them.

How do you think this made those two small children feel? Unloved, to say the least? Unwanted? Sad? Confused? Probably all of these. The list could go on and on.

So the mother allegedly got so angry that she tried to hit the father with a car. Well, at least this could be interpreted as standing up for her kids. It's obvious that the father is an irresponsible loser sperm donor who probably has no qualms about spreading his seed all over town and not giving a damn about the consequences. There's far too many of his type around, and they're leaving behind an ever-growing trail of dysfunctional families and angry children.

Let's face it, the mother isn't much better. You'd think that, once she had a child out of wedlock, she'd take precautions to ensure it didn't happen again. No, that involves common sense and probably some guidance from a responsible older person, who might not have been in the picture. In any case, the woman managed to get pregnant at least twice more. Judging by the story, it's apparent that these children didn't have a stable home or probably much love, at least from their father. And one of them didn't live long enough to endure it.

There's a whole lot of irresponsibility and moronic behavior in this situation. This is what happens when people who shouldn't have children bear them anyway. It's exceedingly ironic how you have to take a test to get a driver's license, but anyone can have a child.

It's not the kids' fault. There are no illegitimate kids, only illegitimate parents. Our social fabric - the basis of which is stable nuclear families - is being slowly shredded by irresponsible people who act impulsively with no thought to the consequences. The number of single-parent homes with no active fathers is so huge that our society doesn't even notice anymore.

The difference between humans and animals is that people can control their impulses. But this takes self control, and that's too much to ask for a part of the population that knows only instant gratification. Whatever form it takes, gratification usually involves some form of happiness - and we know that's an emotion that the dead 1-month-old boy certainly never got to experience.