Accountability

When I was about eight years old, my family lived on Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was riding my bike around the block, and just as I rounded a corner I saw a very hysterical woman come rushing out of her house with a naked baby boy in her arms. As she hastily put the baby on the front lawn, a fire truck pulled up and a fireman rushed to the baby and immediately started giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. While the mother was wailing nearby, an older boy of about four or five came out, also not wearing any clothes, and started playfully dancing on the lawn, seemingly oblivious to what was going on. After a minute or two, the fireman gave up on resuscitating the baby and covered him with a blanket, at which point the mother lost it altogether. I have a vague memory of the older child asking someone something, but I can’t remember to whom, or what was said.

I remember going back home and telling my mom all about what I had just seen. A few days later, my mom told me that the baby was about two years old and had drowned after the mother left him alone in the bathtub. She also told me that she heard the older child was periodically locked in a closet as punishment, and that the mother also had an infant who had been hospitalized for malnutrition on more than one occasion. My mother was a nurse working at the base hospital at the time and may have had evidence of the latter supposition. I’m sure at the time my mother had explained what child abuse was, but all that stuck in my mind was what she told me about each of the children.

Slight segue here: I give my mother credit for not holding back when she explained everything to me. I talked to her the other night about this incident, and while she doesn’t really remember it, it’s something that is forever ingrained in my head. She told me that she would have had no reason not be honest about it, and may have figured that after what I had witnessed, I could probably handle details about child abuse and what was going on with the mother’s other two children. Personally, I think kids are pretty resilient and can handle more than most people think. I’ve heard too many stories from friends whose parents didn’t tell them something they should have known because they were “too young” to handle it, only to find out second or third hand as an adult to devastating consequences.

I never saw the mother or her kids after that, and I don’t know whatever became of them, nor do I know how the situation was handled. This was around 1974, and child abuse was still a taboo subject, so even if someone had witnessed any of the alleged abuse, it is doubtful anyone would have said or done anything.

We now live in a time where almost nothing is taboo, and Child Services are called frequently, sometimes erroneously, without hesitation. Unfortunately, no one called them for 10-year-old Ame Deal (read about her here and here). Unbelievably, neighbors said they had not called authorities “because they had not witnessed any physical abuse, although they would occasionally hear screams.” Yet the neighbors had witnessed her being forced to exercise barefoot outside in 103 degree heat. On one occasion, a neighbor heard screams from the same footlocker authorities found her body in while the girl’s aunt sat on top of it, using a laptop computer. When they were interviewed on the news, several neighbors mentioned specific situations that should have been huge red flags. Some of these neighbors should be held accountable for their negligence. Since they had no problem expressing what they saw and heard while being interviewed by the press, there should be no problem proving them negligent.

I don’t have children of my own, and one of the reasons I don’t, is that I know I do not have the patience to put up with them. People wrongly assume I don’t like children, but that certainly is not true. That’s not to say I would abuse them – I just know my limitations. I have often been told that my attitude would change once I had children of my own. There are too many parents out there who have children but shouldn’t. Not only do the children end up suffering, they often carry the abuse into adulthood and onto their own children. It makes me wonder if any of those parents were told that it would be different once they had children of their own.

Update:  I found a newspaper article about what I saw. I was actually seven at the time.

Albuquerque Journal

August 12, 1972

Boy, 2, Found Drowned in Tub

The bathtub drowning of a small boy Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) was discovered early Friday morning by the boy’s mother.

David Edward Gaby, two and one half years old, the son of Capt. Lewis P. Gaby, 1116 B 11th Loop SE KAFB was found by his mother at 11:15 a.m. in the family bathroom.

The Gaby’s have two other children, Lewis, 5, and a three month old daughter, Debbie.

Capt. Gaby is a project officer in the Theoretical Physics Branch of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory’s Technology Division.

Funeral arrangements are pending.