Bailey Singletary is a junior majoring in communication. She can be contacted at [email protected]. On April 5, a young girl named Darisabel Baez celebrated her second birthday. The next day she was beaten to death with a video game controller by her mother’s boyfriend while her mother listened from another room as the beating occurred.
The 19-year-old mother did not take any action until she realized her child was unconscious, and then she and her 26-year-old boyfriend placed her in a tub of water in an attempt to revive her lifeless body. Two-year-old Baez died last week because her own mother would not save her life.
I don’t think the mother’s age has anything to do with not being a good mother, but this makes me wonder why she had the child in the first place.
For all of you who are going to try and throw this all on the boyfriend, the mother is also at fault. Do not only blame the boyfriend because he was the one who physically beat her until she died and, according to reports, had beaten her numerous times before. This is just as much the mother’s fault as it is his.
First things first, though. I think it’s quite ridiculous the man’s bail was only set at $200,000, while a few weeks ago, a man in Chicago was charged with producing meth and cocaine and was sent to prison without bail.
Maybe I’m crazy but I feel like a man who will kill his girlfriend’s innocent 2-year-old child is much more dangerous than a man who makes and sells drugs.
Secondly, her mother was there and did nothing to stop him from beating her. She might not have realized he was slowly killing her child, but allowing him to beat her for the hell of it is just as bad.
What really infuriates me is that this girl had so many options other than raising a child for two years and letting her boyfriend beat her until she died. Sure, she might have been embarrassed to call child services and have them take her child, but I think her name being splashed across national newspapers and the Internet for this fiasco is more embarrassing to her and her family. Even having the girl put up for adoption would have been a great option so that she would have been raised by a good family that wouldn’t have purposely let her die.
I guess everyone interested in why a person would do this will have to wait until the story unfolds to know exactly why she let this happen and why he decided to beat her.
The worst part about this type of child abuse is that it isn’t the first time something like this has happened to an innocent child.
Earlier this year a man was arrested for killing his 17-month-old daughter by pummeling her and cracking her skull several times after she accidentally pulled out his Xbox console (while her pregnant mother slept in another room). This man received up to 47 years in jail.
I am not blaming violent video games for this rage that men are experiencing, because for all we know, they could have been playing Mario Kart. I just think people need to take more responsibility for themselves when choosing to have and raise a child.