Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Duty vs. Child

This morning on my daily, what is going on in the world according to Yahoo's top stories, I came across this article.  An army cook was being deployed to Afghanistan and  and refused to go because she had no one to care for her infant son.  She apparently has a mother that is currently too preoccupied caring for not one but three elderly family members and could not take on the baby as well.

The military's response was to put the baby in foster care.  Say what?!  Your job is to help protect and serve our country but in order to do so you have to put your child in foster care?  And since you refuse to put your child in foster care - being the good mother that you are - you are arrested?  There was no other alternative for this woman?  They couldn't have found her a better deal for deployment that would not force her to lose her son?

Basically I find this so appalling.  Maybe I don't know the whole story but why should a woman be forced to put her son in foster care?  First of all, any one whose job is to protect and defend our country is already a hero in my eyes.  If you join the armed forces you are a wonderful, brave person.  Not only are they risking their lives for the lives of all of us, but they leave their families for long periods of time, suffer mentally and literally with injuries during war, and a plethora of other things that most of us don't experience in an entire life time.

If they are already doing us such a service, does that mean their children don't matter?  Does that mean it's no biggie for them to leave an infant alone in foster care so they can fulfill their duty?  Honestly, the army couldn't have given her another job?  I feel so much for this woman who was torn between motherhood and duty and applaud her for doing the right thing, even if she got arrested.  I hope the people dealing with her case have a heart and do the right thing as well.

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...