Single Mothers: So Desperate for Love

BY KAWANA N. WILLIAMS, LPC

“Boyfriend charged in toddler’s death; often called him a crybaby….”

“James Harris charged with murder of toddler found in Riverdale……”

“Prosecutors: Mom, boyfriend beat/killed child….made up kidnapping story…..”

“Teenage father arrested after biting nose off 1 month-old son because infant would not stop crying….”

What do all of these cases have in common: mothers whose children were murdered by either their live-in partners or the father of their children?

About two weeks ago, a very adorable little girl named Ameriah Roberson popped up on my Facebook timeline. This cute-as-a-button toddler with pigtails, dimples as deep as an ocean, and eyes as bright as the sun, had been reported missing by James Harris IV, the boyfriend of the mother of 16 month-old Ameriah.  Two days later, the gut-wrenching news that the child’s body was found in the Riverdale area of the South Side of Chicago, Illinois was not the news that I expected to hear or read.  Any person with a heart was doing exactly what I had been doing once it had been announced that the child had gone missing: praying and meditating on the safe return of the child to her mother.  Any person with a heart had those very hearts broken once it was revealed that Mr. Harris had been arrested for, and admitted to, murdering the child at the child’s home, then taking the child out to the forest where she was found, and attempting to set her on fire in a failed attempt to rid himself of the evidence of Ameriah’s murder.

This is the third time in a year that I can recall a woman’s partner murdering their child in the state of Illinois; and these three incidents are just the ones that I can remember off the top of my very active brain.  As a licensed professional counselor (LPC), the professional in me wants to take these young ladies in my arms, hug them as tightly as their bodies and spirits will allow, and repeat “I love you.  You are beautiful.  You are worthy. You are worth more than what you’re allowing yourself to have.”   These are words that seemed to have not been spoken to them as a child.

Stepping outside of my professional mentality, however, I want to take these women and shake them–HARD. The truth is that the very men that are moved into these women’s homes (and, inevitably, forced upon their children) had to have been showing signs of the very violence that caused their child’s death before he was asked to move in.  With federal statistics showing that children who live with a mother and her boyfriend are eleven times more likely to be sexually, emotionally, and/or physically abused (and six times more likely to be physically, emotionally, and/or educationally neglected), one would think that women with a child under the age of three would be a bit more cautious about the men that they choose to have around their offspring.

The questions I have are these: are women now so desperate for love in their lives that they will let just ANY man live with them, sleep with them, and watch their children without some sort of screening done? Are women now worried more about having someone to sleep next to at night than they are worried about the well-being of their child(ren) and who they choose to have around them?  Why do you even HAVE a man, who is NOT the child’s father, living with you when your child is less than 2 years-old?  Where is your mother?  Where was your father?  Where is your self-love?

Now, I am not knocking women who decide to date if the relationship with her child’s father did not work out.  Adults will be adults, and they will do whatever they feel makes them happy. However, as a woman with some sense of responsibility, I would like to believe that the nurturing and safely of their child would be more pressing to a mother, single or otherwise, than the consistent penis that they seem so desperate to hold on to and not realizing that this very desperation is what has put, and kept, their child(ren) in such a dangerous position.  Somehow or another, I would like to believe that some of these single mothers would exercise a stronger sense of, well, SENSE!  Perhaps my expectations for these women are too high.  Perhaps they just were not properly taught the meaning of priorities once a child is brought into this plane of existence.  Perhaps my opinion of their situation is far too subjective. Or perhaps, just perhaps, these women really ARE that desperate for love.

Now, here’s a new question: how do we, as a community, help these very women turn that desperation internally to see that the very love that they are so desperate for has to first be found WITHIN?  How can we hold ourselves accountable for these women who are searching so feverishly for something that cannot be found past their own selves?  Should we even bother trying to show them the light within their dark situation?  Or should we continue to allow them to wallow in their cyclical search for love?  I would LOVE to see these women love their children more.  I would LOVE to see these women love THEMSELVES more.