Daily Lessons from Life 13 October 2012 in USA - Mom jailed for beating, gluing kid's hands to wall

"Mom jailed for beating, gluing kid's hands to wall - AFP 14 October 2012

WASHINGTON: A Texas judge has sentenced a mother who superglued her toddler's hands to a wall to 99 years in prison, local media reported Saturday.

During the September 2011 assault on her two-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Escalona also beat the girl into a coma, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The 23-year-old mother of five had pleaded guilty in July to felony injury to a child.

"I hit her, I kicked her constantly, and she didn't deserve that," the newspaper's crime blog quoted Escalona as saying in court last week. "Only a monster does that."

According to the blog, the abuse -- which resulted in bleeding of the girl's brain -- appeared to be over potty training.

Before handing down the sentence, Judge Larry Mitchell said Escalona needed to be punished for savagely beating her child "to the edge of death."

The daughter survived and, according to testimony referenced by the blog, is doing well."

Interesting to learn of this piece of news in Asiaone.com website while I am in the USA right now.

Lessons for me are:

1. do we need to legislate for overly early marriage for certain people? At 23-year old she has 5 children? Nothing wrong with it if she, and where is the father?, can take care of her kids properly;

2. will pre-marriage counselling or training - awareness for the most part - help? In the USA I can foresee challenges on the ground of personal liberty and right!

3. maybe this is not prevalent. Maybe it is just a very very small fraction of the population has this problems. If so, it is probably right to leave it alone and deal with such cases on an individual basis.

May the kid recover well and put this episode behind her. And grow well!!