Everytime I have to hear/read about how these parents believed that they where right for caging their adopted children, I shrudder. In honesty, it plays out the same for most abusive parents "see what YOU made ME do??" Few parents ever realize that when they cross that line- it is because they choice to. Wait, few abuse parents. For them, it is easier to blame the kids- after all THEIR behavior caused the abuse. If the kid could have just "stopped crying" or stopped this or that- the parent would not have had to lock them in a closet, beat them with a 2x4 etc.
Even worse is when the "father" who locked these kids in cages defends the money they recieved - over $4000 a month- by telling us that "you couldn't pay enough to do the things they did". Because in reality- you couldn't pay any decent parent enough to lock their kids up, make them live in a filthy home with a lingering smell of urine and feces.
It offends me that Sharen and Michael Gravelle have yet to be charged. The only thing that makes their crime even more horrific is that the children they should have been loving and nuturing where disablied, and needed even more care than the normal child. They had a even larger resonsiblity to these children. And they not only failed- they abused them.
Even given the benefit of the doubt- it is still rather difficult to accept that knowing they where evidently unable to maintain a clean enviroment, and healthy living conditions for a few children- they continued to pile more and more into their home. But I guess the four thousand bucks a month helped make that choice.
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Categories: abused, caged
Even worse is when the "father" who locked these kids in cages defends the money they recieved - over $4000 a month- by telling us that "you couldn't pay enough to do the things they did". Because in reality- you couldn't pay any decent parent enough to lock their kids up, make them live in a filthy home with a lingering smell of urine and feces.
It offends me that Sharen and Michael Gravelle have yet to be charged. The only thing that makes their crime even more horrific is that the children they should have been loving and nuturing where disablied, and needed even more care than the normal child. They had a even larger resonsiblity to these children. And they not only failed- they abused them.
Even given the benefit of the doubt- it is still rather difficult to accept that knowing they where evidently unable to maintain a clean enviroment, and healthy living conditions for a few children- they continued to pile more and more into their home. But I guess the four thousand bucks a month helped make that choice.
"...If you can call these cages, take me to jail right now," Michael
Gravelle said. "Right now."
The couple pointed out holes where they said
the children had kicked in the walls and gouges in the drywall from their
fingernails. Baseboards were soaked with urine stains, and the walls still show
marks where the children had smeared their feces.
"We live with this
smell," said Sharen Gravelle, who at times broke down in tears. "We love these
children."
Prosecutor Russ Leffler alleges that the Gravelles were
adopting the children for financial gain. Records show they received $4,265
monthly in adoption subsidies and disability payments when they had eight
children in 2001.
"You could not pay me enough to do the things we had
to do," Michael Gravelle said. "There is nothing easy about raising these
children. We did not abuse them. That's the truth."
The couple's lawer,
David Sherman, was not aware of Sunday's tour, the newspaper said
..."
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Categories: abused, caged
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