Just When I Thought I was Numb to Child Abuse Stories

The BBQ Pit
1

I usually don’t post about child abuse stories. I find it futile and depressing, and so many stories are so much alike, just the names and circumstances change around.

But this, I can’t just shrug and turn away.

Brittney Gosney and her boyfriend James Hamilton. Charming couple.

To sum up, if you think the link to the news story would be too upsetting to watch, Brittney tied her kids up late one night and drove them to a park. She put the kids out into the parking lot, and then got back into the car. She maintains she was going drive off and pretend to abandon them. Little six year old James got loose from his bonds and ran crying to the car as it was pulling away and tried to get back inside it.

And then, Brittney ran over James, killing him. Darling boyfriend later helped Brittany toss little James into the Ohio River. The body has not been found.

The reason I post this is because I remember seeing this form of punishment used on another little boy.

I was waiting at a bus stop one evening. A pissed off mom dragged her kid up to the bus shelter, and after some fussing, sat the sulky maybe five year old child on the bench, and told him, and I paraphrase, “Don’t you move off this bench! I’ve had it with you! I’m leaving!”

And then the mom took off walking down the street.

The little boy started screaming, terrified, but I could see he didn’t dare leave the bench. He shrieked like his life was over, and mom just kept walking. She reached the corner, and waited, I dunno, a few minutes. I could see her, but I don’t know if her kid could. He just screamed and cried.

Finally, she came back, filling the air with the profanities I paraphrased away when I quoted her just now. The little kid’s cries died away into moaning hiccups.

And I did nothing. I didn’t even try to calm the kid down when his mother walked away. I still regret that, but I had onlooker’s freeze syndrome, I guess. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

People, don’t punish your kids this way. Don’t threaten them with abandonment. Don’t destroy them by telling them you don’t want them anymore. That you hate them. That you wish them gone.

And for god’s sake, don’t play act like you are actually throwing them away.

And if it isn’t an act, you are Evil itself.

2

There isn’t really much you could do. Since the mother was in view it isn’t technically abandonment (even though clearly intended to produce that feeling in the child) or neglect. Any psychologist or social worker would immediately understand how horrific this is, especially to a small child with no real context of security outside of parents, but you’d be hard pressed to find a family court judge who would take legal issue with it.

My mother used to drive off and ‘abandon’ me (drive away and come back twenty or thirty minutes later) in parking lots on a not-infrequent basis, or force me out of the car and either drive off or drive ahead at a slow rate with me running behind her on the shoulder. Aside from how incredibly dangerous it is to have a child running on the shoulder of a highway (or frequently on a shoulder-less backroad, sometimes in the dark), it quickly instilled in me the conviction that I could not trust or rely upon her, which turned out to be quite accurate in my teenage years when her mental instabilities became fully apparent. I haven’t spoken with her in over thirty years and have zero interest in ever doing so again.

Some people just should not be parents. Unfortunately, they don’t discover or realize that until they have children, if even then.

Stranger

3

That was a pretty biased news report.
Are they implying that she ran over the child on purpose?
If the body hasn’t been found, I wonder why they admitted to it. They have to explain the absent child, of course.

4

The OP doesn’t say that Gosney ran over James on purpose, and mainstream news reports like this one don’t seem to suggest that.

And I presume that if her other two children are old enough to talk, they’ll have told investigators at least something about what happened.

5

Not a parent myself, but parents who do this are like spouses who shout “I want a divorce!” anytime something doesn’t go their way. They don’t realize that the threat of going nuclear has consequences that cannot be taken back. They see only the strong power that such a threat has, and think “effective!”

(the difference being, of course, that child abandonment is illegal while divorce is not)

6

From your link, "The judge said James tried to stop his mother from speeding away and was dragged under the car and killed. " That does sound accidental. Thanks, Kimstu.

7

I respectfully submit that parents who do this are WAY FUCKING WORSE than spouses who do that.

It’s one thing to be an overreacting drama llama to your adult spouse (though even adults naturally find such behavior disturbing and aggravating), but pretending to your minor children that you’re going to leave them alone and helpless forever?!? Anecdotes like Stranger’s in post #2 are absolutely spinechilling in their revelation that there are real live parents who really are that callous and screwed up.

8

These folks are crazy. I wonder if they should be institutionalized instead of imprisoned.