OT: The girl in the window

[Scouter]

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece

Like the Paul McCartney thread, this has nothing to do with sports but is just an incredible story. It's about a girl who was completely neglected for the first seven years of her life, and is just now beginning to develop normal human behavioral patterns.

It's a VERY long read, but is one of the best stories and best pieces of writing I've seen in a long time. I hope you take the time to check it out. You won't be disappointed.

[Beninator]

Thanks Scouter.....all I can say right now is what a story....

[bigdaddystuck]

Wow! Sounds like the "mother" has some severe issues of her own and needs help as well. As a teacher, I have called DCFS several times because things I have seen or heard, and would not hesitate to do it again. There is nothing that gets me upset more than to see a child being mistreated.

Learned this life lesson early, at around 10. I was grocery shopping with my dad and we saw a woman who was trying to discipline her son. He was probably 5 or 6. She repeatedly would grab his privates and then say, "Do you want me to twist?" Of course, the kid is hysterical, finally after the 3rd time my dad went over to the woman and told her that if he saw her grab the boy again that he would call the cops and a few other choice words. The woman said she was doing the best she could. My father said she needed to get help! Just don't understand how parents can be so flippant about their treatment of their kids!

[mike radigan]

I actually shed a tear. So very very sad.

[SFP]

Scouter thanks for sharing. I hope they do a follow up in a year or two. I'd like to know how that little girl is doing. There are some real sick people out there who need a lot of help. The sad thing is the mother still does not know any better and she herself was probably abused. We would hope that in our society today we could stop these types of occurrences from happening over and over again. Florida's child welfare system has to be the worse or is it? It seems a lot of these stories occur there.

[Scouter]

Again, I realize this topic is far from related to sports, but I wanted to update it because this story won the Pulitzer Prize this week for feature writing.

http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2009-Feature-Writing

[Chico]

Wow! Sounds like the "mother" has some severe issues of her own and needs help as well. As a teacher, I have called DCFS several times because things I have seen or heard, and would not hesitate to do it again. There is nothing that gets me upset more than to see a child being mistreated.

Learned this life lesson early, at around 10. I was grocery shopping with my dad and we saw a woman who was trying to discipline her son. He was probably 5 or 6. She repeatedly would grab his privates and then say, "Do you want me to twist?" Of course, the kid is hysterical, finally after the 3rd time my dad went over to the woman and told her that if he saw her grab the boy again that he would call the cops and a few other choice words. The woman said she was doing the best she could. My father said she needed to get help! Just don't understand how parents can be so flippant about their treatment of their kids!

You're right she did need help, but if the kid kept acting up if he was still hysterical after the 3rd time, he needed help also.

[Beninator]

Thanks Scouter.. That was a well written story that deserved the Pulitzer prize.