When a child is hurt

There is a collective anguish that occurs whenever we read about a child being attacked. I wept when I read about the 3-year-old girl in St. Maries who was nearly killed by her mother's boyfriend. I don't know the girl but her suffering resonated sharply within my soul. Along with the pain comes anger and the wonder about how a family could possibly not know, how people who surround a child fail to come to its aid. I never dreamt that those questions would be asked publicly about my family and that I would find my daughter being censured under the harsh light of media criticism.

My daughter, Rebecca Mullin, has two children and it was her 2-year-old son whose leg was broken by Mike Edinger. When I got the call from my daughter that her son was in Kootenai Medical Center she was sobbing and alone. I called my husband and got to the hospital as soon as I could.

The next days were muddled with sorrow, shock and anger. You can look at a mug shot and see an angry man, clearly not fit to be around children or you can meet Mike and his family and see a tight-knit loving group of everyday people. The worst of this is that we trusted Mike and that was after we'd observed him around our daughter and her children. We never saw impatience or anger. We certainly never saw injuries that would indicate danger.

My grandson is a human version of cannonball run. He is busy, cheerful, full of mischief and very tough. I've seen him tumble or run into things and grunt, jump back up and keep going and you know it must have hurt but he can't be bothered with trifles. That's why I believed the story that he had fallen down stairs. He always wants to go down the stairs like a big guy, but his little legs can't do it.

The physicians and nurses at Kootenai knew better and on reflection I remember the somber concern in their expressions as I tried to explain "This isn't child abuse - it's gravity." I think of myself as a realist and I was locked into a cocoon of denial. When that protection of ignorance was ripped away by sheer fact, it was agony.

Now that agony is compounded by Angela Monson, 590AM morning talk show host and 'Queen of the Dimmed' who stated on air that my daughter should be arrested too. In that case, everyone who has ever shown poor judgment in a relationship should be arrested and the cell would have to hold most of the population of America. My daughter is the mother I'd always wish I'd been. She is loving, firm, protective and playful. Her children light up when they see her and her ability to cherish them shines through even when she's worked long hours and borne the burdens of single motherhood.

When she met Mike, we thought she'd finally caught a break - but what shattered instead was the trust we had wrongly placed in his hands. The rest of what shattered is of course, the body of a small child and the heart of his mother.

Now in live chat and on the air, people are saying my daughter should be arrested. You might want to pause in your ignorance-fueled witch hunt long enough to learn the facts. The person who should have been arrested, was arrested. The Kootenai County Sheriff's Department responded superbly to this crime, they worked throughout the day following the attack and with precision, firmness and compassion honed in on what needed to be done to keep my grandson safe. The result is that his mother is home with him, tending to his needs and his attacker is in jail.

The self-indulgent backlash of public anger only serves to undermine the person who is helping the kids heal. Please don't become part of another attack that hurts a child.