So I was reading about this horrible murder case at Jezebel (Sorry OD!).

Nixmary Brown, a seven year old girl, was beaten to death by her step father. Her mother, who is admittedly learning disabled and was also regularly beaten by her husband and DID not beat Nixmary to death, got a prison sentence 17 years longer than the actual murderer for her part in the crime.

17 years longer and she didn’t strike a blow.

Granted- she is a horrible mother. Horrible. And I know all about horrible mothers. And there are lots of things I would like to blame horrible mothers for, being the product of one myself. But…..

Let’s look at this in a different, more palatable and more common way (and a way guaranteed to stir up MRA’s into a furry).

If I, as a mother to my Kid, decided I wasn’t going to spend a dime on feeding my child, how long would it go on before I was thrown in jail for neglect? Certainly the Kid would get 2 meals a day from school Monday through Friday. He’d live on less than 1000 calories a day during the week and just water during the weekends. He’d live, but he’d be hungry and malnourished. And I’d be a horrible parent. At the most it would take a few months for someone to report me to children’s services and for the Kid to be taken away while I would be charged with criminal neglect. As I should be.

But let’s look at the Kid’s dad. Who owes $40,000 in back child support. That’s about 10 years of unpaid child support in the stunning amount of $328 per month (less than the total of 1/4 of the rent and half the cost of the Kid’s food). How long did it take for authorities to make that a criminal act, to threaten him with jail time for non-payment- 10 years. And then he didn’t get actual jail time, just the threat of it. 10 years of neglect. 10 years of not feeding or clothing or housing his own child.

His non-payment is the equivalent of my not feeding the kid, but the punishments are vastly different for the same essential crime, neglect of a child.

But I am the mommy. And society holds me to a much higher standard of care than they do his father, but I am given less resources, opportunity and excuses for failure than I would be if I was a father instead of a mother. I have a smaller paycheck, higher health care costs, and the physical, emotional, and economic burden of raising the Kid alone. As did Nixmary’s mother, until she married the man who murdered her daughter.

But we don’t look at that. I have not once heard anyone ask “where was the girl’s father?” in any of the stories I’ve read on this case. Where was he? Why wasn’t he protecting his child? Was he paying child support, seeing his daughter regularly so he would know if she was in a safe and loving home?

But it’s always the mother’s fault. Fathers are given the ability to walk away from parenthood with little consequence. Mothers are not.