The Cruelty of the Duct Tape Parents

As you are well aware, I am not at all a fan of backseat parenting — I don’t see parents doing something with which I disagree and rush right over to tell them all about the error of their ways. There are limits to this, of course, and lines in parenting that cannot and should not ever be crossed — that line was crossed by a couple in Arizona who posted photos of their children tied up with Duct tape, mouths taped shut, and hung upside down.

They then later posted that they were just joking around.

KSAZ TV reports that Frankie and Kayla Almuina were arrested at their home in Williams, Ariz., after an anonymous tipster saw the photos on the mother’s Facebook page and called the Arizona Child Abuse Hotline.

“They did indicate that they were simply joking, however it is apparent through the photographs that this was not a joke. The photos depicted the children’s faces in sheer terror,” Commander Rex Gilliland of the sheriff’s office tells KSZA. “Clearly you can’t tape another person’s hands and mouth shut. Especially small children. It is clearly child abuse and they were charged appropriately.

Joking around? When parents treat their children like prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison facility in Iraq, there is absolutely no room for calling it a joke of any kind. If you choose to become a parent, you are making the choice to become the protector of the child or children you have until at least the age of eighteen — some would say that you take on the role of being there to protect them in their time of need for life.

Under no circumstances should you ever be the instrument through which any harm, even if intended in a joking manner (and I again question how you could possibly hang your children upside down and call it a joke) and if you think otherwise, you need to reconsider if you are fit to be a parent.

These monsters that perpetrated this absolute evil deserved to have their children taken away from them — hopefully to ultimately be given to loving parents who will treat them at the very least how human beings should be treated, let alone how ones children should be treated. I don’t think it’s enough of a punishment, however. There is unfortunately no way to prevent them from having other children — and that is rather unfortunate because there is no way that they should ever even be allowed to be near children, let alone be the parents or guardians of them.