But in this case, UNNAMED DAD was (presumably) chosen to be the stay-at-home/primary caretaker parent while Mom ran a business. (However, note that Dad had a spotty work history, so there may not have been much real choice here.) Dad was also far from an illiterate idiot, as he had two university degrees.
But the results were exactly the same as with the unemployed abuser/losers. Poor Daddy got "frustrated" with the baby's crying, so he fractured her skull, ankles, and ribs, and left this little two-month-old infant with a brain injury. Now Daddy has pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, and has been sentenced to 3 years in prison.
The idea that any father, or even most fathers, can easily assume a mother's role is a myth. This is why these kinds of injuries have skyrocketed. Too many desperate moms are trying to earn the bacon, fry the bacon, and scour the frying pan afterwards. Since so many men either can't or won't find paid employment, moms have tried to compromise by pushing them into child care (or "choosing" for them to do child care). In way too many cases, it just doesn't work.
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2591986
Father jailed for attack on infant daughter
Posted By SUE YANAGISAWA, THE WHIG-STANDARDPosted 3 hours ago
A 42-year-old former divinity student who, frustrated with his infant child's crying, fractured her skull, ankles and ribs and left her with a brain injury, has been sentenced to three years in penitentiary.
The man, who moved out of Kingston to the Toronto area after he was charged in 2008, pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice last October, to an aggravated assault on his infant daughter when she was two months old. His sentencing was put over until last week, however, to allow for the preparation of a pre-sentence report and various assessments.
In pronouncing sentence, Justice Rommel Masse observed that the principals of denunciation and deterrence were paramount, given the vulnerability of the victim but under the terms of a publication ban previously imposed by the judge to protect the child's identity, her abuser's name can't be published, either.
Masse observed, in his reasons for sentence, that the man had a happy and privileged upbringing. He was well-educated and earned two university degrees prior to his marriage, although his work history was largely as a server in the hospitality industry and he frequently changed jobs.
At the time the man entered his pleas, Masse was told that following the birth of their child, he and his wife agreed that he would stay at home and look after the baby, while she ran a business.
Assistant Crown attorney Laurie Lacelle described the regular routine they developed after the baby's mother returned to work following the birth: each day, she said, the child's father would bring her to her mother for a mid-day feeding.
One day, early in the summer of 2008, however, he didn't do that, initially explaining the departure from routine to his wife with a claim that their child was cranky and fussing.
By the time her mother saw the child later that day lying listless in her swing, Lacelle said the infant was displaying flu-like symptoms, with fever, pale skin and occasional vomiting. Her condition worsened as the day wore on, until her mother made a decision to take her to a walk-in clinic.
There, the infant started screaming almost from the moment they arrived, the judge was told. Her mother at first thought she was hungry. But Lacelle told Masse the baby had no interest in food and began to convulse soon after she was placed on the examination table.
She was transferred to hospital, where Lacelle said she had to be treated for multiple seizures through the night and an initial examination revealed suspicious bruising and what police later described as "significant unexplained injuries."
As the nature of those injuries came to light, the judge was told the child's father came up with an explanation, claiming he'd been bathing his daughter in the kitchen sink when she slipped out of his grasp.
A battery of sophisticated medical tests disclosed that the extent of the girl's injuries went far beyond anything such a fall could have caused, however. Lacelle said they included retinal hemorrhages, fractures on both sides of the baby's skull, significant brain injury, healed rib fractures and broken ankles.
She told the judge the leader of the suspected child abuse and neglect team at Kingston General Hospital didn't believe the father's account and found the child's broken ankles particularly suspicious.
Additionally, she said the doctor was convinced the infant's fractured skull could only have resulted from either separate blows to both sides of her head or forceful compression on both sides of her head at once. Some of the damage spoke to earlier incidents of abuse.
Later, the baby's mother recalled other occasions when her child was injured -- suspiciously, with the clarity of hindsight-- in her father's care but Lacelle said he'd always had an explanation handy.
In one instance, after leaving them alone together in the family vehicle, Lacelle said the woman recalled her husband telling her their daughter had banged her head on the car's dashboard. She subsequently developed two black eyes.
On another occasion, he'd claimed she'd slipped from his arms as he held her in a rocking chair.
Two days after she was admitted to hospital, however, the man confessed to police that he'd struck his child in the head with the flat of his hand, spanked her on at least one occasion and punched her in the shoulder on another, out of frustration because he couldn't make her stop crying.
He also suggested that he might have broken the infant's ankles in an attempt to hold her on his shoulders and admitted that she got her black eyes that day in the car when he struck her, again for crying, and not from lurching face first into the dashboard.
He told them his wife never knew what he'd done.
The man's defence lawyer, Dave Crowe, tried to keep his client out of prison. He urged a sentence of no more than two years, in consideration of his client's lack of previous record and determination "to offer himself as a contributing member of society."
He asked Masse to consider a conditional sentence in the community with house arrest and a lengthy period of probation.
Crowe told Masse that his client has a history of Attention Deficit Disorder and was not taking his medications when he committed the crime. He argued that the abuse was completely out of character and observed that at least one doctor, who conducted a psychological assessment of the man, had suggested his behaviour may have resulted from fatigue exacerbated by his untreated ADD.
Crowe also suggested that inconsistencies in his clients' accounts of his daughter's injuries weren't deceit so much as the result of "selective dissociative amnesia."
Lacelle urged a three-to four-year prison sentence on the judge and argued "a more appropriate sentence, on the facts, is four years," adding "the facts here, sir, are simply horrifying."
She told the judge the baby's injuries were not caused by her father "having one bad day.
"This was a man who had known about his power and his risk to injure his daughter and he did nothing about it."
After he'd so seriously hurt his child, Lacelle said, he didn't take her for medical treatment or even to be comforted in her mother's arms.
"He consciously articulated the risks to himself in doing something for (his child) because he was concerned about going to jail," the prosecutor told the judge.
"He was feeling frightened. He was afraid of losing everything," and while that may be an understandable human emotion, she argued, "what he did was prioritize his own interests above his daughter's and he owed her more than that."
Though he lied to doctors for two days about how his child acquired her injuries, "it may be that there's nothing more that medical staff would have done, had they known what happened to her," Lascelle said, "but it doesn't speak well to his character."
Masse noted that the man's marriage has ended and his wife has filed for divorce.
His wife is now dealing with feelings of guilt and betrayal, according to the judge, and is also facing the prospect of raising a child at risk for epilepsy and learning disabilities.
He observed that the little girl failed to reach many of her "developmental milestones" in the first year after her hospitalization and continues to suffer from seizures, although her speech and vision appear to be developing normally.
Still, the prognosis for recovery from her brain injury remains guarded.
The judge accepted that "it is possible that (the child's father) would not have committed this offence had he been taking his medications," and he enumerated a long list of factors mitigating on the man's behalf, including substantial support from friends and family.
On the other hand, Masse said he also had to consider that the injuries inflicted were severe, the victim most vulnerable, the assaults repetitive and the man tried to cover up what he'd done.
"I can accept that his offence was reactive, but not that it was not deliberate," Masse said.
