I love kids. I don’t have any of my own but I do have a hoard of younger cousins and a handicap younger sister. Needless to say, I am extremely protective over those who are unable to protect themselves and need the kindness and love of those around them to envelope them. Those, who look to the adults around them to love, cherish and ultimately keep them from harm. So, the recent story in the news of a nine year old stabbing her mom’s boyfriend in the leg in her defense, not only shocked me, its raises serious concerns.

Jason M. Fields was strangling his ex-girlfriend and threatening to slit her throat when the woman’s 9 year old daughter decided that she had to protect her mother. She stabbed Fields in the back. The woman heard Fields groan as he was stabbed, and he released his knife that was at her neck. Shockingly, this is not the first time that the 9 year old had to protect her dimwitted mother from her man. Two years ago the daughter stabbed the boyfriend in the leg during another altercation where Fields was abusing her mother.

Okay, please insert confusion, frustration and the theme from the Twilight Zone series right about….HERE! I have to have just entered it! Why in the hell is this woman with this man? Secondly, why in the hell does this woman have this man, who clearly has a violent history, around her young daughter? I may come off as though I am hard on parents and it is because I am. If you are a single parent, then you are your child’s only sense of safety and foundation in some cases. If you are a single mother with a young daughter then you are not only her sense of foundation, you are her she-ro. You are the woman she wants to emulate. You are the woman she adores and wants to ultimately become. Therefore, the way you carry yourself, the behavior you engage in, the COMPANY you keep, are all impressionable things. I always thought this was common knowledge. A principle that wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to realize. Therefore, I have no understanding as to why women go out of their way to keep men in their lives, which are not only good for them, but not good for their children. I mean, this man wasn’t even her husband so why such a dire attachment to him? Love for any man, should never be so strong that you would be willing to not only put your own life in jeopardy but your defenseless children as well.

This woman knew this man had a history of violence. How? Because he displayed that history of violence with her. There was absolutely no reason why he should have still been in their lives. The fact that my child stabbed him in my defense would have been enough to put the fear of God in my heart. I would worry that if I was foolish enough to allow him back into my life; he might not only hurt me but harm her as well as revenge for initially stabbing him.

It seems like more and more stories of men abusing and killing women and their children appear on the news. This frightens me. There are less men who possess that internal need/urge/drive to protect their women and children at all cost; to give their lives for their families. While women of today have become foolishly weak for men. But not just any men, the wrong type of men. The abusers, thugs, killers, drug dealers, gang bangers. The ones who are just taking up space in the Black community and adding to its peril. These are the men that we are choosing to love, embrace, be our kings, make our babies with, and share our lives with. There is no good damn reason why this man was back in this woman’s life. There is no sensible reason why she would have a known abuser around her young daughter.

If you don’t take anything else from this little rant of mine please take this with you ladies: Protect your children. Never place a man above the safety of your children. Listen to your first mind at all times when it comes to choosing a man to invite into your life, especially when you have children from another man, as there are some men who will NOT love and cherish your children as they deserve simply because they are not their own. I know it can get lonely for single women with children and I can empathize. I know you too want love and sometimes, having children can be a hindrance in the search for that love. However, I can never empathize nor defend any woman who thoughtlessly places her own children’s safety second to “some man”. Fields has a $5000 bail set and was charged with first-degree recklessly endangering safety, strangulation, and disorderly conduct. He’ll face a judge on June 23.