The Sacred Duty of Parenthood

This post may come across as harsh and unsympathetic, but please bear with me. Two beautiful, young women are dead. They are dead because a monster took their lives, unfortunately, a portion of the blame for the death of these two women must be laid at the feet of their own parents.

For Natalie Holloway and Stefany Flores there was a lapse in the protection their parents should have provided. There was a failure on the part of their parents in safeguarding their innocence and reputations. What else could explain why a young 18 year old would have no qualms about downing multiple shots of rum and then leave her friends and chaperones for the beach with a stranger? How else does one explain why a lovely 21 year old young woman would enter a stranger's hotel room, alone?

We are failing our daughters. Permissive parenting, lack of supervision, and outright negligence in protecting their innocence is putting our children's lives at risk. There will always be monsters, but we need to stop making it so easy for them to prey upon our children.

I am truly sorry the Holloways and Flores lost their beautiful daughters. I cannot even fathom the suffering they must be going through, but I refuse to stand by and permit my own daughters to be victims because of my own negligence in sheltering them. It is our sacred duty to shield and defend our children's innocence, for as long as we are able.