Houston Family

[dripcurl]

It was briefly discussed on a Bradrick! divorce thread the tragedy of Lemuel Houston drowning in a bucket in his home just shy of his 1st birthday. This happened this time last year, and coincided with the Bradrick! divorce - Craig Houston, the father of the Lemuel, is the Bradricks' pastor in Bremerton WA. Just a couple of months ago, his wife Emily gave birth to another arrow. It sickens me how each child is just another point for these family in their twisted game. Their church is NCFIC, and hosted a conference their several years back for Scott Brown.

 

Lemuel died under shady circumstances in my opinion - Craig was out of the country, Emily was staying in Seattle (2+ hours away by car) and the baby was in the care of the teen siblings. The standard 5-gallon bucket, full of water, was used for a Christmas tree apparently - the tree had already been disposed of, but the water was still there. He died later in the hospital. As far as I know, no CPS investigation was launched, which infuriates me. Links below:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kitsapsun.com/amp/96969546

https://www.youcaring.com/craigandemilyhouston-733744

http://www.thehoustontable.com/lemuel-craig-houston-january-18-2016-january-20-2017/

From just a couple of weeks ago:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kitsapsun.com/amp/978471001

[Hisey]

Teens just aren't ready for the responsibility of caring for a bunch of little brothers and sisters for more than a few hours. I pity the big brother or sister who was "in charge" that evening, while their parents were hours away. 

I thought it was interesting how the mom claims her little ones were saying, "Can we pray for another baby?" I've never heard a little kid talk like that.

The little boy they lost was just beautiful.

[VVV]

Just now, Hisey said:

Teens just aren't ready for the responsibility of caring for a bunch of little brothers and sisters for more than a few hours. I pity the big brother or sister who was "in charge" that evening, while their parents were hours away. 

I thought it was interesting how the mom claims her little ones were saying, "Can we pray for another baby?" I've never heard a little kid talk like that.

The little boy they lost was just beautiful.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Those poor kids, they will be marked for life by this. The irresponsible parents need to take care of the kids they have, not bring any more into the home to be neglected.

[elsiedindin]

I think it's pretty easy to have 20/20 hindsight in a situation like this. Even among non-homeschooling families it's not too unusual to leave siblings in the care of an older teenager, and this genuinely was the kind of tragedy that could have happened in any family, whether parents were present or not. Accidents in the home are unfortunately common -- drowning is the leading cause of death for children aged 1-4, according to the CDC -- https://www.cdc.gov/safechild/child_injury_data.html

If there's no reason for the police to believe it was anything more than an accident, it would seem to be a waste of time for CPS to open an investigation. I hope the surviving members of the family are able to get whatever help they need to grieve for Lemuel and his too-short life.

[dripcurl]

28 minutes ago, elsiedindin said:

I think it's pretty easy to have 20/20 hindsight in a situation like this. Even among non-homeschooling families it's not too unusual to leave siblings in the care of an older teenager, and this genuinely was the kind of tragedy that could have happened in any family, whether parents were present or not. Accidents in the home are unfortunately common -- drowning is the leading cause of death for children aged 1-4, according to the CDC -- https://www.cdc.gov/safechild/child_injury_data.html

If there's no reason for the police to believe it was anything more than an accident, it would seem to be a waste of time for CPS to open an investigation. I hope the surviving members of the family are able to get whatever help they need to grieve for Lemuel and his too-short life.

I have been following this since it happened, and have only joined Free Jinger in recent months. The reason it's not easy for me to have 20/20 hindsight on this is not because an accidental death happened, but because the lifestyle die-hard Quiverfull families lead tends to reduce children as means to an end in their belief system. I am surprised more accidents like this do not happen in these families, I am familiar with the specific crowd the Houston's run in, and supervision is certainly not a strong point in a lot of these families. So, it's hard for me to have 20/20 hindsight on this because of how preventable this accident was.

[elsiedindin]

Having grown up in a VF/QF homeschooling family, I am familiar with the lifestyle and belief system. Blame QF for all kinds of things, but this? It takes an inch of water plus a minute or two for a toddler to drown. You have to be a real helicopter parent (or totally delusional) to honestly say you have closely supervised every waking minute of your child's life. I am no friend of VF/QF and will happily criticize them for just about anything but this is not appropriate.

[fundiefan]

While it's not unusual to leave younger children in the care of teenage siblings, mostly there are other things taken into consideration. 

The age of the teenager. The resources available (neighbors, how close), how many little kids are there? A 14 year old does not have the maturity to take care of 5 kids, one of them barely a toddler. 

A person can drown in the tiniest amounts of water, yes. But, a teenager being responsible for a bunch of kids makes that more possible because they don't have the maturity to have eyes in the backs of their heads. 

I don't know how anyone can think a teenager or two can handle more than 3 or 4 kids, under any circumstance.

[Carm_88]

Why was there a 5 gallon bucket of water just left around, if the tree was already gone? That's the part that makes me go "huh?"