A single mother of five is facing jail time after she was arrested in front of her children for allowing her teenage daughter to babysit her siblings.
Melissa Henderson from Blairsville, Georgia, was arrested and charged with criminal reckless conduct after allowing her 14-year-old daughter, Linley, to take care of her other children while she was at work back in May 2020.
As the mother explained, she had no choice but to entrust her eldest daughter to look after her four-year-old child when his daycare center closed due to the Covid-19 restrictions and she had to go to work.
While looking after her sibling, Linley briefly lost focus and failed to notice that her young brother, Thaddeus, left their house to play with his friend.
Ten minutes after the boy’s disappearance, the teenager immediately began searching for the boy only to find him at his friend’s house nearby.
While the two four-year-old boys were playing, however, the other child’s mother contacted the police and told them Thaddeus was unsupervised.
Two weeks after the incident, the police arrived at Melissa’s home only to handcuff and arrest her in front of her children.
She has since been charged with criminal reckless conduct and is facing up to one year in prison if she is found guilty.
“I almost don’t have words for how low it made me feel. To truly feel in the bottom of my heart that if I’m anything, it’s a good mother and everything you do is for your kids. To be stripped of that to the point where you are handcuffed in front of them,” the hardworking mom said after she was bailed out of jail by her ex-husband.
Meanwhile, the woman’s attorney, David DeLugas, seeks to get the charges against his client dismissed because he believes they are unconstitutional due to Georgia’s child protection guidelines suggesting children above the age of 13 can babysit with their parents’ permission.
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