Angel Adams was a homeless mother in Florida with 15 children. She was living with 12 of her kids in a hotel room, without much food or shelter. Her story came out a while back, but it impacts a broader conversation, which is why we are bringing it up right now.
“Someone needs to pay for all these children,” she said, during the viral video.
The video tore through the web, especially among conservative websites. We know that people aren’t quick to hold Wall Street executives accountable for what they do to destroy the economy, but single mothers are a quick target. Adams might be the right target, since most of us wondered, “Why would she have so many kids that she can’t take care of?”
But the other side of this situation to consider is that Angel was taking care of the kids with her fiance. Though the two weren’t married, he’d fathered 10 of her children, so their relationship had lasted longer than most marriages. She says that when a man was in the home, the children were being provided for, and that the state actually harmed her children by arresting the father of her child.
“Well, I tell those people, I do pay for them, I have been paying for them and that’s why I’m where I’m at today,” Adams told WFLA, “I worked at numerous jobs. I worked at National Linen Company and I worked at daycares and I worked at different places so I work just like anybody else.
We don’t know why he was arrested, but the question to ask is whether or not the children, and society, are better off with their father in prison or at home with the kids. Does incarceration harm families?
