Do you remember Shanesha Taylor? If you don’t, Shanesha Taylor was the mother who was arrested for abandoning her two children in a car in Arizona when she went out on a job interview. Her tearful booking photo caused national sympathy, with a social media account set up for her raising over $114,000. The joy of helping the woman soon turned to scorn when it was learned she never set up the court mandated trust fund for her children and further inspection of her finances showed she spent close to $4000 a month, with some questionable expenses such booked studio time for her boyfriend.

In February, to avoid jail time, she pled guilty to felony child abuse charges and was placed on ten years’ probation.

She is back in the news and I have to say I think it’s for something silly. Online and on broadcast the headline read “New Bombshells in Shanesha Taylor Case.” With such a headline I would think one of her children were injured or she had another legal hurdle to face, but that wasn’t the reason for the breathless headline.

Shanesha Taylor is pregnant. Yes, for a minute and a half the news reporters went over the case and with a sense of shock in their voices mentioned the mother of two is pregnant. Oh wait, they didn’t get it really confirmed, and I say it that way because the reporter said they have it from three sources that she’s pregnant. They didn’t get confirmation from Shanesha Taylor.

I have to ask myself what was the reason for the story? The subtle message I get from it is why is this woman having another kid? Doesn’t she have enough problems with the kids she has? How can she have another kid if she doesn’t have a job? You might think it’s a stretch to think the reporters were going for that angle but the comment posts certainly support the claim.

What has always bothered me in particular about the Taylor situation, and there is a larger issue that disturbs me about people giving money to individuals in similar situations, is how people assume they can control what the recipient should and should not do with the money. If people out of the goodness of their heart gave her over $100,000 she has the right to spend the money anyway she want to. If you wanted her to use the money on diapers, then send her diapers. You can’t give someone money then tell them how they should spend the money, not in a situation like this. Look, I might question why someone looking for a job would have premium cable channels, but we don’t go into the lives of everyday people and try to shame them into making sound financial choices.

I’m not sure if the Taylor situation is an extreme case, but to have news reporters put out a story about her being pregnant in the context of being a crime seems irresponsible. I also think it’s irresponsible for those commenting to assume the worst in Taylor. The comments have her pegged as a welfare queen, as am unfit mother and a publicity hound. If this woman is indeed trying to find work, what company would bother to hire her? More to the point, where would she find the time to look for a job? She has been in and out of court for months, and I’m sure her lawyers aren’t working for free. While we think $100,000 is a lot of money, if you have poor money management skills to begin with and your thrust into a situation where you’re trying to do right for your kids, a parent could get carried away in lavishing stuff for the children and themselves.

We get all nanny when we think people are being frivolous with money given to them. This whole story started because this woman was trying to look for a job. Circumstances had it where she had no one to take care of the kids so she left them in the car while doing an interview. Since then we have been exposed to a number of cases where parents are either working or looking for work, usually at low end jobs, and they leave the kids to fend for themselves. The focus always seems to be on why the mother left the kids to defend for themselves other than why is it that a low wage worker can’t get the child care they need? When we arrest the low wage worker, they become part of a trap that sucks more money from them, because of lost wages and court costs.