In the newspaper picture this man looks so tired and sad. His wife works long hours, he drives around with the children at night picking scrap metal out of dumpsters to make ends meet. I noticed in the picture the house if for sale, I wonder if it was foreclosed on. Now the father faces felony charges, his truck is in impound, he will need a lawyer he obviously cannot afford. These people it appears were just barely squeaking by.

I don't know if he hurt those kids or not but it's going to be tough times for the Gonzalez family. I wish I could have helped you before it came to this.

Something seems wrong when it does come to this. Our society seems to say "punish the struggling father... he is not good enough or smart enough... jail him and take away his children!" Others focus in on your hispanic last name and accuse you of being an illegal alien. I don't know if you are or you aren't. That doesn't matter to me, I'm concerned about your children. Whatever happened, you and your family, your little girls are all in my prayers.

Ricardo, your story has made it around the world. In the brief media descriptions of your actions you have become "the man who caged his children." Reduced to a soundbite and a few photographs of the interior of your truck. In the coming days the call to prosecute you for your actions will be raised. Our society is right to be concerned at and appalled by child abuse. It makes us feel good to defend those we percieve as defenseless.

Ricardo Gonzalez, let me be the first to admit to being a hypocrite and offer you my apologies. I am part of a society that claims to care about the children, yet we have ignored your struggle, we have failed to reach put to you and lend you a hand. Instead we take our soundbite, react instantly and call for you to be jailed and your children to be taken away. That makes us feel better for the moment. It's easy. It would be too complex to look at why we are to blame for this. And it might make us feel bad.

There your family was, in the middle of our community, struggling to survive as a family in America 2008. Why does mom have to work long hours as well as you, with one job and evenings spent finding scrap others have discarded and selling it to keep your children fed and clothed and housed. Were you too proud or too isolated to ask us, your neighbors for help? Could we have allowed your children to play with ours while you worked pulling metal out of dumpsters in the evening? Or did you feel isolated because of your race? Did you feel like you couldn't ask us for that help? If only we had noticed and reached out to your family. Where has the concept of community gone?

Has community come to mean "notice them who violate our standards, call the police or dcfs and have them punished or dealt with." Is that what community is in America now?

Ricardo Gonzalez, have you failed your children or have we failed your children?

At the very least, everyone has failed the Gonzalez children. Unable to process it all in the soundbite we were given, we say "You should be punished! Upgrade the charges to felony status!" That's so much easier than for us to bear the guilt at what we have let our America become. Let's blame Gonzalez for what he did to his family... that way we can sleep soundly tonight and avoid the guilt we should feel at what WE did to your family, what we allowed to happen to your family and countless others struggling along in silence, we should feel guilty for the help we could have offered you but didn't.

I look at your picture Ricardo and I see a sad man. I see heartbreak and pain. I feel your struggle. God help the Gonzalez family get through this and make right.

God help America to take a deep and hard look at what we have let this nation become.