Sometimes my job gets to me, and that's particularly true when I see story after story after story about adults accused of abusing and neglecting their children. Maybe you read that a Missouri couple was charged Wednesday with first-degree child endangerment. Both pleaded not guilty. According to wire reports, their youngest of four children was 4 months old on Jan. 10 when a pet ferret gnawed seven fingers off of the baby. Only the baby's two thumbs and part of a pinkie finger remained when authorities arrived at the home. The parents called 911 at about 2:30 in the morning. They said they were home sleeping;investigators said cellphone records showed that they were in several different locations texting and calling one another.

Authorities believe the mother who abandoned a battered newborn outside Weehawken High School in Newark, N.J., was a well-regarded teacher at a neighboring school district. The 1-month-old baby was found June 10 clad in a diaper and wrapped in a blanket, according to authorities, who said the child's injuries included a fractured skull and multiple broken bones. The mother is being questioned but has not yet been charged. 

In a report today, police said a northeastern Pennsylvania man admitted to killing his newborn daughter with a cinderblock May 28. Both he and the mother, who gave birth to the baby in a car before the father took the child into the woods and killed her, were charged in the death, authorities said. Police said the father indicated the couple could not afford the child.

Sadly, we have too many of these cases in our own backyard. Police recently arrested a Warwick Township dad for punching his 4-month-old daughter. The child survives, but suffered traumatic brain injuries and fractured ribs, according to news reports.

Do we bring these little ones into the world only to abuse and neglect them? Do couples, like the one in northeastern Pennsylvania, not know that adoption would have been a wonderful option for their baby? Do we still stygmatize people who choose to place their babies for adoption? Are support services inadequate? Are we so me-centered that we won't take the time to put our children ahead of our own pleasures?

I don't have the answers, but I'm sickened by it. And I'm increasingly disturbed by our almost casual acceptance of it. We, as a society, seem to be more outraged by puppy mills and mistreatment of animals, than our own human babies. If a dog is tethered outside in inclement weather, we call the humane society. But if we suspect abuse of a child, are we more apt to shy away from involving ourselves in someone's private family affairs?

We need to be doing more. Much more.