Category Archives: child advocacy

The Duggar Fiasco

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A story of a 14 or 15 year old brother deliberately, repeatedly, invasively preying sexually on his very young and helpless little sisters is a nauseating, nightmarish scenario, not a frickin’ altar call.

Yet the Duggars claim it led them all closer to God.

Perhaps the god of celebrity, self-deception, and pride, but categorically not Jesus.

I know this because I too was once horrified to find that my teenage son (adopted from foster care) had preyed on his younger siblings and their friends.

Devastating.

I wept and I sought God.

My husband reported him to CPS.

I took my babies to forensic interviews, their doctor, and a licensed therapist.

And we fought to have him incarcerated for his monstrous crimes.

I sought out every parent whose minor children had been exposed to Charles. I treated his behavior as a public health hazard.

Because it is.

I asked Jesus–how do I get through this?

His answer was calm and incisive–the Truth will set you free.

It has. No one tells you how excruciating that kind of truth and freedom can be.

I look at the Duggars’ response to their son’s crimes and marvel at the damage they have caused to their children and their own souls.

Mrs. Duggar profoundly abused the content and intention of a portion of Matthew 18 in her interview on Fox. Tragic, offensive, and ironic….because Matthew 18:6 is the verse she should be quoting–

Matthew 18:6 NIV
[6] “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Pictures of Hae

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I am haunted by the grief caused by the murder of a girl.

I am not convinced Sarah is. She seems to have an almost Capote-esque crush on the alleged the murderer.

Understandable. Why would he talk to her if she did not establish rapport? But in establishing a cozy rapport with the alleged killer she may have jettisoned her objectivity and an accurate métier for the humanity of Hae Min Lee.

Sarah says she read Hae’s diaries. She has surely interviewed dozens of her classmates. She should be able to paint a better picture of this young woman who…

Believed rather recklessly in love

Made good grades

Had a solid plan for her future

Played lacrosse and helped the wrestling team

And left a hole in the heart of her community.

If you cannot conjure up the living girl, you cannot comprehend either the depth of her loss or the demand for justice.

A life was taken. What good is clever reporting if the one who lost the most is but a cartoonish shadow of the young woman who was Hae Min Lee?

The Day I Lost You

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The sky was very blue in Beaver, PA on November 13th, 1998. There was a cop car parked down the block. I looked at it and wondered–did they put it there for me?

Had I planned a run to Canada I would have take off already.

People from our church came. Reporters came. They gathered around us in our pain.

Then the caseworker came.

I will never forget what happened between the house and my last glimpse of you in that car, but even after 16 years I don’t want to write it down.

Still too painful.

All of it, too painful.

When the rain comes

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In the years of this drought I have questioned–what if the water does not return?

Sometimes we have gone months and months without a drop.

There are people in my life whose lives are desert-y lives. Not just sit on the couch desert, full-blown felony and addiction desert.

They challenge my faith. So I tell God–I believe, help my unbelief.

And He says–

It is unfair to the desert to judge it definitively when there is no rain.

Rain changes things. Rain brings life and washes away the dust. Rain makes rivers in the desert, streams of water where nothing could grow.

So I pray for rain.

Jesus says he is living water. Living water poured out for us. He does not just bring the rain, he is the rain.

The Day I Met You

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It was a beautiful fall day in western Pennsylvania when the caseworker called and asked if I could go down to Allegheny General with the other foster mothers to pick you and your sisters up.

You were all tiny, perfect, beautiful, wrapped in the quiet of the NICU.

They trained us in infant CPR and your apnea monitors then we bundled you up to “take you home.”

I put that in quotes because I believe your home is with your mom. Because I believe she never got a chance.

But I have to focus on the light.

My year with you was full of light. You were a wonderful baby and we loved you dearly. You are a wonderful young woman now, and we still love you.

We miss the years and pray the light always travels with you. And that you know, always know, you are loved.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and a Lesson in Free Speech

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The story goes something like this: a 50 year old man targets little kids at a water park and takes dozens of pictures of their private areas.

He gets arrested and prosecuted under a law intended to protect adults from non-consensual voyeuristic photography.

Two Texas courts upend the
conviction on the basis that the behavior of the defendant was a form of free speech.

I think they may have overlooked the difference between photographic predation and free speech.

So here are some examples of free speech:

Taking pictures of other people without consent for the purposes of sexual gratification is not free speech. It is a form of exploitation

Free speech.

What ass’s orifice do these people have their heads lodged in?

Free speech.

Have they lost any perspective on the implications for children of allowing them to be exploited at public parks and pools?

Free speech.

The defendant’s lawyers said the law is “Orwellian.” Perhaps all parties need to read Orwell before they drag him into defending a pedophile.

Free speech.

And last but not least–

News feeds are glutted with comments about the actresses whose naked pictures were hacked and leaked. I read this as a stand-alone article from an English news source.

Shouldn’t the lack of concern for the safety of our children be a bigger deal?

Free speech.

Changing the paradigm for protecting our young

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I am haunted by an image on a nature program–a young zebra stallion savages a newborn foal to death because the foal was fathered by a predecessor.

We turned the television off, but not before the narrator states that the foal’s “ordeal is over” and will not survive the attack.

I understand the rules of natural videography: don’t obstruct the narrative. I just believe it is time we change the rules for animals and men.

I have little doubt that the film crew could have saved the foal and found a place for it in sanctuary. They simple did not.

We simply do not as well. We avoid conflict with humans even when it is their own children they savage to death.

Abortion is an extreme form of child abuse. Yet we treat it with temerity, speaking gently of “a woman’s right to choose.”

Some choices are unacceptable: cruel, inhumane, deadly.

It would have been humane and appropriate for the men who watched the foal die to intervene on its behalf. They did not because they wanted the narrative, because the paradigm has not been sufficiently challenged.

Time to challenge it.

If we stand by and watch children, anyone be savaged, victimized, or harmed by another and do not intervene, we are culpable.

If we stay quiet in the face of injustice, then we must own this narrative. The crime belongs to all of us unless we are willing to speak up, intervene, challenge the paradigm for our dead and missing children.

Wendy Davis and Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum

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Wendy Davis is soon to release a memoir with her description of the late-term termination of her daughter diagnosed with what sounds like agenesis of the corpus callosum.

Unfortunately while her description of her daughter’s actual physical condition is recognizable, her prognosis for the little girl is not.

Lots of people live long and meaningful lives with this condition. They may need help from developmental therapies, their lives may be altered by their condition, but they are definitely not

“blind, deaf, and in a total vegetative state”

In fact, quite the contrary–Kim Peek, the inspiration for the movie Rain Man was born with ACC.

Neuropsychological tests of people born with ACC sometimes indicate that some people may “think a little differently,” but sustain normal lives and present with average intellectual functions.

Interestingly enough there are many other syndromes associated with ACC, some genetic and some not. Two of the not-genetic are maternal nutritional deficiencies and fetal alcohol syndrome.

Regardless of cause, any child or fetus diagnosed with ACC deserves the full protection of the law and the ADA, not medical termination because of their prognosis.

Wendy made a choice, but it was not a choice that supported the rights of her unborn daughter or any other child diagnosed with a learning difference or special need.

I want to live in a state, in a country, governed by the staunch belief that Americans with disabilities deserve full protection under the law regardless of their age, level of ability, or any other distinguishing factor.

To terminate the life a disabled person just because she is or may be disabled is a tragedy indeed.

Happy Birthday, Little Ones

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The day I lost you I sent you a letter. I sent a letter I knew your adopted parents would never let you see.

Just like your real name.

Just like your mother, your brother, your sisters. So many beautiful faces.
Taken from you.

I say this because you do have a real name and you do have a real story. And unlike most children adopted under spurious circumstances, you have a paper trail–articles in the local papers, a federal lawsuit. Questions about a very bad judge.

I knew that if I lost you, I had to send out every possible sign that you were and always would be loved.

A mother should be able to celebrate her children’s birthdays, but for your mother each day like this is a reminder of what was stolen from her.

Losing you broke my heart, but not mine alone.

All I ever wanted was to make sure you know, really know, you are loved.

So think of yourself as the magic princess, little one, whose royal parents send out lanterns on your birthday,hoping, just hoping you will see them.

All for you. All this light for you.