Category Archives: child advocacy

Social media games

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The word games on Facebook drive me crazy. Really, people? Really?

You really don’t think I and 300 million other people cannot find a state, a drink, a dog’s name that doesn’t have “a” in it?!?

Yes. I know these games are just for fun, but their cloying recurrence on the Internet becomes a mild irritant to a reclusive evangelist with an ax to grind (me–a pronoun without an a).

The truth is there is a question we cannot afford to neglect and it has nothing to do with spelling.

It is this–name anyone or thing other than Jesus that can save you.

Yep. I said the j word.

Everyone is looking–money, sex, fame…combing our small and brief horizons for anything, anyone who can save us.

When like milk, Connecticut, and Rex, the answer is right there before us–

Jesus.

A savior with no a in his name. Only love in his eyes.

Good News at HEB

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A number of years ago I contacted local grocery chains asking them to police/filter their magazine offerings.

My kids are often offended by the gauntlet of celebrity cleavage shots one has to camp in front of as one waits to pay for milk.

Not okay.

One story ignored me, the other store’s media rep said,

at least it is not full nudity.

Oh…ok, then…

So it is with great elation and relief that I report that HEB had entire aisle devoted to high-quality, reasonably priced children’s books.

Not a boob in sight.

Thanks guys.

Good Shepherds–a dying breed

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There seems to be a new trend in excuses for rape–pastors who claim their illicit and immoral acts were somehow motivated by a desire to “cure” their victims.

This, of course, like so many of the insidious blurred lines of our debauched culture, is from the pit of hell.

These men, or anyone who uses the mantle of spiritual authority to harm children, should expect judgment.

But how about the antidote to wolves in sheep’s clothing? Where are the good shepherds?

I have read tragic stories lately about violence in Kenya and Chicago, about livestock suffering at the hands of people, about grief coming unexpectedly from a simple water accident.

Each story of violence and loss reminds us of the importance of good shepherds.

We live in a perilous world and we ourselves are the most dangerous element of that world–polluting, raping, murdering, and neglecting.

Yes. Neglecting.

Sometimes the worst thing we do is not direct harm.

Sometimes it is a terrible enough injustice for us to walk away from our flocks, our children when we know there are predators lurking in the fields.

The Story You Won’t Read…

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I have been haunted recently by this story.

Should not happen.

But here is the thing…

The neighbor should have been arrested and detained after the initial rape.

He should not have been free to try to murder a child he had already raped

Yet Robbie Middleton’s assailant was allowed to go free even after he tortured and attempted to kill Robbie.

Insufficient evidence…the police said.

I would say, try a little harder boys.

Only I understand this–the reason that Don Collins was not arrested, charged, detained, or tried for the rape and attempted murder of Robbie Middleton was because too many of us looked away.

We do not want to know these stories. We do not want to carry them with us.

When the system fails our children, we fail them too, by not demanding more.

How fast would you complain if someone cut off your wifi?

Pretty fast, I bet. I know I would. Because we paid for it.

We all pay a price for the years Robbie suffered before he succumbed to such unbearable injury.

Robbie paid in pain.

We pay with our flaccid and tarnished souls.

How to be a failure

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First of all, let me restate for the record:

I am an egregious sinner and a (to quote my adopted daughter)–“failed parent.”

So yeah. Don’t be me:)

Second, a story…

When I first became a parent it was to a 12 year old boy who had been through hell.

He flipped out fast, threw rocks at our neighbors’ cars, and his caseworker told us our only option was to call the police.

Our next two charges we kept, despite the fact that they screamed at the top of their lungs 2-3 hours a day.

We lived in a cute little neighborhood. Imagine our neighbors’ chagrin when the howling started and their tremendous relief when we finally moved.

Imagine being young, reasonably cute and surrounded by a maelstrom of LOUD everywhere you went.

I still can’t believe we did it.

But we did.

Because we believed

In Jesus

Still believe, actually.

Before I wrote this I asked my oldest biological child how how life would have been different for this child and the family if I had followed advice we have encountered over and over about hiding our adopted son’s predations.

The answer was a chilling thing–

If I had, if we had, hidden the crimes against our children and supported their predator, we would have unleashed darkness on our children.

In other words–we had to tell the truth, be the failures in the eyes of family, church, and community to succeed in the one thing that matters–showing our children they are precious.

In fact I would say this to all of them the same–you are precious.

And if you are a threat to yourselves or others I will be the first person to call the police.

Because, my dear, we all deserve the law–it’s gravity and protection.

Beneath a grim and unavoidable Cross.

The Heroic Dog, Bad Babysitter…and you

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Don’t get me wrong…I think the dog who saved the baby is a hero. And I think it was smart and canny of the owners/parents to register the canine’s distress and believe the dog.

And yet…

My own experience as a very noisy advocate for abused and neglected children has been the opposite of the dog’s.

When I barked out my story people distanced themselves or shut down…they sometimes told me just shut up.

I am 43 and can take the discomfort. But how about all the child victims? Shouldn’t they get the same support and protection as the baby in the story.

I guess what I am saying is this–don’t mindlessly forward a story about a heroic dog if you are not willing to be a heroic person.

All it takes is a little time to growl at the bad guys, let someone know. Listen to anyone who makes a cry for help.

All our children deserve a defender like that.

And…in my experience, a person who would slap a baby is capable of hurting the dog too. We all have a right to live free from abuse.

RAD Memories

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I had a dream a few nights ago. I had no money, no means of buying things. I had been given the task of engaging my adopted daughter (who has disowned me) in a conversation.

Because it is a dream, I choose to discuss an array of roasted and cooked chicken that is behind a butcher’s counter.

I try to keep the conversation very neutral, very chicken-focused.

Because when your kid is RAD that is how you learn to roll…even in your subconscious.

I am going to start laying out my memories of life with my adopted children. Like an old woman pulling sweaters from the attic. I need to organize this thing….the life we lived together.

The first thing you should know is the last thing that happened–she cut me off because she suspected I had reported her brother….suspected him of child abuse.

Ironically, as with so many things before, she unleashed her anger on the alleged reporter instead of facing the crime.

The terrible crime.

Richard Dawkins and “mild pedophilia”

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Richard Dawkins says a lot of crazy things. My favorite was when he told Ben Stein that our world was seeded by aliens.

My least favorite is from an interview in which he says that not only were he and his fellow students systematically preyed upon by a teacher, it was “mild pedophilia” and “did no lasting harm.”

Desensitizing a grown man to the concept of child rape is harm enough. I wonder whether his fellow students would agree?

I do not know any other victims of child sexual abuse who would pass it off as harmless.

It is not harmless. It is rape.

But here is the thing–so often Dawkins is most instructive when he fails to see the obvious–what he is really saying is that the children of his generation were taught to be quiet and deal with a terrible injustice.

And for Dawkins, at least, that was not a good thing. For him to draw a distinction among various kinds of egregious injuries to children is to show a grave gap in his thinking, his logic, his philosophy, and his grasp of the law.

If he is wrong about this, what else is he missing? What else is he getting so very wrong?

Tiny Brides, Big Problems

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It is funny how very kid-indifferent organizations will truck out the welfare of minors for political leverage.

Do you care about the rights of children in Yemen? Afghanistan? Cleveland?

If you do then you will do something for them–to speak and advocate for them, even if it costs you. Even if it actually puts you back personally, socially, or politically.

Yesterday I heard someone quote a politician who said they were looking for a “principled not political” vote on Syria.

Yep, me too. I figure that I might find it lurking in the same corner of the multiverse as the Yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and the Tooth Fairy.

And you? How about you?

The laws guarding the rights and safety of children in this country are on the brink of being vestigial. What chance do the little ones married off to pedophiles actually have?

Here, or anywhere else…

Talking about the “Tooth Fairy”

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Imagine you were five.

And everyone else had a tooth fairy.

But when your teeth come out your mother and father congratulate you. Keep it. Celebrate. But no magical reward.

You might ask some questions.

Tooth fairies are good, right? The Tooth Fairy is good, right?

Not in our family.

In our family the tooth fairy is absent. My son asks why? I tell him the truth. It happened like this…

Sometimes grownups do bad things, say bad things. They get angry at the victim of a crime instead of the person who commits the crime.

In those cases, when a grownup gets angry at a little kid for something that was not her fault… well, he might not say it was because of the crime done to her, because he was shamed by it’s proximity to him.

He might say it was because she did not eat all of her veggies.

But the strength of his anger would let you know. Let you know he was not safe.

So we don’t see him anymore.
Because we don’t want him to hurt you–any of you–again.

This is the part I am sure of–he would do it again.

And every child deserves to have a safe tooth fairy.

Or the truth, and none at all.