Category Archives: child advocacy

Politics, truth and what really matters..

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So. I think of myself as one if the 100 most disenfranchised people in the United States. Why? Because I vote.
And because when I have contacted elected officials about our growing need to protect our children they tell me that protecting our children is not their issue

Let me rephrase that: local and national elected officials who have responded to my concern about protecting children from pedophiles have said they won’t help me because it is “not” their “issue”

I used to think it was everyone’s issue.

I keep thinking–this is an election year, shouldn’t someone care?

So the Akin thing forced me to study up on the politics and what I found was interesting.

Akin was wrong–really, really wrong, but to what end?

He was trying to save babies. He meets his political downfall because he crossed a line in trying to prevent murder, mass murder.

The ends do not justify the means. His strong desire to save babies from elective abortion does not make what he said right…

but a bit of contextualization never hurt anyone.

Rape is rape, but the strange wording and semantic crash for Akin came because he was trying to legally address something that is known, practiced and acknowledged in obstetrics–doctors can call a lot of things the way they want to. Many doctors are already allowing or referring for elective abortions to minimize their risk of law suits if parents deem their child imperfect.

Akin is 50 steps ahead of a 50 year old game, but what he was discussing when he got caught out was the notion that a baby would be valuable even if she were the child of a rapist or child molester.

Ironically, another recent flurry of outrage occurred over a pregnant teen in the DR who was not permitted to abort her fetus so she could receive cancer treatment.

I thought it was interesting that no one thought to question why a girl of 13 or 14 was pregnant and how old exactly was the father?

Akin was wrong and he will pay for his verbal gaffe. But we all pay an unacceptable price if we laugh at the “rape rape” without asking how we can help the young victims of rape by providing healing, safety, comfort, advocacy and a voice–not a brutal medical death to a second innocent child when the first has endured too much.

“the good beach”

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For a long time my name was Bitch. I will only write it once, hereafter I will use a placeholder, but it is important for me to acknowledge it just once.

My adopted daughter called me this regularly for years. Never without venom. It hurt to be called beach because of the venom. It hurt because she was saying I was not human, without value.

I suspected that my new nickname, like much of her other abusive behavior, was a reflection of her own struggles with identity. She said I was the beach, but struggled with who she was and how valuable she was.

She was valuable to me. I had sacrificed a great deal to be her beach, um… mom.

She is still valuable to me. I know she can be a pain in the grass, but she is my daughter. She is my daughter.

When someone treats her badly or dehumanizes her or devalues her. And let us be clear, those words themselves are placeholders for very bad things. People who should help her have done very bad things instead. Well, I may be a beach, but I want to stomp and yell and kick’em in the shins.

I want to say stop!! She is worth more than this!! She is my daughter.

I want to have a healing, undoing, potion for the harm done to her.

I do. It is a single name–Jesus. He became the beach for her, for me, for all of us to undo the undoable, to restore our lost and stolen value.

When she tells me what has happened to her I grieve and wish she would stop running from the one Man who raises the value of an ordinary beach like me.

He buys the field/finds the treasure/sets the captive free.

And instead of the rude name we have become accustomed to, He cups our faces in His hands and calls us by our eternal name–
Dear
Very Dear…

Famous?

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I am in a children’s museum feeling inadequate because I know that I had one primary goal in life: be a good mom. Even before I had kids I wanted to be a good mom in Sunday school, youth group, to my 50 year old Iranian student–good mom.

I will feel my inadequacy in my bones

It is not our fault we are deceived by predators.
It is our fault if we don’t provide the remedy.

The truth sets us free…

The substance of things

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She had been out of radio contact for awhile so I was glad when she called
She was in the hospital for all the usual stuff
I worry about the baby.

Give her my usual (inadequate) pep talks

Pray.

There are so many kinds of prayer–which we must remember, means talking to God.

There is easy prayer
Otherwise known as grace
There is harder prayer
Which involves some level of suspense
Like when will the baby or rain
Come?

And then there is the prayer you pray for a child lost at sea.

This prayer is only possible with miracles and men rising from the dead

It starts with a profession of faith
Something like…no one could do this but You

Or
You are a God of miracles…

Or (I admit)
God I have no idea whatsoever how you could do this but You can, only you can..

This last prayer is always a life and death matter

S.

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When S was little she loved Elmo. We did not get PBS on tv so we watched DVDs. I always associate Elmo with her babyhood.

The first time someone talked about her being “damaged goods” because she was a sexual assault survivor I was knocked back. In a country where women are paid and applauded for nudity, a little girl’s non-consensual abuse would make her “damaged goods?!”

Children are hurt, wounded, violated, and robbed by sexual abuse

But they are not damaged goods. Ever.

What damages us all most is when we hand the abuse of children over to the wolves and refuse to speak out and fight for the dignity and safety of every little girl who once loved Elmo.

What if it was Scout?

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I think it is safe to say I love Harper Lee. So much so I named a pet “Scout” and have been itching to name a kid Harper for a decade.

Atticus has seen me through some tough times.

But here’s the thing, because of my outspoken telling of our family story (adoption, RAD, abuse) I know a lot of victims of child sexual abuse.

Most are white, stable, well-educated and financially stable.

They are not Mayella Ewing.

And yet I believe the reason why 90% of these people are extremely quiet about their stories is the grim stereotype associated with Mayella.

Think about it. How would our perception of abuse victims be different if it had been Scout, Jem, or Dill who had been abused?

Would you tell your story if you knew people would think of you as a Ewing?

Would you fight any harder if it were Scout?

And, for a diehard TKM fan this is hard; Mayella Ewing deserved better. From her wretched father of course, but how about everyone else in Maycomb? Was there no one who could have helped her?

More than 50 years later I will say it–
No
At least very, very few…

About the sword

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Some days I almost forget it is there
Protruding as it does
Through my sternum
La-la-la I think
For about, um, 30 seconds…
Then it all comes back

When you say oh, I don’t do that anymore
Like it was a hobby you grew out of
Or…oh, the movie was fun
Like you are at summer camp with your pals

I must breathe
Which hurts the freaking sword
In-my-chest
When you..
When you..

Oh that is right
You don’t remember