We went camping this weekend with all of Alastair’s extended family. Six adults, eight children, and one very happy doggy all in our family tents in New Forest, a campsite in the very southern tip of England. It was all about barbecues and fishing and admiring some of the many wild ponies that ambled through the campsite. It was filled with tents of laughing children and endless games of football and sleepy children too wired to go to sleep.
I thought about this last night, as I tucked in a completely passed out Nick and Nora – all fresh and clean and washed in their fresh and clean and washed beds which are littered with their favorite toys. I smoothed the hair back from their heads and thought about it all. Mostly, what I thought about was their happiness and safety, their security and their well-being.
I had just watched the news, and saw scenes of starving Afghani babies in hospitals, as they cried pitifully and slowly died. I saw children in Pakistan dying from something as easily solved as diarrhea, as the flood waters have destroyed most of the drinking water. I have recently pulled myself from watching the news at all really, a head in the sand gesture yes, but something I had to do. A mother in France murders eight of her newborn children. Another mother in Holland has just admitted killing six of her own children. A mother in Ireland walks into the local constabulary with her dead toddler in her arms. A dad in Hampshire – nearby here, in fact – kills his wife and two toddler children before killing himself.
And I just can’t deal with it.
I still get uncontrollably angry over Baby P. A little boy who wasn’t even someone I’d ever met. Our friend, who was fostering, had to give her back. We saw him at the wedding and he told me quietly, tearing up, that he thinks of her every single day and misses her like he missed his heart. These things cut far worse than I remember them cutting.
I should be clear – I’ve always been a bleeding heart. Children’s charities and animal charities are where any extra monies go and that has always been the case. But things feel a lot different now, and it’s because of the arrival of Nick and Nora. If I can draw a trivial comparison, it would be like saying I finally know what a flight is like now that I’ve been on an airplane. I read these stories of crimes against children and I recoil in horror, because there are two little people in my life who are so precious to me, that the idea of anything happening to them generates a reaction in me that’s almost feral. There’s that cheesy expression that when you have a child, it’s like a piece of your heart out walking around. I’d say it’s bigger than that – it’s a piece of your heart and suddenly you realize that something bad can happen to that heart, and if something happened you’d be dead forever inside. You feel like you should’ve been warned about it, this sudden seizing fear that something bad could occur, this new understanding that horrible things happen to lovely children, and now that you finally have a child yourself, there’s a new playing field of fear.
There is the argument that people who hurt children are themselves mentally ill, and that a degree of compassion ought to be shown purely because if you have this illness, it’s more than likely because there has been severe abuse to the abuser when they were a child, a demonstration of a vicious cycle. I imagine that is true, and logically I can see that there is a call for compassion. But something in that compassion was broken in me when the twins arrived. Yes, as someone who has been (and understands) struggling with her own psychological issues, I can see that there is something to try to reach out and address. But I joined the ranks of the vigilantes when children came into my life. I remember arguing with my father some years ago that if anything happened to anyone I loved, I would allow justice and the courts to decide the fates of those who perpetrated the crime. Now I take a different view – I’ll go along with the courts and their decisions, but hurt any member of my family and I’ll make it my mission in life to make that person pay, from testifying at every single parole opportunity hearing to seeing how many ways I can campaign to keep them away from absolutely anyone until they come out of the prison feet first.
Counter-productive maybe.
But the power of my emotions on this is shocking. And it’s not just over my children, it’s all children. I see a documentary on ragpicking children in India and I want to take them home. I am reading about children in North Korea and I want to bring them here. It doesn’t have to be far-flung, either – I read stories about children in care here in the UK, and how it sometimes takes the system over a year to remove a child from an abusive home and I want to set a nursery up and rescue them, too (although who the hell am I to have such a god complex?). In my mind I understand I am over-reacting, it’s like anything – overdo something and the quality of the care goes down. I could go into the local RSPCA and adopt every stray dog and cat in there, but would 100 dogs and cats in a house really be a quality, caring environment for them? And children are not dogs, I’m not naive, they need even greater care than a loving pet, but that’s the best parallel I can draw.
I’m an idiot in many ways, but I get that you can’t save everyone. I get that. It’s what drove me out of anthropology (that and the whole “can’t get a job” business. And for the ass who felt the need to comment yesterday that I am “snowing” my company by not having an engineering degree, here’s a hot tip – they know I am not a trained engineer. Many in the company aren’t.) In anthropology you are absolutely only there to observe, never to try to change or control. So when you have recounts of how female circumcision is done or of infanticide, those stories are done by people who must stoically watch, and cannot by training attempt to interfere. Interfering implies a cultural superiority, and that’s where cultures begin to bleed into each other and break down.
But how does one just stand by, sometimes?
I go into the twins’ rooms every night, multiple times a night. I make sure they are tucked in and I smooth their blond heads, because I absolutely must touch them, it’s not enough to stand by the door and look in. They are my last port of call before I head into our own bedroom.
When I tucked them in for the last time last night, I thought about how lucky they were. How lucky I am. And I thought of a tiny Afghani baby that has no doubt perished since that story was filmed, and I wondered who mourned him, I wondered what short straw that little guy drew.
And I wish I had an answer.
-S.
PS-sorry, this one got a little heavy.
We are very similar in so many respects, and thus, your point of view, for me, is easily grasped. I can no longer watch movies (fiction) in which there is any harm coming to children, I will literally get up and walk out. Since having my own children, the comprehension that there are children out there that this happens to, and worse, perpetrators out there that DO this, it makes me feel incredibly tiny and helpless in the world. Before having my own kids, my dream was always the same thing, a) career = ability to buy large farm and provide a dignified place of retirement for horses (often abandoned to terrible fates when they’re no longer loved or rideable). Then the idea morphed into a “well what about fostering kids at the same time + home for retired horses” the benefits for both would be huge. Then my own kids came along, and its a mad scramble for survival at times, and the pain for those in need is intensified, as my love for my children reaches epic proportions the like of which is unspeakably intense. Here in Africa of course we have our fair share of beggars and those in need. I am also someone who gives, sometimes when it is not within my power to do so – and my husband is always on at me about ‘perpetuating the cycle’ but I honestly feel like if my couple of rands will feed that baby, THAT day, then I’ve made a difference.
Ugh. Life. It’s hard.
I am very very similar. When my children are older, I fully intend to foster children (as long as I’m not too broken by that point) because dammit, they need loving and care and loving and care are things I can do. Because I want to take them all home and love them and keep them safe.
I stopped watching the news 10 years ago for reasons you cited.
Interfering implies a cultural superiority…
Some things ARE superior to others. Your compassionate attitude towards suffering children is superior to apathy. Not performing a torturous act on a woman is superior to forcing a torturous act on her. And, yes, jam is superior to jelly. :)
Some aspects of some cultures ARE superior to others. The Mexican culture is superior to the US culture in family togetherness. Why shouldn’t they encourage (not force) us to be more like them?
I understand “superiority” is subjective, but I don’t see a problem with one culture encouraging/discouraging another culture in certain practices. Clearly I’m no anthropologist. :)
There’s an author, Dave Pelzer, who wrote a book— A Child Called It. It’s about his own case of abuse, one of the worst recorded in California history. The book and its sequels are about the abuse, its aftermath, and the people who helped him become a healthy adult.
I’ve met him. He’s surprisingly funny.
His own mother did horrific things to him that scarred him for life, and which should have killed him. Yet he grew up to be a wonderful, funny adult with normal dad tendencies (including the “am I doing this right?” feeling.) So— with that in mind— I don’t give anyone a pass because they had a horrible childhood. As an explanation of continuing abuse, sure. As an excuse, never.
I was not prepared for what having a child would do to my heart. I had no doubt that I would love him with my entire being but it is much more than that. I didn’t know that I would want to mother and love every hurting child that I lay my eyes on. I didn’t know it would hurt so much to hear stories about babies that don’t have love in their lives. I feel powerless alot so I do what I can and I hope that it will help. Sometimes all I can do is hold my little guy.
This postfix very timely actually. I have always been in camp of hurt mine and I will hurt you but never really knew the intensity of my feeling about this until I was thinking about Tiger last week. I was to scoop him up and protect him forever. In fact I don’t ever want him to ever fall over I want to keep him from harm that much.
It takes my breath away, so totally get where you are coming from.
See iPhones aren’t all that, the predictive text can bugger up your comment but I think you get my gist.
This is why we are foster parents and adoptive-to-be parents even though we have two birth children. It matters to us. We can’t save them all, no, but we can at least help that one child at a time. :)
This described my feelings exactly and I never could have expressed it as clearly as you did. I can’t watch shows anymore where children are hurt, I even had to turn House off the other night because his patient was a child. I am terrified of something happening to my children, because I do know that bad things happen to the best of people. Just wanted to let you know you’re not alone in feeling that way.
Another post that hits home to the heart. We have taken in an infant grandson from our wayward daughter, who’s either unwilling or unable (probably a little of both) to care for him. Knowing the probable future for him if left in her care, we stepped in and committed ourselves to raising another child after our youngest has graduated high school.
We also spend a lot of time with some of our younger extended family members, particularly a couple of nephews whose birth mother won’t take care of and has exposed to some appalling situations (she’s also been diagnosed as a borderline personality, which raises with me the hate/pity issue as well). We’ve invited these kids into our home, taken them places, and done things that haven’t been done for them by their “caregivers”. The urge to make a difference in their young lives can become overwhelming at times and I can only hope that we are doing just that. Because for the most part, nobody else in the family will.
Oh yeah, and I tend to feel the same way about dogs too, so I guess I can call myself somewhat of a bleeding heart as well.
You’ve touched a nerve with me today.
The truth? I can’t even really leave a comment, at least not right now, because the only thing that comes to my mind is my sweet nephew-and I just can’t. Not today.
I think I’m actually hardened (perhaps because of things I’ve seen) but I could not watch or read anything about the French woman. Normally I’m OK or don’t actively avoid, or even feel “there but for the grace of god, didn’t that woman have an awful violent childhood/husband/boyfriend”. But that case, I just wish they’d not even reported it.
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