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Saving
Our Children
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Anita Marie Colbert
I awoke last week refreshed, and looked about my apartment. A lovely studio with six huge windows facing a park. I looked at the green suede couch with chaise lounge attachment, decorated with beige and maroon leather-fringed throw pillows, artwork on the walls, African statues about. As I reached for my remote control and half-looked, half-listened to NY1, a story about a young boy who had been taken from his classroom because his teacher had thought he was being physically abused caught my attention. The story of the investigation continued and as more officials, including the police, became involved, it appeared that this child had indeed suffered abuse on a continual basis for some time. His past and present scars attested to that fact. He finally and hesitantly admitted to being beaten, but before being taken to the hospital for treatment, he cried and begged those adults to “save my brother please!” It appeared that he had a younger brother and was terrified about what would now happen to his sibling.
I had to sit down and catch my breath, as tears ran down my face. I stared at the television and saw that the mother was 23 years old and during her interrogation by police, she attested that she hit them only “when they were bad.” I sunk into my couch, looked at my 30 gallon fish tank containing beautiful fish that I cared for as if they were my children, and I continued to cry. I cried for that child, for his brother and I cried for their mother. I imagined how afraid the younger brother had been every time his sibling had gone to school, and he had to remain at home. I thought of how frustrated this mother must have been to so horribly abuse the very lives she brought into this world. How she was obviously unable to control or ease her own pain, and could not find another outlet for her frustration and stress. I imagined the fear those children faced every day – and I continued to cry. Shortly after that, on the very same morning! - I heard yet another news story about a young male child, no more than three years old - who had been found dead, wrapped in a sheet with cartoon characters on a local beach. No one seemed to know how he died, and I believe that to date, no one has come to claim his body.
I looked about my comfortable room, and ached silently for those children. I felt powerless and angry. I knew I was far removed from any real understanding of what those children felt, or what the mothers felt that had abused and abandoned them. Yet, here I sat, fortunate to live the life I was living, able to have control over my environment and the situations in it, yet totally unable to stop the pain I felt for these children. No, I could not control that. All I knew and felt was that they were, somehow, my children also.
I carried both those stories with me and walked to work that day. I walked two miles. I needed to talk to God, I needed to pray for those children. I needed to breathe in fresh air, and cleanse the pain in my heart. I felt anguish, sorrow and deep, deep empathy for those children. In my heart and soul I know that we are all connected. I know that when one hurts, the pain is much like ripples of water moving through the world we live in. That morning I felt those ripples of pain throughout my body. While walking and thinking of my own life, my own sorrows – they seemed so small, insignificant and trite compared to the fear that those young children must have felt. I recalled some of the issues I had with my own upbringing, but I knew that I had never, ever felt the physical abuse that those children had felt. I knew that even though I may not have agreed with my parents, I trusted them to care for me – even if I didn’t agree with their style – I still saw home as just that – home. A safe place, a warm bed, a meal. I contemplated that perhaps if the mother had the lifestyle that I currently enjoyed, perhaps she would not have needed to vent her frustrations on her child in such an abusive, hurtful way. I thought about my lovely apartment, how fortunate I was, and perhaps how a desire for comfortable materials things and the lack of having those items might be an excuse for their behavior. But even as I made excuses, I knew in my soul that a personal choice is made when one harms their child – and that fact needs to be addressed and OWNED.
Our youth are our most valuable commodity. I am sure that many will say that since I don’t have any children, I don’t know of the stress, and angst and frustration that many parents feel. They will attest that I don’t know how enervating children can be, and how hard it is to manage your own life, much less the lives of others dependent upon you. That is where choice comes in. And, that is where human decency and integrity, whether learned from others, or not – comes in. A child will bring you to a point of frustration that is unfathomable – I can see this as a simple observer. But, we still have a CHOICE in how we respond to their actions.
Let me reverse the imagery using my own experience. I have often disagreed with the style my own mother uses in her interactions with people. Suffice to say, we are two different people. Totally. Yet, I was raised viewing, seeing, and feeling her style. I still chose not to follow her style. I choose every day to be the type of person that I can respect, the kind of person that I would want the people I meet to be. I could have very easily slipped into an “apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree” kind of person. But that apple does not only fall and lay there- - it can roll and roll and roll as far as it wants to. This is not a knock against my mother, we are simply two very different women, and although I believe in honest revelation, I am not exploiting or attempting to undermine her personality or temperament. Yet, I am not at all like her, and I definitely love who I have become.
It is with that sense of self-love in mind, and my own sense of responsibility to others that perhaps I will never meet, that I have made a pact/promise with myself since hearing those horrible stories. If I witness, think, know of or suspect that a child is being abused – I am reporting it as soon as possible. If I see a child that looks alone and uncared for, I will investigate the circumstances to the best of my abilities, and not look away. These are all our children. They are every race, in every nation – they are all our children. As adult human beings we need to realize that the behavior we visit upon our youth will one day be visited upon us. It is simplistically, and for many, psychologically understandable that abuse begets abuse – but it is equally possible that through understanding that very concept, we can choose to resist the urge to hurt our children. We can decide to treat our children the way we wish we had been treated, not the way we were. We can say – NO to the continuation of a legacy of abuse in our families. We can take responsibility and we can show love. Let’s start with acknowledging our power to choose to be responsible, loving human beings and experience the amazing strength choice.. Let us stop turning our heads and realize that what we ignore and who we hurt, will only come back to ignore and hurt us. We are really, truly only ONE.
April
2005
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Anita Colbert is a freelance writer living in Queens, New York. She is working on a series of essays that concern highly sensitive individuals, and is particularly interested in the study of behavioral psychology in general, and in particular, how it impacts on the lives of Blacks in this country. She can be reached at anita_colbert@Hotmail.com.
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