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Sparkle (3)
You may have seen this making it's rounds on Facebook recently:
Please Join the Fight against Child Abuse... Change your profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood.. The Goal is to not see a human face on Facebook until Monday, December 6th.. please invite your friends to do the same...
At first, I ignored it as just another Facebook fad that will make it's rounds and then disappear. Facebook awareness campaigns have never been my thing. I managed for awhile, but then saw this tweet from @bumblebrie about a post @pigtailpals had written.
Right after that, was another tweet from someone that they changed their avatar under pressure from their friends, in a "There, are you happy?" kind of tone.
From then on, I've become a little stabby about the whole thing, and let me tell you why. I'm speaking as someone who has lived, worked with, and advocated for abused kids for the past 18 years, and I am as protective as hell of them. Child abuse is ugly. So ugly that watering it down to something like a meme to cheerfully pass around on Facebook seems disrespectful to every single child I've taken into my home, made a hot lunch for, or worked to connect with. What I want you to think about doing is moving from the virtual to the tangible, and here's why:
When I married my husband, he was contracting with Social Services and ran a therapeutic group home for severely at risk teenage boys. By that, I mean that often their needs were such that they could not be placed in a typical foster home. Sometimes, they were gang members. Other times, they were developing mental illnesses, were addicted to drugs or alcohol, had witnessed parents commit suicide or murder, were sex offenders, or had severe emotional problems. Sometimes they were just really messed up kids.
ALL of them had been abused in some way. NONE of them were lovable kids that you could just be kind too and make it all go away. They were ornery. Violent. They had HUGE problems.
Severely abused and neglected kids can be that way.
Despite all that, they were CHILDREN.
Their faces lit up on Christmas morning when they saw presents for them under the tree, because in their home Christmas might mean Mom having sex in the next room with a stranger, or Dad passed out cold on the floor. There would be no Santa, much less turkey or pumpkin pie. They found it odd that Hubs and I hugged each other and he didn't beat me daily. It took awhile for most of them to realize that the food was always going to be there, and they would never go hungry.
They marveled at going camping, became a bunch of excited five year olds when we took them to the water slides or to play paint ball, loved the movie theater, and dissolved in laughter at night when we'd play board games. We helped them with their homework, taught them how to be self sufficient and disciplined them when we had to, even if it meant calling the police when they had broken the law.
They screamed at night in fear from nightmares. Some wet the bed or sobbed after visits with their families. Some ran away because they couldn't stand being separated. Others had to sleep with the light on.
People, I found, could be incredibly cruel or judgmental to them, as if the kids deserved what had happened to them because, as teenagers, they weren't that lovable now. If they went missing, few people looked.
