This morning I had a nightmare. I dreamed that I rescued a child who had been kept in a box like those you would find on toy shelves, holding Cabbage Patch Kids--open in the front, but tethered to the back of the box by twist ties. When I first approached, the child was small and dirty and turned to the back of the box, crying. I asked him if he wanted to be free--yes--and untethered him. You know how dreams go--the child turned into Stevie, and I had to bust him out of a situation controlled by Kevin's and my parents. I'll spare you a lot of the details, but it ended up with Kevin and I finally "kidnapping" our own son (by snatching him off of his bike) from those who would harm him and trying to hitch a ride to the Capital City Airport without being detected by those who had undoubtedly called the cops.
When I awoke, my body was washed in anxiety and my heart was racing.
The meaning of the dream quickly revealed itself. We weren't really saving Stevie; we were saving the girl that we may want to adopt (and about whom we spoke with social workers yesterday). And our parents were (undeserving) stand-ins for her real parents.
The little girl we are considering (and being considered for) suffered horrendous abuse and neglect, which makes her very similar to many of the children that we have/are considering. After meeting with her social workers yesterday and getting a better idea of what we needed to prepare for when adopting these children, we went to the library and got books about the effects of child abuse. Last night I started reading a book meant for adult survivors of sexual abuse, and it is nuts, let me tell you.
It starts out with survivors' stories. I really will spare the hideous details. But what really got me after reading 6 of these stories was how incredibly damaging sexual abuse is. I'm sure that all of you reading this who haven't been abused have thought about its awfulness but avoided reading about it because, well, who wants to? It's more than enough to know that it's there. But Kevin and I have to if we really want to understand and be in a position to help, and after just one evening of reading I feel like someone in my head is clapping and shouting "Wake UP!" And I am.
Kevin and I are licensed to foster and adopt. When you foster, the main goal is to serve as caretakers for the children until the parents can get their act together and the family can be reunited. In our training, we were told that we must maintain some empathy for the parents, even if they've done terrible things to their children. That's a tough order, especially when you've seen the burns, the black eyes, the scars, the emaciated bodies.
When you adopt, however, you don't have to care about the parents--they are your kids now and you can keep them away from negative influences. But oddly enough, this book is helping me to empathize with the worst parents in the world. It's like this: being a parent or otherwise having authority over a child exposes you to power beyond your wildest dreams. You can do whatever you want to them--they are completely vulnerable and defenseless. You shape their lives. When you get upset with a child, somewhere from the back of your mind (hopefully the back) comes the realization that you could seriously hurt this kid. From another, loving point of view, it feels good to cuddle with your kids and you want to kiss them and pat their butts and hold them close to you. It's not that difficult to understand how some people could cross the line with both of those examples. But healthy people JUST DON'T. You restrain yourself from violence because hurting your children would tear you up--how could you hurt the people that you are supposed to protect, that completely trust you to protect them? Similarly, little children's bodies are attractive, but they're not sexy to healthy people. The cuddling is not sexual--it's akin to the happiness you get from holding a puppy in your lap, only it's a puppy you love so much that you would die for it.
Parents and people who cross those lines, and especially REALLY cross those lines and inflict the kind of intense, often long-term damage that these children suffer, are mentally ill. Many of them suffer attachment disorders, meaning that they never bonded to their parents for various reasons, most likely neglect, or had those bonds severed by trust-busting abuse. Having an attachment disorder means that you are functionally incapable of forming a bond with another human being and, thus, having empathy for others and for their needs. You can only focus on your needs and how other people can be used to meet those needs. Often they never mentally developed beyond a twisted childhood themselves. God help the children born to or exposed to such people.
Do these parents deserved to be punished? Absolutely! Should Kevin and I attempt to reconnect the damaged the child with the parent just because they are The Parent? No way. But empathy is important. Empathy will help you get to the root of the problem. Empathy for the parents will help the child, who was headed down that same road before the social welfare system and you came along.
It's so appropriate that I would dream about a child imprisoned like a doll. These parents treat their child like one--a little plaything without needs of its own that you use to meet your own enormous needs. Helping each of them to become "a real child" is going to take more than magic, but we can't wait for the chance.
When I awoke, my body was washed in anxiety and my heart was racing.
The meaning of the dream quickly revealed itself. We weren't really saving Stevie; we were saving the girl that we may want to adopt (and about whom we spoke with social workers yesterday). And our parents were (undeserving) stand-ins for her real parents.
The little girl we are considering (and being considered for) suffered horrendous abuse and neglect, which makes her very similar to many of the children that we have/are considering. After meeting with her social workers yesterday and getting a better idea of what we needed to prepare for when adopting these children, we went to the library and got books about the effects of child abuse. Last night I started reading a book meant for adult survivors of sexual abuse, and it is nuts, let me tell you.
It starts out with survivors' stories. I really will spare the hideous details. But what really got me after reading 6 of these stories was how incredibly damaging sexual abuse is. I'm sure that all of you reading this who haven't been abused have thought about its awfulness but avoided reading about it because, well, who wants to? It's more than enough to know that it's there. But Kevin and I have to if we really want to understand and be in a position to help, and after just one evening of reading I feel like someone in my head is clapping and shouting "Wake UP!" And I am.
Kevin and I are licensed to foster and adopt. When you foster, the main goal is to serve as caretakers for the children until the parents can get their act together and the family can be reunited. In our training, we were told that we must maintain some empathy for the parents, even if they've done terrible things to their children. That's a tough order, especially when you've seen the burns, the black eyes, the scars, the emaciated bodies.
When you adopt, however, you don't have to care about the parents--they are your kids now and you can keep them away from negative influences. But oddly enough, this book is helping me to empathize with the worst parents in the world. It's like this: being a parent or otherwise having authority over a child exposes you to power beyond your wildest dreams. You can do whatever you want to them--they are completely vulnerable and defenseless. You shape their lives. When you get upset with a child, somewhere from the back of your mind (hopefully the back) comes the realization that you could seriously hurt this kid. From another, loving point of view, it feels good to cuddle with your kids and you want to kiss them and pat their butts and hold them close to you. It's not that difficult to understand how some people could cross the line with both of those examples. But healthy people JUST DON'T. You restrain yourself from violence because hurting your children would tear you up--how could you hurt the people that you are supposed to protect, that completely trust you to protect them? Similarly, little children's bodies are attractive, but they're not sexy to healthy people. The cuddling is not sexual--it's akin to the happiness you get from holding a puppy in your lap, only it's a puppy you love so much that you would die for it.
Parents and people who cross those lines, and especially REALLY cross those lines and inflict the kind of intense, often long-term damage that these children suffer, are mentally ill. Many of them suffer attachment disorders, meaning that they never bonded to their parents for various reasons, most likely neglect, or had those bonds severed by trust-busting abuse. Having an attachment disorder means that you are functionally incapable of forming a bond with another human being and, thus, having empathy for others and for their needs. You can only focus on your needs and how other people can be used to meet those needs. Often they never mentally developed beyond a twisted childhood themselves. God help the children born to or exposed to such people.
Do these parents deserved to be punished? Absolutely! Should Kevin and I attempt to reconnect the damaged the child with the parent just because they are The Parent? No way. But empathy is important. Empathy will help you get to the root of the problem. Empathy for the parents will help the child, who was headed down that same road before the social welfare system and you came along.
It's so appropriate that I would dream about a child imprisoned like a doll. These parents treat their child like one--a little plaything without needs of its own that you use to meet your own enormous needs. Helping each of them to become "a real child" is going to take more than magic, but we can't wait for the chance.
posted by lulu | 5:39 AM
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