Our Children Are Our Future1
My hope in life is that my words will be heard and make enough of an impact that someone somewhere will finally look and see the epidemic that has occurred in our society for ages; the Epidemic called Child Abuse. It has been a problem for longer then anyone cares to admit but no one seems willing to fix it just as no one seems to be able to see the lifelong effects that this has on the people inflicted by it. It is nothing more then a disease.2
If people are sick and are in need of care we do everything humanly possible to try and help them so why then is it that when someone sees a child being abused do they just walk on past as if nothing at all is happening? No one wants to get involved. Why? Do they not realize the pain these children are enduring? Do they not realize the life long pain that they will endure and the longer they are left untreated the larger the effects of the abuse will be? If you saw a child get hit by a car and lying in the street bleeding would you just keep on walking or would you stop and call for help? Seems like a pretty stupid question but being abused is pretty much the same. So why do we ignore the wounds and just keep going on about our business? Why do we not stop and call for help? Better yet when we do call for help why do they not come?3
I beg the world to please stop shutting their eyes and continuing to let the children of our society be hurt in such a way. Having children should be an honor not a right. We look around the world today and we ask ourselves what is wrong with society? What is wrong with our children? Well I wonder what the world thought would happen if they continued to wear their rose colored glasses and ignored the unpleasantness that life really has to offer.4
The next time you have the chance and you aren’t too busy with your own life, take a look around you. Look past the pretty houses with the manicured lawns. Look past the yachts sailing on the lakes and the lovers picnicking in the park. Look past the wonderful world that is yours and see what it is on the other side of the street. Look down one of the inner city streets littered with garbage and trash, where the weeds grow instead of green, green grass because these people are too impoverished to afford the seed to grow the grass and ask yourself why? Why is it that their lives are full of weeds instead of the rich full garden of flowers that should be the right for everyone to have adding an array of color to their lives?5
The next time you pass the city take a look at the children playing on the street as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Feel that pride that runs through your veins, as you are proud to be an American and live in the land of the free. Plant that image in your head and the next time, when a commercial pops up on your television screen to save the children from across the seas, compare the two images. Do you really see a difference just because our children live in America? No, there isn’t any difference. They are just as impoverished and starved. Not only starved for the food to nourish their bodies but starved for the love and affection to nourish their souls as well.6
The shadows in their eyes are just as deserving to be erased as those of the shadows of the children over seas. We are supposed to be a rich and loving country. But yet, why is it that we let this happen and close our eyes and ignore it? Don’t get me wrong I love my country and am proud to be an American too, but we could definitely stand for some improvements in some areas.7
Could you imagine the amount of money we could save if we built something else besides prisons to hold these misfits in society whose real crime in this world was to be born to the wrong person at the wrong time? If only someone would have stepped in and took control of an out of control situation then maybe we wouldn’t need the many prisons that we do have. I realize that not all people are as lucky as I have been in being able to keep their sanity intact under such stressful circumstances.8
I just ask that after reading my words the world sees that this is a real problem that needs a real solution. What happened to the old saying that, ”it takes a village to raise a child,” we seem to abandon that theory when the going gets tough. How about if “it takes a nation to protect all the children?”9
Author notes
I was a victim of severe and horrific child abuse. Our children need all the help they can get. If you have any suspicions at all please call for help.
This is actually an excerpt, the Epilogue, from my book that I had published titled, " I Dare You to Survive," that a portion of the proceeds will go to a Child Abuse FOundation.
What did you think? Please comment!
Comments
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Melissa i do need writes basically which i can add to the different subjects on the site as you know we are presenting a diverse range of subjects. I think poems and articles like this one are very welcome.
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Yeah, I found that book extremely inspiring. I'm glad you found the courage to write about what happened to you, it's so brave, I know I can't even takl about some of the things my brother did to me, let alone write a book about it. Maybe one day, when I've come to terms with what happened to me, I might write about it.
My mum works at a library at my school, I'll see if she has your book
if not, I'll search on the internet, see if I can buy it.
Your very welcome for the trophy, I thinky ou deserved it
xXx Pixie-Rose oOo -
Thank-you for the Gold trophy and thank you as well for your interest in my book. I have read Dave Peltzer's books and it was actually he who inspired me. I was in foster care from the time I was 2 until I was 6 and then they sent me back home where I was horribly abused for 10 years.( My parents were not punished either) The rest of my years have been surviving and now healing. I wrote my book in hopes to get the message out. If enough people come forward and tell there stories then maybe something will start to be done. We need to start protecting our children. Again thank-you and I wish you well in your music carreer and foster parenting if you end up doing that.
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Wow, I am gonna have to buy your book now after reading this. I'm in the middle of reading the 3rd book in the trilogy by David Pelzer (A Child Called It, The Lost Boy, and A Man Named Dave) and it horrifies me that a child of such a young age has had to go through something like that. I was sexually abused as a young child and for me, it feels like everyone knows about it, juct because I know, but they don't, hardly anyone does and the ignorance upsets me so much. Reading that book by David Pelzer, it made me so angry how his mother was not even punished for what she did to him, she didn't go to prison or anything. It also makes me angry about how they treated him - he was bullied at school, and people are so horrible to him, just because he's an "F-Child" (a foster child). This book actually inspired me so much, I think that when I'm old enough and if my music career doesn't go well, I think I'd want to become a foster parent, there aren't enough anywhere...
Anyway, I loved this column, it was so well written and constructed, just what I was looking for. It was a very good point and it's well put accross.
xXx Pixie-Rose oOo -
Amen...Stop Child Abuse
Yesterday, on the Dr. Phil Website I put about how you had written a book and Tammy Jo had designed the cover and what a success that was of you both. It is sad when misperceptions replace reality and the abused become the abusers. I hope that your work to end child abuse efforts are recognized and bring healing and ends the cycle of child abuse.
24 HR counselling Child Abuse 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453)
Edited on May 19, 6:44 p.m. because ''. -
First thank-you for the wonderful comment and taking the time to read. You can find the link to my book on my author's page. Right now it is only available online until I can get up the money to market it. Thank-you for your interest.
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Great Write!!
I agree that more could be done. I also was abused as a child and during that time period, most turned a blind eye to this. Luckily much has changed since then but on the other end of the spectrum, there is the extreme being employed that causes innocent parents to lose job, have the children taken and their reputation marred all because a child lied when they were ticked at a parent for not getting their way or some well-meaning person jumping to conclusions and setting in motion this disaster, only to find out too late that they were wrong. It swings both ways for all concerned.
This was a very good write...thank you for pulling it from your book for us to see
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inspiring
you can be proud to be born in a country,but you don't have to ognore the injustices that they spew out to the members of that country.i have always maintain that the childen in america are not held in the high esteem that they should be held in being born in a free country.you have said a mouthful in your book.it,s something that you be given to each parent and they should be obligated to read it.child abuse affects are long lasting and far reaching.it expands generation after generation.this country puts too much emphasis on solving everyone else's problems while their increase in volume and degrees.children as a gift from God should have always been this world's number one priority.after all,a child shall lead them.God knows how vital they are to our existence,but we just don't seem to get it.your book would be well worth the read.is it available in bookstores across the country?how can a copy be obtained? -
Lovely Utopian idea... not so sure about the hinted American Patriotism being born in England... the old version...
Anywayz, you have some nice sentiments... but the answer to much of you questioning is that the system needs it that way..?
I myself do not find it attractive that the state makes it compulsory for children to be removed from their parents at age four (in UK) to be left in the hand of strangers in the "school"... a place of state sponsored brainwashing... etc etc... so parents can go to work sweeping cooking cleaning etc and the next generation prepared with basic literacy and numeracy... if they get that far... blah di blah
so much could be said on this matter, but it is kinda pointless, because as you suggest... who cares?
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keep spreading the word dudemon...
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You have a lot of really good points. Good luck in placing in the contest, you expressed yourself very well. Take it easy now and keep it real.
<3,
Alison -
wow... this was juss great... i agree with you on this a ton... i ohever have not been abused but have read books where kids were and yea... i hope one day that society will change!!
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In a Capitalist nation, there is a need for class separation and we need the poor to be desperate. The rich ride on the backs of the poor, never touching the ground.
Anyway your writing is inspiring and full of hope
and society does have to realize what is happening to children
here in the US, and across the world. Our world family is suffering greatly.
B
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