Meet the Kids, by Susan Barber

When I was six years old, I was sent away from my mother to live with my grandparents and my father — a terrifying man seething with violence from the jungles of Burma, where he'd spent the last few years of World War II.

One day several months later, when I was playing with the two Stark girls next door, I saw for the first time — the weather had just turned warm — that their skinny little legs and arms were covered with scars overlaid with long, bloody welts and bruises. Asking how this had happened, I learned that Mrs. Stark liked to whip her children with knitting needles.

I sat down and wrote a letter to Mrs. Stark, explaining to her that unless these whippings stopped, I was going to "tell."

I can still see that childish note in my mind's eye, with its blue lines and lopsided, printed scrawl — my first venture into a lifetime of trying with varying degrees of success to right the wrongs of this world.

Later that day, however, my grandmother confronted me with this note in her hand. Mrs. Stark had brought it to her in high dudgeon, apparently feeling that her children were her property and that she was perfectly justified in treating them however she wanted. That was no surprise. The astonishing thing, from which I've never quite recovered, was that my righteous, upstanding grandmother agreed with her!

Grammy told me that I had done a very, very bad thing, deserving of the severest punishment. "Just wait until your father gets home! He'll teach you to mind your own business!" she said. And locked me in a closet.

Basically, Grammy was a kind woman. A few hours later, she let me out of the closet. As far as I know, my father never did find out about that first juvenile attempt of mine to reform the world. But Grammy's point of view underlies the grief that still remains for our world's children: that they are property. Parents can do whatever they want to their kids. It's wrong to "interfere."

We're all still in that closet

Thirty years later, when I was experiencing feelings of nameless fear and could not figure out why, I "went inside" and discovered a part of me that was still sitting in that dark closet, quaking with terror, waiting for my father to come home and beat me to death.

Fortunately for all those I've helped since, I knew even at that young age that my grandmother was wrong. I knew it had been the right thing to do to write that note.

But my experience in that closet suggested something I'd never noticed before — that I was apparently living in a world of insane people where justice was not something you could count on, not even from those you held in highest esteem.

Meeting the kids

I think that my personal experience with the Stark girls became an important part of my commitment here.

For it's one thing to know that children throughout our world are neglected, beaten, molested, tortured, starved, and enslaved; that one in four little girls in America will be raped before she is old enough to consent; that child protective services in this country deal only with the most obvious and visible cases of life-threatening physical abuse, leaving millions to fend for themselves.

It's another thing to hear the actual story of even one child.

But it is only through the real stories of real children that these statistics can come to life and make a difference. What's happening must become real to us.

To this end, I have chosen a few personal stories to tell you. They are about real North and South American children.

United States
The first stories are from the NBA (National Benevolent Association) Colorado Christian Home Tennyson Center for Children & Families in Denver — the first residential treatment center in Colorado to help childhood victims of abuse and neglect (see ChildAbuse.org).

Cody

Cody's dad, a large, powerful man, liked to submit Cody's mom to violent beatings. When Cody tried to intervene, his father would make him stand in the corner, then take his rifle and hold it near Cody's head, threatening to "blast" the little boy. Fortunately, he never fired. But knowing how the mind works, we must understand that a part of Cody will always be waiting in terror for that gun to go off.

Carla

Carla didn't know what love was for the first decade of her life. All she knew was getting slapped across the face, punched in the chest, or screamed at because she was "worthless." Her mother seldom cared for her needs. Instead, Carla was taken care of by her mother's various live-in boyfriends. And of course, some of the boyfriends abused her, both physically and sexually. By the time she was ten, Carla began hanging out with a "gang" — the only "family" she ever knew before she entered treatment.

Gary

Gary spent two months in a psychiatric hospital at age six. His young life had been filled with horror. He and four other siblings lived with a cocaine-addicted mother whose home had always been a meeting place for drug addicts. Some of these visitors sexually and physically abused Gary. On many occasions he was shut in a closet. Until he entered treatment, Gary had never had what so many take for granted: food, clothing, shelter, and — most of all — safety.

Timmy

Timmy is six now. He stole food the day after he arrived for treatment and hid it under his pillow. When asked by one of his counselors why he was hiding food — there was plenty available at the center — Timmy's story came out. His mother was a prostitute. Timmy's father beat him and then "made up" through sexual involvement with Timmy. Because of the household violence, things like regular meal times and having food on hand were unheard of. Timmy had learned to steal and hide food for self-preservation. It took Timmy a long time to trust that good meals and snacks were readily available to him now.

Joey

Joey's story is especially haunting. He was sexually abused by both his mother and stepfather. The abuse started on Christmas Day when Joey was seven years old. The stepfather told Joey he had some "special" gifts hidden in the bathroom. Joey ran excitedly into the bathroom. His stepfather shut the door and raped the young boy. Today, safely away from his home environment, Joey has shown that he is a good learner and has a great memory. He has also become a leader in his school. Joey hopes he will someday find a terrific foster family. But Christmas, for Joey, will probably always have a "special" meaning.

Thankfully, the children whose stories are told above have all been rescued by the NBA and are in treatment. They are learning love and self worth. They are learning to feel safe.

But thousands and thousand of others still live within an ongoing nightmare of terror.

South America
Casa Alianza, the Latin-American branch of New York's Covenant House, is dedicated to helping children off the streets and back on the road to meaningful and productive lives (see Casa-Alianza.org). Of their charges, Casa Alianza has this to say:

Ubiquitous and growing in numbers, many far too young to comprehend their fate, they beg, steal, and sell themselves for a hot meal, a hot shower, a clean bed. Living on the edge of survival, they are often swept in an undertow of beatings, illegal detentions, torture, sexual abuse, rape, and murder.
Casa Alianza has chosen the story of one little boy, Nahamàn, to serve as the icon for all that is happening in the streets of the cities they serve.

Nahamàn

The following is quoted from the Casa Alianza website:

One night, while walking on the streets, he was kicked to death by four policemen who found him and decided to punish him. His crime? He was a street kid . . . a subhuman without pedigree, a vexing reminder of Guatemala's malignant inclinations, the mortifying embodiment of a fallen society, a scapegoat. And, in death, a martyr.

When we buried Nahamàn on March 14th, 1990, his gravestone read: "I only wanted to be a child, but they wouldn't let me."
Some of Nahamàn's friends are still alive.

Gabriela

A young prostitute, sells her body in order to survive. Some say that this is her choice and her own fault, but life has not allowed her any other option.

Wilmer

Wilmer has finally been rescued. He lives in one of the homes provided by Casa Alianza. His doctors say it is a miracle that he continues to live.

Marcela

Marcela had a child and is in a Casa Alianza program for mothers and babies. One of her friends was not so lucky. She had a baby in the street, and was tricked into signing papers that she couldn't understand. The men were serious and respectable, dressed in suits and ties. They took the papers — and the baby.

What we can do
Shortly after my childhood closet episode, I saw some pictures of starving children in Africa. It was then that I asked God to please help me. I could not bear to think of the things that happened to children in this world. I needed to do something, anything, to make this awfulness go away. But there was nothing I could do. I was so helpless. I could not live with that feeling, that knowledge.

The answer came: "You cannot fix everything. Tend to the babies that are left upon your doorstep."

This idea works for me. But today I understand that there's also much else we can do. We can learn to be aware. We can learn to look with open eyes upon the pain and suffering that offers itself to our view. We can refuse to turn away.

When an opportunity for helping seems to exist, we can ask for higher wisdom: "Is this mine to do?" And if the answer is yes, we can follow our guidance, knowing that we are on purpose with the Divine Plan.

We can learn to love our enemies, to forgive those who persecute.

We can learn compassion for the kindly grandmothers who think that parents own their children and that it's wrong to interfere.

We can learn compassion for ourselves.