The Children's Eyes

 

The weak ones and the wounded ones,

The ones frustration tears,

Pick helpless victims for their hate –

They make their children bear.

The children learn that love is pain,

And blows just show you care.

Even though the bruises heal,

The pain is always there;

And generations down the line,

The painful pattern grows.

Some survivors make it through –

The scars all may not show.

The twisted parents shift the blame

And tell their alibis,

The children hold their twisted love

Deep in their blackened eyes. 

In their eyes you see the future,

In their eyes you see the past.

In their eyes you’ll see how well we’ve done –

We’ve made the evil last

In the children’s eyes. 

For boundaries only in our minds,

For dogmas soon forgot,

For cold ambitious power plays:

The wars just never stop.

And from the rubble watch them come –

Survive’s too strong a word.

And though some of them live to grow,

They can’t outgrow the hurt.

The legacy of hate we’ve left –

We’ve taught them all we know,

And generations down the line,

The violence just grows.

From Ireland to Vietnam

The whole world’s heard their cries:

The price of war’s not cities, friend,

It’s in the children’s eyes.

In their eyes you see the future,

In their eyes you see the past.

In their eyes you’ll see how well we’ve done –

We’ve made the evil last

In the children’s eyes.

 

 

Parent's rights versus child abuse

In some beliefs I’m quite liberal, in others quite conservative. I support a woman’s right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, but I believe teenage girls ought to give their babies up for adoption, since they are unable to support themselves, let alone a child. That’s what birth control’s for, girls. Can’t feed ‘em, don’t breed ‘em. High school dropouts make lousy mothers and even worse breadwinners.

I support gay marriage, but my philosophy on marriage is “for better or for worse, till death do us part.” With a few exception clauses, such as physical or emotional abuse or chronic infidelity (if infidelity bothers the other party). Choose your partner carefully and then work at making your marriage into what you both want it to be, whether it‘s traditional or not.

I could see multiple marriage, trios or quartets, as long as women have equal rights to have more than one husband. What I can’t wrap my brain around is the rash of polygamous sects that seem to be organized very much like lions’ prides. In both cases, the Master Male basically fucks every female around, and drives out most of the young males. Since the gender ratio of babies born is only slightly more female than male, they have to push out most of their own sons to keep the female-to-male ratio high so they can have twenty teenage brides.

And that’s another argument against polygamy the way it is currently practiced in America: teenage girls, underage in fact, being told It’s God’s Will that they marry men old enough to be their father or grandfather. I guess the polygamists’ god really LOVES pedophiles. Of course the girls born into these sects think that’s perfectly natural, and evidently just can’t wait to Fulfill Their Destiny by popping out a baby a year.

This brings the argument around to a real hard one. Few people would argue that parents have an absolute right to bring their children up as they see fit, teaching them the values they hold dear. And everyone’s against child abuse. So where’s the line? Bringing up daughters with the value that their only purpose is to serve men and pop out kids is their family value. To me, that value equals child abuse. They also believe the biblical line of “spare the rod and spoil the child” and therefore beat their kids as punishment. Few would argue that beating a child is child abuse. But if your family value says that every word in the Bible is true?

Of course, atheists bring their children up to believe Jesus is as mythological as Santa and the Easter Bunny, and Christians think that’s child abuse. Christians teach their children to love/fear Jesus (depending on their denomination), and the atheists think THAT’s child abuse. Muslims bring their daughters up to believe their femininity is inherently sinful, and their body isn’t their own but belongs to the husband they will one day have, and Westerners think that’s abuse. We bring up our daughters to be independent and own their own bodies, teaching them how to be attractive, and the Muslims think we’re abusing them.

So, where do we draw the line between parent’s rights over their children, and child abuse? Hey, don’t even get me started on cutting up little girls’ vulvas to “prove they can stand childbirth” and “keep them pure.” Again, family values versus abuse. An accepted custom and traditional rite of passage to millions, the very thought it horrifies everyone else.

Even practices that were once common in America now sound abusive, such as putting children in “stays” (corsets) to keep their posture good. I can’t help wondering how, a couple hundred years down the line, what our descendents will think about some of our current beautification customs? For example, having bags of plastic poked inside the skin of our chests to turn our lovely soft breasts into giant hard globes, or injecting poison into our faces to reduce our laugh lines? At least we don’t do that to children. Yet. So far, we just let them have nose jobs.

The word for that isn't marriage

There's another Mormon fundamentalist who believes in what they like to call "plural marriage" in the news, for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry some old fart. Sorry, dude, that's child abuse, not religion. I have no quarrel with any individual Mormon. Most of the ones I've met have been perfectly nice people. Although I'll admit I could never believe in a religion that decrees you have to be married to get to heaven, and that promotes overpopulation.

On one hand, it'd be nice to have a second wife to handle all the housecleaning and cooking while I attend my career. The main problem I have with "plural marriage" is that it seems inevitably to lead to sexual abuse of young girls. If you believe the only purpose a female has on earth is to service men sexually and incubate babies, then what's the point of sending them to school, and what's wrong with shoving them into their life's purpose the moment they hit puberty? This seems to be how the reasoning goes. And that's what all these "plural marriage" colonies seem to wind up doing. As the girls are raised from birth to believe this, they're pretty much brainwashed into believing they have no choice. Arranged marriage is a world-wide custom, after all, with the women/girls rarely having any say in the matter.

But this is America, not Iraq. Women here have a say, and girls have the right to grow up and choose their own mate without any religious coercion. And so, every time we catch these abusers, we are going to try them. May they all be found guilty and have the book thrown at them. They deserve every single bit of abuse they'll find in jail.

And by the way, the term "plural marriage" is a crock. There is a word for that practice, and it isn't marriage. It is HAREM. Practitioners are only a veil away from becoming the thing we're fighting overseas.


Today's quote: Trying to build a marriage without respect is like trying to build a home on quicksand.
~~ Kerry and Wayne Horton