Here are this morning’s gratitudes:
• I’m grateful I had the freedom to nurse my two children.
• I’m grateful that I am sooooo angry that nursing children are being taken (grabbed) from their mother’s breast at our Mexican border.
I can’t believe that my gratitude has to do with anger. As I’ve written before, every morning my husband and I start the day saying what we’re grateful for. Those ought to be positive, right? And they usually are because isn’t that the nature of gratitude? Isn’t that how we want to live?
But this is a totally new concept for me (and I’m sure I’m not alone), this separating nursing mothers and children. Separating is bad enough, but taking a baby from the breast? Child abuse is hardly a strong enough term. Is there any argument that says it’s not child abuse? I’m not saying abusive in some general, vague term. I’m using the full term: CHILD ABUSE.
Who are these people who physically carry out this child abuse? Border guards, men and women. I assume that more of them are men, because that’s the kind of job men have. A few may be women, but I can’t imagine any woman would grab a child from a mother’s breast. More likely the women border guards are probably in the detention centers comforting children and mothers.
I assume that these border guards are citizens of this democracy called the United States of America. How can these men and women stand by and be complicit in this child abuse? They need the job to support their families and they are powerless—the two go together; I get that. I also get that that is what German citizens said as they unwittingly participated in Hitler’s cult, which let to the Nazi state. And now, our the United States government, via the president, is requiring its citizens to participate in immoral and unethical acts against fellow human beings.
I’m angry but refuse to admit I’m powerless. I have to believe that I am a citizen of a democracy. I can speak out against this child abuse, but is there something more to do?
• I’m grateful I had the freedom to nurse my two children.
• I’m grateful that I am sooooo angry that nursing children are being taken (grabbed) from their mother’s breast at our Mexican border.
I can’t believe that my gratitude has to do with anger. As I’ve written before, every morning my husband and I start the day saying what we’re grateful for. Those ought to be positive, right? And they usually are because isn’t that the nature of gratitude? Isn’t that how we want to live?
But this is a totally new concept for me (and I’m sure I’m not alone), this separating nursing mothers and children. Separating is bad enough, but taking a baby from the breast? Child abuse is hardly a strong enough term. Is there any argument that says it’s not child abuse? I’m not saying abusive in some general, vague term. I’m using the full term: CHILD ABUSE.
Who are these people who physically carry out this child abuse? Border guards, men and women. I assume that more of them are men, because that’s the kind of job men have. A few may be women, but I can’t imagine any woman would grab a child from a mother’s breast. More likely the women border guards are probably in the detention centers comforting children and mothers.
I assume that these border guards are citizens of this democracy called the United States of America. How can these men and women stand by and be complicit in this child abuse? They need the job to support their families and they are powerless—the two go together; I get that. I also get that that is what German citizens said as they unwittingly participated in Hitler’s cult, which let to the Nazi state. And now, our the United States government, via the president, is requiring its citizens to participate in immoral and unethical acts against fellow human beings.
I’m angry but refuse to admit I’m powerless. I have to believe that I am a citizen of a democracy. I can speak out against this child abuse, but is there something more to do?