There Are No Children Here

One of the most heartbreaking things about working with the poor is that the children have no childhoods. They are forced out of their innocence too early, forced to try to understand things that they shouldn't even yet know about, forced to make decisions that they are not ready for. Some examples are:

• kids trying to understand why dad left, has kids with other women, or would rather spend his money on drugs and alcohol for himself than food for his family
• kids laughing about shootings in the street outside their houses (a nervous defense mechanism), or another child being beaten in front of them
• kids being abused in every conceivable way and losing their trust early in the adults that should be there to protect them
• girls having to take care of their younger siblings at a very early age (like 7), and cook and clean the house for mom, either because she works or because she feels her children were born to wait on her, and then being told she's worthless when she's the hardest worker in the house
• teens that must walk the long way around to avoid the corner where the rival gang hangs out, to avoid a scuffle or violent attack
• teens that must decide at the age of 14 or 15 whether to have kids, continue school, or work, decisions that most 25-year-old Americans don't feel ready for!

I have very rarely seen parents try to shelter their kids in this context, maybe because they know it is futile. As a result, they are exposed to the hard and ugly truths too early in life. It jades them. They become hard and mistrustful, confused. Some become callous to their peers because "I've got it much worse than him/her, he/she should stop whining." This makes true friendships difficult to impossible, isolating them further from one of the only potential sources of support that they have.

MEET MICHELLE

Michelle, who lives with us currently, is a good example of the lack of a childhood.

She is the fourth daughter of an in-and-out-of-her-life drunk father and a violent mother. She watched her older sisters each take turns bearing the brunt of the abuse and responsibility for the house. One became a drug addict and prostitute who has had 6 or 7 children, several taken away by the government, never to be seen by the family again. Another became an alcoholic and prostitute, trying to kill her unborn baby in her womb by throwing herself from a rooftop (the baby lived and is still with her mother). Another was miraculously delivered and is a Christian in my bible study group who is married and takes very good care of her one child.

Then it was her turn. Michelle has been hit by her mother with cables to the point where she has faint scars still visible on her arms from defending herself by putting her arms in front of her body. She's had things thrown at her. She's been raped in her mother's house by strangers in the middle of the night while mom was home. She was frequently left alone with one of her younger brothers for days at a time by her father in a country shack without electricity, while he went on days-long drinking binges. I asked if she was afraid when he didn't come home. She responded that she was the first time, but then she got used to it. He would lock them in their bedroom when he came home drunk so that they wouldn't bother him.

But more painful to her is the verbal and emotional abuse that accompanied all this: the continual berating that she's worthless, that she doesn't need to go to school because she's too stupid to pass her tests, that mom is going to auction her off on Facebook to the highest bidder, that she'd better move out and find a man to take care of her (at 15 years old!) if she refuses to become a prostitute to contribute to the household like her sisters. Already one sister was taking her along on "appointments" to eat dinner or wait in another room, so that she could show her the ropes. Michelle came a hair's breadth away from her first "appointment" of her own, before she lost her nerve and started crying and asked to be taken home. Praise God that she chose not to pursue that life and to change directions!!

I share this so that you can BEGIN to imagine the pain inside of kids like Michelle. The way-too-early loss of the simple trust and feelings of safety that we feel all kids are entitled to simply doesn't exist for many kids in poverty. They have been abandoned emotionally and physically by parents too unhealthy to care for themselves, much less other people. When you look into their eyes, you see too much knowledge, too much sorrow, too much desperation, and too little hope, and it absolutely breaks your heart. You wonder what's happening to them at home -- some of them tell you and others don't want to talk about it. And you want to do nothing more than give them a few moments of love, of safety, of being cherished and praised and hugged and smiled at.

And you hope that to a few, it makes a small difference.

Peace, Andrea