The newly enacted policy of separating families coming to our country seeking asylum is nothing more than government sanctioned child abuse and anyone who feels differently needs to take a year-long sabbatical and reassess the current trajectory of their lives.
Story Time
I’ve mentioned in other posts that my son, who is currently nine months old, has had several kidney surgeries. BUT, what I never mentioned (because it was totally off topic and not at all funny), is my worst moment as a parent (to date).
My baby reaching his hands out to my husband and I, crying, wanting US to hold him and not the strange man who was carrying him away from us. My baby going with that man into a pre-operative prep area, knowing he was scared, knowing he wanted his Mommy and Daddy, and us knowing we couldn’t be there with him to hold him and tell him it would be OK. Being handed a pager and being told that in five hours our infant would be back in our arms.
I’ve been through that now four different times. It. Never. Gets. Easier.
But, here’s the thing, I know that my child is going with a licensed health care professional. I know that he is going to be treated with love and respect and tenderness. I know that my son’s health care team are all there because they love their jobs and I know that their jobs are to ensure my child’s well-being. It. Still. Never. Gets. Easier.
As my husband and I wander our way from the surgical center lobby to the cafeteria for pop tarts and coffee, we clutch a black round pager, the same ones you get at a hostess stand at a restaurant. We will stare at that pager for the next five hours.
(My son, before his first surgery)
At two hours into the surgery, the kind receptionist working the front desk gives us an update that she just spoke with the OR nurse and our son is doing great, the surgery is going well. At four hours, one of the doctors comes out and tells us the surgery was a little bit more complicated than they anticipated, but that everything is going really well and he wants our consent to give our son an epidural for pain management. At five hours, the surgeon comes out and tells us our son is out of surgery, that while complicated, everything looked good and that he expects no further complications. We are told that in fifteen minutes our pager will go off again and instructed to go to the post-op/recovery area to be with our baby. Fifteen minutes goes by and our pager, that I haven’t stopped holding, goes off and we are on our way to our son. We knew where he was every single minute that he was away from us, either through the great communication of the hospital staff or by a giant plasma screen hanging on the wall that has his patient number and tells us where he is in his surgical journey. It. Still. Doesn’t. Get. Any. Easier.
Walking In Someone Else’s Shoes
I think about those parents at the border, those human beings who were faced with the horrible decisions of either staying in their countries and possibly being murdered or their families being murdered or leaving everything behind, traveling in dangerous situations with their children, knocking on America’s doors asking for help and then this: WE TAKE THEIR CHILDREN AWAY FROM THEM.
I think about how hard it was to watch my child cry and reach for us and we KNEW where he was going, we KNEW he needed the surgery, and we KNEW when he was coming back to us. All that knowledge and it was still my hardest moment as a parent. Thinking about those kids crying for their families, crying because they’re scared, crying because they have no idea what is going to happen to them, it breaks my heart.
How Did We Get Here?
I need to know, as Americans when did we decide that it’s OK to treat other human beings as less than human simply because they were born in another country? When did we rationalize abusing and traumatizing children as a means to win a political pissing contest? When was that moment? I need to know, what was the catalyst that made CAGING kids a debate?
At the end of the day, there is never going to be a good enough excuse for the atrocity that our government is committing. Regardless of how or why those people are here, the way we are treating them is sending a very clear message to the entire world. It’s not the message this Administration wanted to send either. It’s not that America is now practicing a “zero-tolerance policy”. It’s that America has fallen into such ambivalent racism, that we will put kids in cages and treat them like criminals for simply existing, for being born into the “wrong” race in the “wrong” country.
America, land of the free, home of the brave, willing to abuse children if it gets us what we want.
I implore you, to please fact check all the rhetoric that is being spewed right now. This is a great article that cuts through the political bullshit and tells the hard truth on why this is happening, what is actually happening, and who caused it. This should not be a political debate. This is a humanitarian crisis that WE caused and WE need to fix it. Now.
Want to help? Check out this article on Motherly.com for 10 ways you can help bring families back together again.
