Dear Dr. Laura
I want to bring to your attention a terrible event that happened in the Cincinnati area a few weeks ago and is still in the courts. In Finneytown, a church day care employed two individuals who were convicted of drugging kids so they would sleep and lessen their responsibilities, one child as young as 3 months.
I am a bi-vocational pastor, who grew up in a single parent home and my life was Hell on earth for many years as I did not get the things I needed most as a child: loving parents and a strong father figure.
We destroy children when we abandon them as parents through poor choices, divorce and day care. A parent who thinks their children don't pick up the abandonment is foolish, kids pick it up immediately and turn it into I'm no good, I am not loved therefore I must be bad. This controls the rest of their lives unless they are able to address and overcome it later. We think young people process as we do but they don't have that ability. We are born with the need to be loved and as kids feel abandonment it turns to shame, "If I were good enough I would be loved."
The correct name for day care is JAIL for kids. Locking them up so we can pursue our desires doesn't by any stretch fit the definition of love. Through my employment I see the inner workings of day cares. It's not love, it is money that drives them, regardless of the venue or economic situation. No matter what the facility looks like or how nice the operators, it can never replace the love of a parent which a child desperately needs. Churches with day care operations are no different it's about the money not the kids.
Another sad side of the story besides is the lack of outrage from parents, community or church. It's all about me and my needs, kids are an afterthought.
Divorce though painful for adults is 100 times greater for a child, they don't get over it and move on as we secretly hope. We make poor choices because of broken things within us that we need to fix, or by not knowing enough about our potential mate. When we divorce our need for connection is so strong we find someone to love us too quickly, that in itself indicates something is broken that needs to be fixed.
This is a plea to fix what is broken. Life happens, sometimes to us and sometimes because of us. BUT we don't have to continue in that pattern. We can change. Often what seems good isn't always best; we get distracted by the good and never get to the best. We have the ability to touch the heart of a child to implant positive things that will affect lives now and for years to come, not just one life but the lives of all who they touch.
One of my mentors taught me something that I strive to live by: With every life I touch I have the ability to be a dream maker or a dream breaker.
Be a dream maker.
Dr. Laura, you are a dream maker.
Growing Free To Be Me, J. (a biker also)
