Thursday, November 12, 2015

There does not need to be bruises in order for there to be abuse.

A 16-year-old girl is beaten by her father.  Her hair is pulled, she is pushed, and hit on her back.  Her stuff gets thrown out of her dresser and she is pushed to the floor to pick them all up.  She is freaked out and wants to call the police.  At this time her father stops and gives her his cell phone.  Scared and knowing that he has done this before to his wife in an attempt to scare her from calling, the girl calls.  The police arrive and see a 16-year-old girl in a panic, all scared, crying and rolled up like a ball in the corner of the room and a man on crutches who is calm and collected.  They talk to him and he says to them that the girl is on drugs and that he did not do anything.  His wife comes out of the car and backs him up.  The police seeing that there were no bruises, only emotional distress walk away and send the girl off with her abuser.

The girl talks to her guidance counselor about this and the guidance counselor contacts children services.  The social worker comes in and takes pictures, there were no bruises.  She visits the father's house, the father calmly explains his concern for his child.  He comes up with a story that the child is around bad influences and well all he wanted was her well-being.  Looking calm and collected vs a girl who was scared to death of what he could do to her, the social worker goes back to speak to the girl and tells her he is just concerned, there are no bruises so there is no abuse.  That is when the girl learned that no matter how hard she asked for help, or how scared she was of someone she should just stay down and keep quiet because help would never come unless there were bruises.  The only thing left to do was to try and protect herself, all on her own and in order to do this she had to become just as calm and collected as the man who abused her.  She had to be in control of her emotions because panicking only means people will not believe you.

4 years later, now an adult, she meets a man.  Instinctively she knew she should stay away from him, but being that people will always say you should give people a chance to prove themselves she gives the man a chance.  The guy was controlling and moving too fast, she never loved him and because of this she thought that she could leave at any time if things got bad.  There wouldn't be a "ohh I can't leave because I love him" statement.  It would be easy.  But it wasn't, she got pregnant and that made her more vulnerable.  Now with a child, her biggest concern was to make sure that the child was well taken care of.  She stopped working and eventually her husband decided to ensure she had no control over finances, no access to money.  He would make sure to ration her meals, if she ate too much he would get mad.  She had no way of communicating with anyone if she was in an emergency because he isolated her as much as he could.  Now it was hard to leave, not because she was emotionally attached to him but because she was in a position where all her power had been stripped out.

Eventually she left, but she left to go back to her other abuser because that was the only one who she thought could help her.  Why? Because the second time around there were also no bruises, no bruises meant no abuse.  When she spoke to a lawyer to see if she could get a divorce, the first thing the attorney asked was: Was there abuse? When she told her what he had done the attorney said: That's not abuse, that is neglect but he never hit you so he never abused you.

For years she thought that was the truth: no bruises mean no abuse.  She always felt like she was over reacting, over thinking, that her fear was unfounded.  When she finally got out on her own she would fear not having enough food, she would fear losing her home.  Her husband had disappeared but the fears and emotional distress never did.  Eventually he appeared again and with him all the emotional distress that she had worked on getting over came back.  This time it was not just because of her but because the little girl they had together would be in the middle of it.

Their little girl was forced to go with someone she did not know only because they share DNA.  The mother in an attempt to make it not so scary for her daughter showed up with her to the first visit.  When an agreement was not reached, his mother (who was present) tried to snatch the child out of her car seat, and then went on to yell that she would physically hurt her mother and then put her in jail.  There were no bruises so there was no abuse.  After that the little girl would have nightmares of her mother being arrested, she would get scared every time she saw a police officer because she thought mommy was going to go to jail and she was not going to see her again.

In order to keep things calm, the mother would tell the little girl that everything would be ok, that all she needed to do is act calmly and be nice even if she did not want to be.  Now the little girl is learning to not ask for help, to keep calm and that if she feel uncomfortable she should not even think about that, just keep it to yourself and hide your feelings.  The mother always thinking because unless there are bruises there is no abuse and she sure as hell did not want her little girl to be hit and hurt.

Here is the thing though, ALL OF THIS IS ABUSE, abuse can come from anyone who is an abuser and it is often not in the forms of punches.  There does not need to be any bruises in order for there to be abuse.  That is the biggest mistake society makes now a days.  It is never the bruises that cause the most harm, it is the trauma that someone is put through that causes it.  We have come so far as to know the signs of an abuser, we know that they only escalate, we know that it is not the drugs or alcohol that make an abuser an abuser; yet we don't do anything until there are bruises.  That is the problem with our justice system, even though we know that someone will escalate and that the escalation can come from just calling the victim names to hitting their victims so hard that they kill them in a matter of a second.  Nothing is ever done before there is a blow, and even if there is a blow, hardly ever there is something done if there are no marks.

Emotional marks never count, but those marks are the ones that matter, they are the ones that make a difference.  They are the ones who open up a circle of abuse victims.  The one girl who was abused and never got help now teaches her daughter how she feels it is best to protect herself: by controlling her emotions and not saying when she is scared because it is hard to be heard and we don't want to be bruised up and hit or even dead in order to be heard so it is better that way.  The system also tells this new child that it does not matter if she feels uncomfortable about someone, she must stick around that person because that person loves them and wants to spend time with them.   Their feelings are not taken into consideration.

What is this teaching them though?  It is teaching them to not follow their natural instincts, those we are all born with to protect ourselves, the ones who tell us that if someone is making us feel uncomfortable we should go ahead and walk the other way, only because this person says they love them.  These kids are being conditioned to end up in abusive relationships, this is how love looks like and it does not matter if you are uncomfortable, they love you so you gotta stick around.

This story is not the only one, there are many just like this one.  Millions of people being abused every day, a lot not asking for help because they do not think it is abuse.  Others not asking for help because they asked for help once and since there were no marks there was nothing anyone could do to help.  They have the choice of either let it escalate to a point where there might not just be a mark but where they will actually get hurt badly enough that they will end up dead or to just keep quiet and continue to secretly be emotionally abused.

The system needs to change some things, if there is enough data showing the signs of an abuser and it has been proven over and over that all they do is escalate, then why is it that we have to wait until they do before we do something?  Why is it that we don't protect children more when there is a cycle of abuse and when the signs are pointing to a new cycle of abuse?  A child who is not comfortable around someone has a reason to not be comfortable, so why don't we listen?  Why do we diminish their fear to it being nothing?  Why do we continue to promote this cycle rather than stop it?

Sometimes the world does not make any sense and one can only hope that eventually all those voices are loud enough that they are heard.  That eventually we can prevent tragedies from happening rather than doing something after the tragedy has already happened.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Randomness

I was sitting here thinking: "One should not spend money they have not yet acquired or spend all the money they have acquired."  That is the problem America has, we are a nation of spenders; every penny we get paid we spend.  We worked all our lives to pay for things and then when the time came to retire we had nothing to live on, so what did we do? We cried out and said: "Government help us." What did the government do? They created Social Security and said well we are going to take money off your paycheck and save it for when you retire because you are not capable of doing that on your own. 

Then the years passed and the plan proved to be flawed, there were not enough money being taken out of one person's paycheck in order to provide for that person's retirement, and people were living longer than government thought they would live.  Now, Social Security is not solvent and my generation will probably not get to ever use it.  Whose fault is that though?
 
Partly is our fault, our society is bred to be spenders.  We live off the idea that we can always get a new credit card, charge what we want and pay it later.  We believe that eventually we are going to make more money and then when we make more money we spend more money.  As I was sitting here thinking why in the hell do we do that? And all I could come up was because we are unhappy. 

It is a human condition to get rewarded for things we don't want to do, we go on a diet and after one week of eating only herbs we say: "Well I have been good this week, let me buy me an ice cream."  It is something that comes from many many generations ago, we clean our rooms because our parents promise that we will get something in return, the reward for stopping what we were doing (having fun) and doing something we do not like. 

And then as we grow older we are marked by our parents telling us how we have to make a living.  A child comes with a dream they have, they want to be an artist and the parent will feed that dream until the child reaches a certain age and then the parent will say: "You are too old for that, you need to think about how you are going to make a living.  You cannot make a living by being an artist."  This gets repeated so much that eventually the child ends up going to college (something they did not want to do) and studying something they did not want to study, and then getting a job they did not want to get. 

The child, now an adult, was conditioned to go and work at a job they will never enjoy but that "pays well."  So they go to work every day, they are miserable because they don't enjoy what they do, at the end of the work day or the work week they go home in all their misery to find something that will make them feel better.  Video games, alcohol, drugs, shopping, food... Anything that will reward them for doing something they did not like to do. 

And so there goes the money they make, they believe that they deserve to buy the video games, the alcohol, the drugs, the food, because they did something that was draining and that they did not enjoy.  Every few months they have to take a break from their jobs because "they deserve it", "they've earned it", they have worked so hard for so many months that now it is time to spend money on a vacation.  But wait!  They are still paying off the last vacation that they took, and then what? Well the credit card is almost paid off so we can use it again right now.  Then we will get back to our miserable jobs and complain about having to pay them off.

After this I was thinking: "what if the reason we have so many depressed people and angry people wanting to kill others all the time was that we are all so miserable because we are conditioned to do things that we completely dislike?"

Could you imagine a world where the child is never told that they should just make sure they go work at something that will pay them enough to live and instead we tell them to go follow their passion and put focus on that.  Tell them that yes it will be hard work but that it is something they can do.  Teach them that hard work is not despised when it is something we love to do. 

Then probably we would have less alcoholics, less drug addicts, less angry, depressed, and violent people around.  Because they would be focus on doing something they love to do and not something they have to do in order to survive and then maybe all these different things they spend money on would never be an issue, that extra money could be put away for retirement.  It could be put away to pay off a house so you do not have to worry about paying rent when you are no longer able to work.  It could be invested and made more rather than just spent.  People could even help each other more rather than compete with each other so much. 

Maybe if we learned how to be and remain happy and full of joy then we would not cry and cling for the help of the very people who thrive and advance their lives by making sure we continue to have the same problems. 




Saturday, August 15, 2015

Why Jamberry Nails....

Today I had the gracious idea of painting my nails... Whoever put that idea in my head, I don't know but I have not done this in years and today I realized why I have not haha!!!

It is a freaking pain in the ass to do your nails.  I am not the kind of person that paints their nails all one color but I do what they call "French manicure" which is even harder to do.

While attempting to get this right, the only thought that came to my head was: now I know why people swear by this Jamberry nails stuff.  Those little nail wraps that are becoming increasingly popular and that my mother keeps telling me that I need to sell.

Here is the deal, when I signed up for Jamberry I attempted to get those wraps to work on my nails but even now, they still not last too long.  People kept telling me how these wraps lasted for 2 weeks or more and here I was not being able to make them last for more than a couple of hours lol.  What was I doing wrong? I was taking my time and tried many different methods of putting those things on but it never worked... My fingernails just don't like them and you know what that's ok...  Finally I tried them on my toe nails and they lasted over a month, they looked really cute.

Now back to my wonderful idea of doing my nails today.  They came out great! I am not gonna lie, for someone who has not done this in years, I did a pretty good job.   However it was a long and exhausting job.  It took me just as long (if not longer) than it did when I was frustratingly trying to put those Jamberry wraps on.  And on top of that it's been like 2 hours and I am still waiting for the nails to completely dry.  The nail polish is super messy, so once the nails dry I will have to clean up my desk and well I am pretty sure that they will probably last about a day (longer than the Jamberry wraps but still).  Then there is the smell, my office still smells like nail polish and boy I had forgotten how distasteful that smell is.

I really wish now that the Jamberry wraps would work on my nails.  I have to admit it is not for everyone, my nails just don't like them.  Maybe it is that my nails have a high pH level or maybe it is because they are very curved. (yes I have tried many different ways of applying them but they still bubble up and fall off)  Ask my mother though, and they last on her nails for over two weeks, they don't bubble up, they don't fall off, she has to actually take them off.

So here is the deal, if I had a choice when it came to getting Jamberry wraps on or doing my nails with regular nail polish.  I would definitely go with the Jamberry route, they are just as much of a hassle to put on when you first do them as it is nail polish and you have to take your time but... They do not smell like the nail polish does, they are not messy and you don't really need to wait for them to dry.

If you are like me though, you are not going to take my word for it, so I dare you to try them both.  Do a French manicure with regular nail polish, and then when it's time to get your nails done again do one with the French manicure Jamberry wraps and see the difference.

I did do my toes with regular polish too, those were faster to get done properly but the smell is still not worth it.  It suddenly dawn on me why I stopped doing this a long long time ago lol.


Saturday, June 27, 2015

On gay marriage and religious freedom...

I am the first one to celebrate and jump up and down about the Supreme Court's decision yesterday, however I must admit that the decision did not surprise me.  For years society has been changing and moving towards a different direction than before.  Just like any other social issue, it comes time when the more accepting people of those things that were not as accepted before become the majority and so this pushes for change in laws and different interpretations.
For years though we have asked for acceptance and no hate towards people who are of different color, age, gender, sexual orientation, etc.  from those people that due to different beliefs have decided to make sure to spread words of hate and created animosity over this.
I am glad that anyone can get married to whoever they choose to get married to, I am not glad that there are people, business owners who are being targeted because they do not want to participate in marriages between two people of the same sex.  I am not saying these people were in the right, or that it is ok; I am saying that as the owner of a private business they have the right to do business with whoever they want and the right to refuse business to whoever they want.
This country was founded on free enterprise and religious freedom, I am not saying people should go ahead and insult someone because they are different, but if they are respectfully refusing to participate in something; government has no right to fine them or obligate them to do so.
Just like I as a consumer have the right to choose the companies I do business with so do these companies have the right to choose whether they want to do business with you or not.  This country is all about free market and free enterprise, yet right now we are seeing cases being brought up as discrimination because someone refused to participate in an event they did not agree with.
Which brings me to my point, respect has to come from both sides, you cannot ask for respect and acceptance of who you are and how you are if you are not going to accept others the way they are and for who they are, beliefs and all.  Now, I am not saying that accepting someone means you will go ahead and participate or believe the way they do, or even force you to be around that person.  It does not mean you will continue to talk to them, do business with them or have them around.  Accepting someone the way they are means that you keep your insults to yourself, you agree to disagree and everyone goes on their merry way.
Love cannot win if we are not accepting on both sides, if the hatred gets transferred from one side to the other.  If we gloat over our wins and put the others down, make people lose their businesses because they don't believe the way we do.  That is not love, love is accepting and if we want love to win, we need to stop people insulting each other, trying to push our beliefs down someone else's throats because we think our beliefs are better than theirs, hating each other because we believe differently.
I guess in a way I am a Utopian, I wish everyone would just get along rather than fight over differences of beliefs.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

FedEx fucking sucks, when incompetence goes way too far...



I seriously can't make this up, after today I am seriously questioning how the fuck is a company like FedEx still in fucking business!!!
A package was ordered on April 3rd, 2015.  Said package was expected to arrive on April 8th, 2015 by 10:30am.  The arrival time was very specific, usually with carriers you see that the time of delivery is by the end of the day on a particular date. This morning I decided to check the FeDex website to see where the package was and if it was in fact on route to my house.  Their tracking system showed the package in Memphis, TN.  The package's final destination is Charlotte, NC.
I went ahead and I called FedEx and asked them where the package was, the response I got from their international department (package was coming from China) was that there were issues with customs and customs did not release the package on time, but now the package was released from customs and it was in a warehouse in Tennessee waiting to be transferred to cargo so that it could be shipped to Charlotte.
I asked when it was released from customs and the lady said it was released yesterday at 5pm.  I told her ok so it would be in cargo sometime this morning and it should be here tomorrow, she said yes it should be there tomorrow.  I said can you assure me that my package is going to be here tomorrow, she said well I cannot assure you of that because anything can happen and then she added: "the plane might not work and that might delay your package even more."
I said: So, you are telling me that the plane might not work and you don't have a different one that you can put the package on? She said: well, the package is waiting to be transferred to cargo so that it can be shipped to the final destination.  I said: Why is it just sitting there waiting? It was supposed to be express delivered and it's not like customs has it so it should be on its way to my house right now.
She had no answer for me other than no one should have promised the package today since anything can happen with the cargo and the plane might not work so the package would have been delayed even more.
I seriously cannot make this up and this is not where the story ends.  The tracking on the FedEx website says the package is in transit to Japan. So I called them again this afternoon.  The lady that answered me in the international customer service department said: Your package seems to be having issues with customs, and it is still in China.  I said: the lady that I spoke to at 9am this morning said that the package was in Memphis and that customs had released said package so it was just waiting on a warehouse to be transferred to cargo and it would be shipped to me so long as the airplane was working.  Cause I am guessing FedEx, only has one fucking cargo airplane that flies from TN to NC.
The lady said ohh no, it looks like your packages are in Anchorage, AK you are expecting two packages right? I said: No, I am expecting only one! She says: Ohh yes yes, it is in Anchorage and the representative you spoke to earlier should have started a trace  to see where the package is, that is when I told her that since the representative that I spoke with in the morning did not do her job and she seemed to have no idea what the hell was going on, to transfer me to a supervisor.
Exact wordings she used after I said that: "It seems like a trace for this package should have been opened this morning and since that did not happen this issue will have to be escalated to a supervisor, would you like me to transfer you to one?"
This is the part where you want to be able to reach through the damn phone and start strangling some sense into people... Finally I get the supervisor on the line, and the supervisor says to me: It looks like your packages are on their way to China from Japan, you are expecting two packages correct? I said: no, it is only one! He tried to fix that whole situation and said: ohh yes yes I was reading wrong, but your package is on its way to China from Japan.  I had to ask how the fucking hell did my package get to Japan, I mean one thing would have been for them to have accidentally sent it back to China right but the package had been in Memphis, then in Anchorage and then in Memphis again and from Memphis the package was sent to Japan, and now there was no estimated delivery time.
I don't know which one was the idiot that said it but at some point I heard: Well, the good news is that it did make it to the USA! Well, you fucking morons!!!! That it made it to the USA helps me fucking none because the package is no where in the USA...
Supervisor said he was going to finally open the trace and investigate where the package was so that I could get an estimated time of arrival, and that someone will be contacting me within 2 hours to let me know what is going on.
I got a call 45 minutes later and it seems like the more you fucking move up the chain of command of the Federal Express corporation the more incompetent they seem to get.  I asked where was my package, yet again... Ma'am your package is in China.  It somehow went to Japan and then back to China.  I said: are you going to tell me when the package will arrive here, cause it is not supposed to be in China, and could you explain to me how the package came to Memphis, and then went to Anchorage and went from Anchorage to Memphis and from Memphis it went to Japan and from Japan you are telling me that now China has it?  She said yes, it seems to have been human error and there is not much we can do about that.  I said so my package is in China now, she said: well we are waiting for China to open so that we can ask where the package is.  So you really don't know where my package is and you are telling me that you've lost it due to human error. She immediately tried to rephrase that, of course I did not let her.
So here is the bottom line:

1. A package was ordered, said package was being shipped from China to Charlotte, NC.
2. Said package made it from China to Memphis, TN in one day, the tracking of it (picture attached to this post) states that customs released the package.
3.  Package was then sent to Anchorage, AK. For those that do not know geography (like some of the people that work for FedEx), Anchorage, AK is on the opposite side of Charlotte, NC.
4. From there, the package was sent back to Memphis, TN to be shipped over to Japan.
5. From Japan it appears to be in transit to China and now we have to wait for China to open (because I guess China is close for business at the moment, even though it was 7am in China when I got the call from FedEx) in order to find if the package is actually there.
6. At this point, FedEx does not want to state that the package is actually fucking lost and they don't have the slightest fucking idea as to where the darn package is.
7.  For a company that only focuses on delivering packages all over the fucking world saying that this is fucking human error and counting it as just one fucking human error not the 4 different errors made while handling said package is beyond fucking unbelievable!!! This is not human error, this is fucking incompetence! Specially when handling a package that has a priority tag attached to it.  The damn post office does a better job than FedEx!!! That is saying something!!!!
9. The excuse that the airplane might not work and therefore it would delay my package a day or two, went out the fucking window when their tracking system states that the package had travel from one end of the country to another and then traveled to a different continent where it was not supposed to ever be in the first place, only to travel back to the original place... Looks like their fucking airplane (because it appears that they only have one) is working perfectly fine!
8. We have to give them credit for something, I mean they were even proud of the fact that the package had made it to the United States at some point, congratu-fucking-lations!!!

For such a huge company to have this mishaps happen so fucking often, is beyond unacceptable, they charge an extreme amount of money to deliver packages and they cannot even do their job right... This is not the first time this happens either, a while ago I had a package that was paid to be delivered on Saturday and said package was sent out within the United States and it was not even a great distance that the package was supposed to travel... Said package was delivered Monday afternoon, not even Monday first thing in the morning... Monday afternoon!!!!  That is the level of incompetence that this company has and in all this mess they cannot even admit the fact that they screwed up and they did it big time!!! All they can say is sorry for the inconvenience, you will receive your package soon... and what the hell do they mean by soon? Well apparently it means whenever the fuck they find it...

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Just a small thought...

I was catching up on one of my shows today as I was eating breakfast and a Walt Disney World Resort commercial came on; those darn Disney commercials always make me feel warm and fuzzy inside mostly because I am too much of a Disney fan.  The commercial focused on what most people now call a "traditional family" (mom, dad and 2 children); suddenly it dawned on me that every single Disney Park commercial that I've watched focuses on families made of mom, dad and children.  Before I started to write this I figured I would actually look at other Disney commercials and see if I was correct; to my extreme disappointment, I was. 
Now a days we seem to be trying to keep focus on what society calls a traditional family when the "traditional family" is becoming more  and more non-traditional; yet we seem to want to keep pushing it through to everyone.  In 2015, it is extremely sad to see that when you search for images of family on the internet the first pictures shown are of a woman and a man with 2 children, usually all of the same race... And we wonder why it is that people are having a hard time accepting the changes that society is going through. 
Print ads and TV commercials have been used for many years to brainwash people into buying something or choosing something over something else.  Even though most of us seem to pay little attention to the commercials and ads we see; they are and will always be a subtle form of mind control and society keeps being pushed to look at things in a "traditional" way, a way that is becoming less and less traditional when we actually look at society and how it has changed throughout the years. 
Families are composed of two parents of different racial backgrounds, with science taking of we now have same sex couples racing children, we have single parent families being raised and by single parent I mean either a man who has decided to rear children on his own or a woman who has decided to do the same.  It seems a bit silly that we are still pushing ads for this "tradition" that is no longer one.  
When I was a child, I was one of two children in my classroom that had divorced parents, it was rare that a child would not have their parents together and even more rare that the parents were not around to raise said child.  I was raised by my grandmother and I remember people actually feeling sorry for me because I did not have a "family".  Truth be told, I had the best family ever! my grandmother and her sister raised me and my cousin (whose parents are still together til this day but because they did not have the means to send her to a good school my aunt decided to take her on and well, she lived with us and we were raised together).  To me, my family unit were two women, who had worked hard their whole lives and had managed to make it in the world on their own, they were not married and did not ever seem to have the need to have a man around the house.  In fact, if you ask my aunt why she never got married, her answer always was that she did not want to be washing clothes for some guy and she wanted to always spend her free time travelling, and so she did.  
My grandmother separated from my grandfather when the guy that I was taught to call dad was very little.  It did not work out so she moved on and made a life for herself and on her own.  Both these women love us so damn much, and always made sure we were taken care of.  The household I was raised in was a house where I always had a choice and whenever I made it I would have to live with the consequences that choice had.  Until these day I still don't understand why people felt bad for us, we did not know any different so for us, it was our norm.  
Seeing these ads keep the focus on a "traditional family" one that is quickly becoming non-traditional because really has Disney not seen who visits their parks?  I am pretty sure that there are just as many interracial families visiting parks as families that come from the same racial background.  What about couples that decide to adopt children from other countries? And same-sex couples? We keep wondering why it is that people have little tolerance for same-sex marriage, interracial families and single parent families.  Look at TV commercials, at print ads in newspapers, magazines and billboards, look in the web and see how many times we actually see an ad that is promoting a vacation or a celebration where an interracial couple or same sex couple or even a single parent and their child is portrayed.  There are very little, and most times if we do see an ad like that we see it for a campaign that promotes tolerance to it. 
Want to see tolerance towards the society we live in now? The change has to start with the soft forms of mind control we are all subjects to, those big companies that say that they support gay-marriage should be the ones to have their ads showing that support, what good does it do to just say it out loud and follow a campaign when all of your ads focus on not just the opposite of it but on something that is no longer a big taboo subject anymore. 
I would love to see Disney create an ad for their vacation packages where we see different kinds of families, because it is not sad for a child to be raised by one parent, or by two parents of the same sex, or of two parents of different races, or to be raised by two parents that are of different race than their child or children (and I could go on).  It is sad to see a child being raised by people that do not love said child and that do not provide a save and comfortable environment for the child.  It is sad to see children being put in situations that they are not comfortable in but because we follow outdated views we force them to be in those situations.  It is sad that our system puts children at risk every single day by sending them back for the third or fourth time to abusive parents.  That is what is sad, but a child who has a parent or two parents or more, no matter the race or sex, that care, love and provide a stable home environment for said child, is not sad; it is something that should be embraced and should be shown to the world.  Maybe if we did that, we would start to see a difference in the attitude towards what society calls "non-traditional families". 

PS: Look up images of family in Google, see what comes up first!


Thursday, February 26, 2015

And Justice For All


Oh the legal system in the United States... We think of this country as one that is the most just but the reality is that it is not.  When it comes to family matters, the United States legal system is anything but... the law in every state suggests that when looking into family matters a judge should always think about the best interest of the child.  But what is the best interest of the child?
Each child is different and every person is different; when a case goes in front of a judge, the judge assumes based on presumptions that every child is the same and then makes a decision based on that assumption.  The judge also makes an assumption that because two parents show up to court they are both equally interested in the well being of the child.  Then we have this whole: get dressed for court... Another assumption is made here, dress nicely otherwise you are going to look like a crazy in front of the judge and well, more than likely the judge will prefer the other person.
Then we have the time a judge spends hearing arguments, sometimes it is just 15 minutes, sometimes less.  How can you possibly make a good decision based on that small amount of time? It's simply not possible.  What about those who are not able to afford an attorney that knows the law? Parties that go in front of a judge on their own, and do not really know their rights, or what they need or do not need to say.  The best interest of the child is rarely looked into in that case, no one is allowed to state what the child is feeling or explain the child's nature.  The presumption that a child is resilient and that they will eventually be fine no matter what situation you put them through is always there.
Then what about those that come in with attorneys and are in front of a judge and suddenly the judge says you better reach an agreement or I will have to.  Then attorneys go back behind the scenes and they use the "this is what the judge will do and you don't want that, so you better" in order to make the parties compromise into something that is more than likely not the best situation and definitely not in the best interest of the child, it's all merely legal bullying because even after being told to look at the benefit of the child and the child's emotions are put first, that is never the case, the child's emotions never come up in the discussion. 
Let me put it in a better way, there are two parents, one that has been gone for the entire life of the child and suddenly decides that they want to go ahead and be around.  They want to be call mom or dad, and they want to come into the child's life from one day to the next without easing themselves into being around them and getting to know them.  Their name on a piece of paper grants them legal right to do that it appears and because the basis of this system is still set up under the presumption that a child needs two parents in order to thrive, well we go ahead and grant the request.  A judge assumes that unless said parent is violent or has a psychological condition that is obvious to the world well the parent should be around. 
It never matters that the child has been happy and stable for their entire life, it only matters that someone that left and has never been around the child now comes in and says this is what I want and so it is granted because I have a right, a right that should not be called a right but a privilege.  The best interest of the child in a case like that would be to force the other parent to ease themselves into the child's life.  This is when we are faced with another presumption that judges make: if the case reaches their hands then it means the two people hate each other, that's why they cannot agree.  The judge never hears what went on and what each person was offering the other before they came in front of them, if they are there it means they hate each other.
We all proud ourselves in saying that we must protect children, they are the future of our country.  We assume that the law is there to do this for the children, but the truth is that the law is only there to serve the adults.  The children's feelings are never taken into consideration, it is hear say.  The children's stability and home environment being disrupted is not a big deal because hey! They are resilient and it is thought better for them to have two parents and not just one.  The law never looks at the rights of the children, they look at the wants of the adults and if one adult is wanting to speak up for the children, the adult is not allowed to do so because hey! That adult is related to the children therefore they want what they want for them not for the children.
The system is so flawed that we have put children to be with parents who are abusive and neglectful.  We send these children with a parent thinking that because they are related to the child by blood they will protect and care for the child.  This is how we put children in situations that they should never be put in, but that is the system and it will take a lot to change it.  Maybe it will be the new generations that will actually change this for the better.  The new generation that will shed light into the fact that a child does not necessarily need two parents, that if a child has not known anything different than having one parent in the house then it is not in the best interest of the child to suddenly force the child to be around someone they do not know.
The system we have put in place to protect children does not protect them, it rarely does.  It is a system that uses the word right when it should use the word privilege.  It is a privilege to be a parent not a right, and as such a parent should not be allowed to walk in and out of a child's life however they please.  There should be a limit to how many times a drug addict gets their children back, a limit of how many times a convicted felon gets a child back.  How many times must we send back and forth a child to an abusive or neglectful parent before we understand that at that point we are putting the rights and wants of the adult before the rights of the child.
In order for this system to work we have to move it forward from the thinking of our ancestors.  We have to have people who actually take their time making decisions for children and that make an effort to not just look at what the adults want but that actually look at the best interest of the child.  The best interest of a child is to life in a stable environment, happy and thriving, not to be put in a situation that they don't want to be put.  Every case should have a third party present, one that has looked into the child's life and that can speak objectively for the rights of the child, especially being that a judge assumes that two people hate each other and that's why they are in front of them, and if that is the case then send them to counseling.  It will not just help the child but it will help them.  Then look at the track record, if a person has not been in the life of a child and suddenly out of the blue wants to, what are the reasons behind it? Why now and not years ago? Has there really been a change, make it hard on them to get what they ask.  We make it too easy and there is not many people that are out there willing to change the system to truly protect the children.
We spend so much money protecting people that do not deserve protection, making sure that those who have broken the law are treated "fairly".  But when it comes to children, the future of this country, the people we can shape into good citizens, we do very little for.  Then when they turn into criminals we wonder what we did wrong.  It is like that throughout the country and it is a damn shame.  Maybe one day things will change and we will stop seeing news of children being abused and neglected by the same parents that the system sends them back to. Maybe one day we will have people on the bench that are not so closed up and caught up in an old way of thinking, one that does not work anymore.  Maybe one day we will truly see a just system, one where in every case the child's rights and feelings are truly taken into consideration.  Until then, I guess we just need to settle for a sub-part system; the one where convicted felons get a slap in the wrist only because we don't have the money to give them a nice well ventilated and lit cell with three meals a day.  The punishment that for most is not a punishment, they seem to actually not mind it and that is why they keep on committing crimes.  The system where children are constantly sent to abusive and neglectful parents or parents that really could care less about them and are only around because of some other ulterior motive.  Maybe one day we will see justice for all and not just for some.  And maybe one day we will actually truly protect the lives of children and not just pretend that we are doing it.