PAIN & SUFFERING
It’s a funny thing about pain and suffering. Not funny ha ha (of course), but funny as in peculiar
and hard to figure out. All of us go
through our lives experiencing some kind of pain and suffering along the
way. In an ideal world, this is not
something that children should have to experience. Pain and suffering is supposed to be the
result of adult problems and situations right?
Unfortunately, everyday more and more children have to struggle with
adult-like situations in their lives and they are simply unprepared to handle them.
Hiding Pain and Suffering
It’s no secret that we all hide our pain and suffering in different
ways. This is true no matter what age you
are. That’s why so many people end up
with bad and uncontrollable habits like:
over eating, excessive drinking, drug abuse, sexual addiction and a host
of other negative things. These things
are oftentimes a manifestation of our internal pain and suffering.
Of course, a healthy release of pain and suffering would be to talk to
someone and share what exactly we are going through, and how we feel about what we are going through. But in reality, this is not often the case,
especially when dealing with kids.
It’s not hard to imagine the pain and suffering that someone feels when
they are constantly being sexually or physically harassed or abused. In recent years, our society has seen a
number of shootings, school killings, and other forms of adolescent violence
for this very reason. Does that mean
that children, adolescents and teens who have problems with adults or others
their age should resort to killing?
Certainly not!
How Predators Prevail
The murderous Deandra Baxter character in “Skipping Childhood: A Novel”
is purely fictional and quite frankly, it’s hard to really imagine such a child
in real life. On the one hand, her timid
and fearful attitude toward her would-be abusers is typical and true to
life. Sad to say, in real life, many (if
not most) children who are being sexually harassed or abused by an adult are
not prone to tell anyone. Our character Deandra
even acknowledges this point in the following book excerpt:
She knew he probably assumed if he could just catch
her alone, he could have his way with her and she would never say anything to
anyone. That was how predators like him
got away with their crimes. Deandra
hated herself for reacting exactly like the monsters knew she would. Mr. Walker was right; she probably would
never tell, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make him sorry for what he was
trying to do.
Since this kind of fearful reluctance is typical of abuse victims, it might
make you wonder how 12-year-old Deandra mustered up the courage to take matters
into her own hands. To learn the answer –
you have to read the book. (smile)
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