My adopted son has allowed me to share a bit of his experiences as a young boy. His birth home was volatile with alcoholism and physical abuse at the hand of his father. Each of the couple’s five children, and their mother were targets of his drunken rages. I asked him to share how he coped/survived his childhood and this is what he shared:
It’s a hard question. There’s not much I could do about the situation; just go to school and come back home to the same situation every day. I didn’t talk to anyone; just stayed to myself. I wouldn’t talk to anybody about my feelings; I never trusted anybody. When I did finally have a counselor, they’d just hand me off to someone else the next week so I just didn’t talk.
They didn’t want me when I was born and gave me to my Grandma. Sometimes they would keep me for a few days and when I got back and grandma changed my diaper, she would see bruises on me. One day my uncle took me back there and dropped me off. I didn’t mean to cry but I kept saying I wanted to go back to Grandma’s, so he (dad) punched me in the face and broke my nose, and then drug me by my hair to the bedroom and locked me in. Mom came in about an hour later to clean up the blood. I think I was four. My uncle came back and beat him pretty bad for that.
It wasn’t bad every day but most of the time. Some days, he’d be alright, and want to go fishing. He’d tell me things like: “You’re my favorite son” and “I love you”, and once he gave me some special coins. When I went to get them in the morning, he had taken them back while I slept and took off again. He’d always come back drunk. If we were outside, we would take our time coming into the house, but if we were inside when he got there, we would try to hide in the other rooms; we’d go to bed and try not to make any noise. Once he was calling for us and we hid in the dog’s kennel because we knew the dog would protect us. That dog didn’t like him. Mom would try to stop him from beating us but then he’d turn on her. He beat the youngest sister, who was just a toddler at the time, until she had bruises all over her back. She had been fighting with our other brother over the cat. He threw it against the wall and killed it in front of us.
I was pulled out of class one day at school and taken to the bathroom where two policemen and some lady had me pull my pants down to my ankles so they could take pictures of the bruises. I thought things were finally gonna change but I went home and never heard anything else about it. Nothing changed. I never trusted the system after that.
One of the main ramifications is I have trouble sharing my feelings. It’s really hard to trust. It’s such a burden, telling people all that stuff. Anger was a real issue in my teens. I didn’t care much about myself; just smoke pot or carve up my skin. I didn’t think there was anything good in me. I’m finally now able to talk about this stuff and trust my family with it.
Juarez, Mexico
The region I chose is Juarez Mexico. My husband and I took a team of teens down to Juarez 15 years ago to serve building homes. I was curious to read about the area and children of Juarez today. Apparently, this area of Mexico has become very dangerous due to drugs and violence. It is now considered the homicide capital of the world with an estimated 10,000 children orphaned due to drug-cartel violence as of 2010. (Licon, 2010) Much of this violence exploded in 2008. 262murders are committed each month, or an average of 9 every day. There are an estimated 8,000 + members of the cartel in Juarez with opposing sides fighting for control. (Fox News, 2010)
Lourdes Almada is a child development specialist who runs a day care for children 18 months to 6 years. Her goal is to get the children outside to play. Parents have stopped allowing their children to play outside for fear of frequent gunfire. She describes the children as being depressed and angry and suffering academically. (Fox News, 2010) When asked what has broken, she responds: “family ties and ties to people. The thread of family is attachment and violence is detachment…they are not tied to others, so many do not feel for the dead. They do not have empathy.” (Fox News, 2010)
Another major obstacle for families of violence is access to the needed psychotherapy for children left behind. Much of this work is in the area of post-traumatic stress disorder and the majority is done in groups because so many children are in need. The children are suffering from anxiety, eating and sleeping disorders, and are at risk of failing or quitting school altogether. (Licon, 2010) An interview of teens in Jaurez reveals that 4/10 have intentions to join the cartel for the money and fame. (Fox News, 2010) There are efforts to extend care by training their first responders, the police and paramedics who are typically first to interact with families of murder. They are calling this training “emotional first-aid” (Licon, 2010)
Fox News [video podcast]. (2010, December 21). Retrieved from http://video.foxnews.com/v/4470139/children-of-juarez-mexico-endure-rampant-drug-violence/
Fox News [video podcast]. (2010, December 23). Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/12/23/copy-juan-williams-children-juarez/
Licon, A.G. (2010, October 10). Juarez violence leaves thousands of children orphaned, traumatized. El Paso Times. Retrieved from http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16301040
