Ten Year Old's Letter On NGJ

[Patsy]

One thing that strikes me about the Shoshanna story is that a 5 year old would even get to the point where she's telling a story about how a strange man came to the house and cut the hanging AND keep that story up for 2 weeks.

I can honestly say that I can't remember a single time where I or any of my siblings would think of something like that. Sure, we might say we hadn't done it, we might say "I don't know, why don't you ask sister/brother?" but never make up a stranger who broke into the house and did it. But then again my mom never hit us with plumbing line for hours on end, not even the time that my brother somehow managed to paint a whole wall with crayons.

Yeah, prisoners being tortured come up with all sorts of shit.

[thetabmeister]

One thing that strikes me about the Shoshanna story is that a 5 year old would even get to the point where she's telling a story about how a strange man came to the house and cut the hanging AND keep that story up for 2 weeks.

I can honestly say that I can't remember a single time where I or any of my siblings would think of something like that. Sure, we might say we hadn't done it, we might say "I don't know, why don't you ask sister/brother?" but never make up a stranger who broke into the house and did it. But then again my mom never hit us with plumbing line for hours on end, not even the time that my brother somehow managed to paint a whole wall with crayons.

It just tells of how scared she must have been not just for herself but also for her siblings.

And even though I guess we're assuming that the stranger breaking in theory is completely impossible here, if for some reason there were another person involved....it seems that the parents were dead set on blaming their daughter no matter what and if for some reason she had been telling the truth about another party involved, they clearly intended to drill her until she admitted to having been 100% responsible.

So the stranger breaking in story was probably a stretch.

But in today's society, and by today I mean even several decades ago when all of our (mostly punished by spanking) parents and grandparents were raised, a child at 5 very well could have a story to tell that involves a stranger, adult or even family friend. And parents who are completely unwilling to believe their children, instead always thinking that they must be lying, can and often do wreak extensive damage over a situation where the child really needed to come to his parents for help.

That's why it's important to not force a child to lie. I have two little boys (2 & 4) and stuff happens. All the ashes empty out of the fireplace into the stroller. The plant is eaten. The carpet is colored with markers (okay, that one happened while I was on the phone w/ the realtor, with said coloring toddler sitting on the floor next to me :doh: ). When I don't know who did it, I just tell them, this is not something that we do, let's not do this again, and sometimes I'll have them both help me clean the mess or else I'll have them watch me fix it. I want to enforce TWO things: 1. Mommy will try to fix things as much as possible, and if I can't, I will always love you and there isn't a point you can pass where things are so unfixable that I don't love you and won't protect and care for you anymore and 2. You can always, always tell me the truth.

I don't trust people. My kids don't know this but due to my childhood and stuff, I will always take their word over any adults.

When my oldest was 2, he hated going to AWANAS at our church. Something about the teacher freaked him out. I tried forcing him to go for a month, but he was just terrified of her. I felt really bad and realized that the only reason I wanted him to go was selfish, so I could go to my adult class on Sunday nights without having to watch him. I pulled him out of the class and determined from then on that if my kid has a bad feeling about someone, I will not force them to be around them and I will monitor their interactions when they are together.

All of that was kind of irrelevant but what I mean by it all is that you should never force children to lie, and you should treat their confidence and trust with such respect that they should not fear whether or not you believe them. Even small children can pick up on this. And even though it wasn't the case in Shoshanna's wall cutting story, there are many times when a child her age or younger will be telling the truth about a situation and as a parent, you'd better believe them. A good parent would know how to get to the bottom of a story. The Pearls aren't even on the same continent as good parents.

[Lily]

This is just sickening. It's bad enough when the adults write about this stuff with the disturbed glee they have about abusing their children, but it's worse when the child is writing about it as though nothing is abnormal about it, though I'm sure it was under a great deal of duress and threat of punishment. The thing is, what's written by a 10 year old under duress is what she will eventually write on her own and with relish when she's married off at 15 and starts producing children of her own to abuse and brainwash. It's that whole "... and I turned out fine," mentality. Today's victims are tomorrow's abusers, they can't reconcile the actions of their parents as wrong or abusive, so instead they defend and perpetuate them. Our whole culture has this problem, not just the extremes of the Pearl's sycophants.

I'm all about pacifism and non-violence, but just for the Pearl's (and other people like them that still advocate the barbaric practices of hurting innocents) I make an exception when I say someone needs to take them out into the woods, beat them over the head with a 2x4 full of rusty nails, disembowel them with a 3-tined fork, and drag them through the underbrush by their lower intestines.

Or just throw them in a blackberry bush.

[Hane]

When my cousin and I were little--maybe four years old, tops--we were playing in our grandmother's sunroom when a gust of wind blew open a casement window and knocked over a ceramic figurine, breaking it. We tried to explain what happened, but Grandma didn't believe us at first. Fortunately, Grandma wasn't a Pearl. Someone figured out what happened, eventually, because Grandpa nailed the offending window shut.

[thoughtful]

This is just sickening. It's bad enough when the adults write about this stuff with the disturbed glee they have about abusing their children, but it's worse when the child is writing about it as though nothing is abnormal about it, though I'm sure it was under a great deal of duress and threat of punishment. The thing is, what's written by a 10 year old under duress is what she will eventually write on her own and with relish when she's married off at 15 and starts producing children of her own to abuse and brainwash. It's that whole "... and I turned out fine," mentality. Today's victims are tomorrow's abusers, they can't reconcile the actions of their parents as wrong or abusive, so instead they defend and perpetuate them. Our whole culture has this problem, not just the extremes of the Pearl's sycophants.

I'm all about pacifism and non-violence, but just for the Pearl's (and other people like them that still advocate the barbaric practices of hurting innocents) I make an exception when I say someone needs to take them out into the woods, beat them over the head with a 2x4 full of rusty nails, disembowel them with a 3-tined fork, and drag them through the underbrush by their lower intestines.

Or just throw them in a blackberry bush.

I'm with you on the first part -- it is so hard to break the cycle.

But I have a different fantasy about consequences for the Pearls and others like them.

My dearest wish is that they wake up one day and get it -- that they fully, deeply, realize how wrong they have been, and the damage they have done. I want them to become as powerfully anti-pain as I am.

Besides the fact that their influence on others would change, and some children might be saved from pain, I think it would be the best consequence for them. Imagine thinking like we do, and having their history -- I want them to live with that, every minute of every day.

I want the Pearls to have to fight it out with all of their followers, and their own children, and have to work to try to deprogram them, for the rest of their lives. I want them to be fully enlightened, and still see all of the people who are beating children and quoting them, giving the Pearls "credit" for the pain they cause.

No amount of physical pain could equal that (not to mention that they would interpret any physical punishment as persecution and be even more arrogant and proud of themselves).

[Lily]

I'm with you on the first part -- it is so hard to break the cycle.

But I have a different fantasy about consequences for the Pearls and others like them.

My dearest wish is that they wake up one day and get it -- that they fully, deeply, realize how wrong they have been, and the damage they have done. I want them to become as powerfully anti-pain as I am.

Besides the fact that their influence on others would change, and some children might be saved from pain, I think it would be the best consequence for them. Imagine thinking like we do, and having their history -- I want them to live with that, every minute of every day.

I want the Pearls to have to fight it out with all of their followers, and their own children, and have to work to try to deprogram them, for the rest of their lives. I want them to be fully enlightened, and still see all of the people who are beating children and quoting them, giving the Pearls "credit" for the pain they cause.

No amount of physical pain could equal that (not to mention that they would interpret any physical punishment as persecution and be even more arrogant and proud of themselves).

True, I used to have the same wish. I still do for lots of their followers.

But I guess I've turned a little cynical. I don't believe there's any hope for them or their souls now. As fundie-ish as that sounds, there's just a point where a person has caused and perpetuated so much evil, pain, abuse and violation of others, that they are beyond help or redemption.

Sadly, I think the Pearls and others like them fall into that category. They will never reform. Child abusers on that scale and with that cold, callous nature have a good chance of being psychopaths. They don't have normal human feelings, even if it ever gets into their head that it's wrong, I'm not sure they would care or feel any guilt over it.

I don't really want harm to come of them, but it's still therapeutic to think about it. Kind of like a horror movie when in the end, the bad guy who's been torturing people in his basement ends up dying the most horrific death of all. It's not that you'd want it to happen in real life, but it's part of the fantasy aspect and toying with the idea of poetic justice.

[thoughtful]

True, I used to have the same wish. I still do for lots of their followers.

But I guess I've turned a little cynical. I don't believe there's any hope for them or their souls now. As fundie-ish as that sounds, there's just a point where a person has caused and perpetuated so much evil, pain, abuse and violation of others, that they are beyond help or redemption.

Sadly, I think the Pearls and others like them fall into that category. They will never reform. Child abusers on that scale and with that cold, callous nature have a good chance of being psychopaths. They don't have normal human feelings, even if it ever gets into their head that it's wrong, I'm not sure they would care or feel any guilt over it.

I don't really want harm to come of them, but it's still therapeutic to think about it. Kind of like a horror movie when in the end, the bad guy who's been torturing people in his basement ends up dying the most horrific death of all. It's not that you'd want it to happen in real life, but it's part of the fantasy aspect and toying with the idea of poetic justice.

So is mine.

Physical pain goes away. But, if they really understood why they had been so wrong, they would suffer with that knowledge for the rest of their lives.

My fantasy is not sunshine and roses -- it is partly because I think it would cause them the most possible pain.