Where are your Children?

Warning! This article may be interpreted by some as an emotional vent and, well, it may be, but this is a topic I feel strongly about and will defend to anyone who challenges it.

Where are your children? Do you know right now? If you had to go touch their faces right now, could you? Could you call them and they would answer you?

Yesterday, a nine-year-old girl was found dead in a rural area of Southwest Missouri. It is a tragic, heart-breaking, heart-wrenching story. ANOTHER child taken and no one seems to know what happened.

Well, SOMEONE knows. And they’re not talking. Now, a mother will live the rest of her life without her little girl. As a mother, I can empathize with her, because everytime I hear of something like this, it also happens to some part of me - the part that connects me to all Motherhood - and I grieve for these children and their families and am outraged that someone else - anyone else - can have the lack of conscience and morality to do something to these children. Children are our most valuable assets - they are our future. What kind of future can we expect when we allow this type of event to continue happening?

Yes, a couple of generations ago, we left our doors unlocked at night and slept soundly with the windows open. Today, one takes a chance to leave their car unlocked long enough to go into the convenience store for milk and bread. Everyone knows there’s potential risk out there. Yet children are allowed free reign - go where they want - at younger and younger ages. No, the girl who went missing last Friday night (11/2) wasn’t out and about on her own, but she had been LEFT ALONE.

This is the part that hurts me so much - and I’m sure hurts everyone else concerned. Tragically for this family, someone made a choice to leave the house with a nine-year-old girl alone, sleeping soundly. At least that’s the story so far. But giving the benefit of doubt that this is the case, she was left alone. Does being asleep make her safer? Is that why it’s okay to leave her?

Technological advances have enabled us to make tremendous advances. Children are learning things earlier and earlier - things that many of us didn’t learn until junior or high school or later come easily to younger and younger children. They can fix electronic glitches faster than their parents. Cell phones make it convenient to talk to someone next door or around the world instantly without being linked through a wired phone line. Children are learning about “grown-up” issues earlier, getting involved in mature activities earlier. And they are having to deal with grown-up issues earlier.

So what happened to their innocence? What’s wrong with a child being a child until it’s necessary for them to become adults? Some might say, oh, that’s the way the world is today. But all this does is allow grown-ups to get by denying their responsibility for these young people. I know of parents who allow their children - under 10 years of age - to roam freely about their neighborhoods - going from house to house seeking out playmates, recruiting other young people to hang out and have a good time. So think about it, if you allow your eight-year-old child to roam about the neighborhood and he or she is on the other side of the block or down the street, someone decides to grab him or her and then they’re gone. Who knows what happened? Is the parent responsible for that?

What about parents who allow their young children to stay at home alone after school? Yes, we all have to work, but there are programs in schools and daycare centers and babysitters who can watch after children until the parents get off work. The cost too much, you say? Well, what is the cost in looking for a missing child? What is the cost to a parent’s heart when their child is taken and never found again? Or found dead?

What about parents who are aware of where their children are and something happens? It can happen to anyone, but my concern is for the ones who are giving too much freedom to their kids, saying, oh, they're smart enough to be alone. They can take care of themselves. I’ll just be gone an hour or so.

Yeah. If you’ve ever turned your attention away for a second in a department store, your child can disappear from your view just that fast. It doesn’t take an hour. All it takes is a moment. A moment when someone makes the decision to affect someone else’s life - someone else who is smaller and not able to protest because they are easily overpowered.

I implore all parents and caregivers of children: be aware of where your children are at all times! It doesn’t mean you become paranoid and don’t ever let them do anything, it just means you maintain and keep your right as the parent/caregiver to be in charge and responsible! You can’t control what they do when they become of age and leave home, but you can control their whereabouts to a great extent before that time comes. Make sure your children know you love them, trust them, and respect them. And when they tell you you’re too protective, say, “You bet I am! And you’re the reason why!” There’s nothing wrong with being over-protective. I’ve been accused of it a lot and I don’t care. As long as there’s breath in me, I’ll know what my child is up to and will be in charge of who she is in the custody of or “hanging out” with.

Giving our children a sense of safety, love, and confidence doesn’t mean we allow them to run wild with freedom - it means we teach them about life with a gentle guiding hand, protecting them when necessary, patting them on the back at other times. Allow them to keep their innocence as long as possible, because they will have the rest of their lives to be part of the grown-up world. We owe them a secure present so they can give us a secure future.