Remembering One Small Boy

I watched the Netflix docuseries The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez. It was painful to watch, but I felt it important to not look away from the horrors this small boy faced daily for 8 long months, while the adults he turned to did not help him escape the torment. The series mentioned the escalation of the abuse of children with the increase in drug abuse. It also noted that there are not enough resources available to help all the millions of children who live in abusive situations.

There are numerous children and other innocents like animal companions that are being horribly abused and tortured within the walls of their homes. We have family units hidden from the rest of the world where abuse can take place without consequences for the abuser. Raging abusers take their anger out against those they can, those who are physically weaker. How did we get to a place where we no longer protect the next generation, where we kill our offspring? It is against Nature.

Our everyday struggles merely to exist include incredible stressors that entice people seek ways to escape. We self-medicate through a variety of substances and behaviors, some of the substances alter the mind, providing an outlet of escape, but also blur reality and self-regulation for the user.

Those abusing must not see or care what they are doing or the suffering they are causing another, one that should be dearer to them than life itself. The lack of empathy is confusing. I can only guess that the anger somehow suppresses compassion. The baby or child is no longer seen as something to protect with one’s life, but something to use and abuse, to take one’s anger and frustration and resentment out on. The same way a nation that goes to war against another dehumanizes the other, so they can enact the most inhumane actions against the other without conscience.

Where does all this rage and impotence derive from? An area to examine is poverty coupled and compared with over-the-top wealth. There are many who do not know how they will feed themselves, much less a family. They do not know how they will keep a roof over their heads or provide all the necessities of life required to exist in this culture. There is fear of not having enough. While at the same time there are images of the very wealthy enjoying insane abundance. Those suffering with poverty, not only suffer physically and mentally, but also are derided by many in the culture that say it is their fault they are suffering. They didn’t work hard enough; they are lazy.

So, while they struggle to survive, working hard and doing what we have been told to do to make it and raise a family, they are failing. The fear eats away at them. They may have been raised in abusive situations themselves. How to handle the fear and anger and resentment is to release their emotions on another. That is what was modeled for them and that is what they now model for their offspring. If drugs are involved, they add flame to the fire.

To break this cycle requires a rebalancing of wealth, so that every member of society has enough to live on without having to work more than a 40-hour week, and if they need help because they physically cannot do this, they receive help. We need to compassionately reteach those that don’t know how to release their emotions in a healthy manner, and we need to help those addicted to drugs that alter the mind.

We need to save these children, because they are all our children. Is there a better place for our resources to go than to our children? If we cannot see this, we need to change and open our minds.

Government will not change until the people make it, but we are a divided people. There are those that do not want the divide between the wealthy and the poor decreased. They believe the wealthy somehow earned it, while the poor earned where life placed them. We cannot help all our children until this mindset is cast off like the world is flat mindset generations ago.

Anger makes one feel powerful. In the movies and on television, the one who has the most power physically is often the winner. Physical prowess is flaunted as a virtue to possess. The reputation of physical prowess is won through contest and conquest. We, at times, settled our arguments individually and collectively through use of force. Taken into the home, a portion of us have learned to teach our children a lesson through physical punishment. They “deserve” what we are meting out. More force equals greater punishment or so one may extract until the line between what is discipline and what is abuse blurs.

We need to change the mindset that use of physical force is the best way to settle arguments and to mete out punishment. We must turn away from prioritizing the physical and seek solace in the spiritual. Evolve ourselves to rely on a different power, one that is all compassion and wisdom that does not punish through pain but teaches through gentle instruction. Our media is a reflection of ourselves. In order to change the culture, we need to change. Embrace love over all else. Be the mirror of love in the world, reflecting to all God’s creatures. Sit in the presence of the Divine and pray for our children, all children, no matter the age. We remember Gabriel and all children who do not have a safe home. Our hearts break for you and that still does not seem to be enough.