I once watched this movie on Netflix. It was a documentary about these institutions, those deemed "orphanages" in places like the Ukraine. I balled my eyes out watching it. You saw these skeletal children who all looked like infants even though most were school age children, laying in bare beds, rocking back and forth to self-soothe themselves. I could not believe this sort of place existed on this Earth in 2014. How could anyone work there? Or even allow that place to remain open and functioning?
The reality though, was this was the face of the unwanted. No one cared enough to stop this place from existing because other than the families that went there to save a child, mostly international adoptions, no one gave a shit about those kids. They were left there to rot and those that worked there did what they needed to do to keep these aching, living skeletons alive, but at the end of the day, they went home to their own lives.
It just makes be very sad and very angry. The other night I watched, The Normal Heart. Another movie with so much commentary on how society is so quick to do nothing when faced with a side of humanity that is sickening and weak and so wrong. One of the best quotes of the entire movie was Ned Weeks's argument to his dying, AIDS ridden partner, where he exclaims "Felix, weakness terrifies me. It scares the shit out of me. My father was weak and I’m afraid I’ll be like him. His life didn’t stand for anything, and then it was over. So I fight. Constantly. And if I can do it, I can’t understand why everybody else can’t do it, too."
Were we always a society of people who generally did nothing except for the few? I have always been a fighter. I fight for myself. My family. My friends. My students. My animals-- I don't know how to not fight. If I felt pulled or impassioned by a cause, I have always been there and I have always seen it through to the end. And I just don't understand why everyone else can't do it too.
It is not always easy to be a fighter. Sometimes it does cause problems in my relationship. Phil is more of a fixer than a fighter. As he says, once I get an idea into my head, I am off fighting through the trenches for it and making sure I do it despite how he feels on the subject. I am often quick to come back with how he doesn't own me and this is who I am. Maybe someday we'll find more common ground on the subject. Until then, I think comprise is key and also reminding him on how on more than one occasion that very quality came to completely benefit him.
Even though I get so frustrated because I find it so much easier to just do than to sit back and allow travesties to go on. Or to not help if I can, even if it means what I take on makes my own life harder. Isn't that the point of it all?
I read another foster mom blog today. She adopted a boy from the Ukraine, a 4-year-old boy who didn't even fit into 12-month-old clothing because he was so malnourished. She wrote, "I have become convinced that to be indifferent, to do nothing, to ignore, to refuse to act, to stand back and allow broken and wounded populations to continue to suffer...this is the great sin of our lifetime. We are a generation of emotionally paralyzed people, and thus our behaviors become paralyzed. We spend so much time waiting for a sign, a signal, a calling...that we forget to DO. This simply must change. We as humans, as fellow travelers in this life, in this moment, must work, and work HARD to change what is unjust. The moment is now. Stalling has only ever cost us liberties, time, and lives. The procrastination just isn't worth the price."
When did we all become pacifists? How are we all so blind and okay with being blind as long as it doesn't affect our lives?
You can read more about this mom and her adoption at her blog, The Sometimes 8 Irons.She shared many pictures of her son from before and after his adoption.
The reality though, was this was the face of the unwanted. No one cared enough to stop this place from existing because other than the families that went there to save a child, mostly international adoptions, no one gave a shit about those kids. They were left there to rot and those that worked there did what they needed to do to keep these aching, living skeletons alive, but at the end of the day, they went home to their own lives.
It just makes be very sad and very angry. The other night I watched, The Normal Heart. Another movie with so much commentary on how society is so quick to do nothing when faced with a side of humanity that is sickening and weak and so wrong. One of the best quotes of the entire movie was Ned Weeks's argument to his dying, AIDS ridden partner, where he exclaims "Felix, weakness terrifies me. It scares the shit out of me. My father was weak and I’m afraid I’ll be like him. His life didn’t stand for anything, and then it was over. So I fight. Constantly. And if I can do it, I can’t understand why everybody else can’t do it, too."
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Were we always a society of people who generally did nothing except for the few? I have always been a fighter. I fight for myself. My family. My friends. My students. My animals-- I don't know how to not fight. If I felt pulled or impassioned by a cause, I have always been there and I have always seen it through to the end. And I just don't understand why everyone else can't do it too.
It is not always easy to be a fighter. Sometimes it does cause problems in my relationship. Phil is more of a fixer than a fighter. As he says, once I get an idea into my head, I am off fighting through the trenches for it and making sure I do it despite how he feels on the subject. I am often quick to come back with how he doesn't own me and this is who I am. Maybe someday we'll find more common ground on the subject. Until then, I think comprise is key and also reminding him on how on more than one occasion that very quality came to completely benefit him.
Even though I get so frustrated because I find it so much easier to just do than to sit back and allow travesties to go on. Or to not help if I can, even if it means what I take on makes my own life harder. Isn't that the point of it all?
I read another foster mom blog today. She adopted a boy from the Ukraine, a 4-year-old boy who didn't even fit into 12-month-old clothing because he was so malnourished. She wrote, "I have become convinced that to be indifferent, to do nothing, to ignore, to refuse to act, to stand back and allow broken and wounded populations to continue to suffer...this is the great sin of our lifetime. We are a generation of emotionally paralyzed people, and thus our behaviors become paralyzed. We spend so much time waiting for a sign, a signal, a calling...that we forget to DO. This simply must change. We as humans, as fellow travelers in this life, in this moment, must work, and work HARD to change what is unjust. The moment is now. Stalling has only ever cost us liberties, time, and lives. The procrastination just isn't worth the price."
When did we all become pacifists? How are we all so blind and okay with being blind as long as it doesn't affect our lives?
You can read more about this mom and her adoption at her blog, The Sometimes 8 Irons.She shared many pictures of her son from before and after his adoption.
