Some days the news just weighs me down. For the past few days the big internet hubbub has been about Amazon and its respective cancellation of objectionable material for Kindle. (By the way, they still sell videos and picture books with underage (11-13) year olds without clothes on, so no big victory there.) Then you bring up your favorite news site or watch the evening news and there is always a story about a child being abused or killed or dying in a fire. I don't know if its because I'm a parent now or if the exhaustion of life has made me more emotional, but these stories just makes me die a little inside. I see the link to the story and I want to look away, but nine times out of ten, I click on it and the sadness crushes me.
I can't relate to anyone who would ever harm a child and a part of me wants to scream and rage and the injustice. As the economy has worsened, so have the incidents of mindless violence and people snapping under the pressure. Every holiday season the donation boxes go out at work and the Salvation Army angel tree cards are available. My pocketbook prevents me from taking all of the cards, but I wish I could. I take two, one boy and one girl, and I try to make myself feel better by knowing that they will have something new, something that they wanted, to open on Christmas morning. I know there is no way to heal all of the sadness in the world and there is no way I can control it. All I can do is hug my kids and hope that I am raising two loving people to live in the world that might have a chance to cancel out some of the evil.
Does the news get you down, too? Do you have a hard time turning away from stories that you know will break your heart?
I have such a hard time with news involving crimes to children. And like you I take an angel off the tree hoping to make a small difference in the life of a child.
ReplyDeleteWith the last election cycle, I just had to turn away. It was producing too much depression and Grrrr moments.
ReplyDeleteI can only see a little of the local news because: (a) I might have to restrain my husband from going all Punisher on some of these people who abuse children and (b) it makes me depressed.
I have same issues here regarding charity. What we do each year though is I take this opportunity it show my children what charity is about. We go through their toys and clothes and fill a box up of their things to give to children less fortunate.
Before kids we used to go to a food kitchen and serve dinners….might try that sometime soon too.
There are ways to help that won’t hurt your pocket book…and I take solace in that.
Its so hard to not read in the sense of wanting to do SOMETHING to add to the solution. But it just breaks my heart.
ReplyDeleteI can't watch shows like CSI anymore when they deal with children. I now it is fiction, but some of the stories are so closely related to an actual story that I spend most of the episode crying. Never did that before I became a mom. I am with you on the not understanding how anyone could harm a child as well. It just doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me ill to watch the stories. I usually have to change the channel/web page. It's not that I want to pretend it doesn't happen, I just don't want to know details. I have a hard time not wanting to take in any child that has been abused and give them love. How someone can hurt an innocent life, I will never understand.
ReplyDelete