Where are the Girls?

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Today, the fifth day of summer vacation, I’m making my girls clean their rooms.

Three of them...together.

Cleaning.

There’s been yelling, slammed doors, shouting, thrown toys, hysterical weeping. It’s awesome.

Yet, all I can sit here and think is how lucky I am.

In my nice house in a nice, safe city, in a safe, prosperous county, in a state with the 5th largest economy in the world, in the richest country in the world…I’m so lucky I have the opportunity to sit here and listen to my kids battle their way to a clean room.

I’m not walking across a desert, or hiding from murderous gangs, or fleeing a home buried in violence or mud. I am not begging my rich neighbor to let me in so I can scrub their floors, tend their nice houses and lawns, pick their crops, make their food, or wash their dishes, so I can feed my children and keep them safe.

I’m not sitting in a chain-link cage wondering where my babies are – the babies I suffered and struggled to get to safety. Wondering if they’re okay, if they’re fed, if they’re cared for, if they’re alive…

My girls bargaining and fighting over the mess of their abundant stuff is actually a joyous sound - even if I have to grit my teeth to keep from intervening in their arguments or attempt to shout them into submission. I'm so lucky this is my biggest problem at the moment.

Children have been torn away from their parents, separated from their siblings, shut in tents, cages, sterile dormitories with other traumatized children and no one is there, or allowed, to comfort them in their fear and trauma. This is a tragedy and a travesty happening in our country, in our name.

We all need to ask, and keep asking: Where are the girls? How do we get all these children back to their parents? How do we ensure they’re all okay?

Where are the babies? 

Who’s caring for the toddlers?

Where are the girls?



*Here's a good article on ways you can help...


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