Disturbed

***Caution*** This is not a pretty, happy, blog today.

I am a news freak. I watch the news when I can or hop on CNN to see what is going on in the world, I even sometimes watch the news in Spanish. Between yesterday and today, there have been two local news stories that simply have just disturbed me beyond belief. I guess maybe because they are both about the same thing that is near and dear to my heart: children.

Yesterday, I heard that a police detective had been arrested for 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Seriously...a police detective? Now, we hear stuff like this all the time with people on the news. But today, oh today, I heard that a former CPS worker was arrested for molesting a 4 year old and two teenage boys, who by the way are directly related to him. Do you know what CPS stands for? In some states these people may be called something different, but here in Arizona, they are called Child PROTECTIVE Services. What? I had to read the article twice. I'm not saying a police detective is better than a CPS worker, nobody should ever touch a child in that way, nobody. But a CPS worker? These are the people who pull the children out of the house when things like molest, abuse, neglect are going on. This is a child advocate. Someone who fights for the child, ensures they are put in a loving and caring home. And if you can't trust them or the the police officer, who is the child to trust? I just couldn't believe what I had read. When I first moved to Arizona and started applying for jobs with the state of Arizona, I applied to work for CPS. I actually even got the job, but turned them down. I didn't think I would be able to deal with hurting kids, kids who have been beaten, kids who have been molested. I give many kudos to the people who work there, I know two people who are actually employed by CPS.

The subject of abuse and molestation has occurred in my family. I have cousins who were beaten and molested. I remember when I first noticed the bruises on my cousin. She was young, maybe 4 or 5. I was giving her a bath and like all children do, she was playing in the water. She was laying on her belly and as I was getting ready to wash her backside, I saw the bruise. The bruise was very clearly in the shape of a hand bigger than mine on her bottom. She told me what happened...so and so hit her, he did it all the time. I remember the sick feeling I felt in the deepest pit of my stomach, I immediately called for my grandmother to come in. She had suspected it, but it was confirmed now. A short time later, maybe even a few years, it had come out that her sister had been molested by the same man who hit her. The school that my cousins attended suspected something was going on and asked my cousin who was molested what happened. The things she said, the details she went into, no child could make up. They would only know if it happened to them. My grandmother and one of my cousin's father (my two cousins have different dads) started a long legal process of trying to get custody of my cousin and her sister, we obviously didn't get custody, but their other grandmother did. The entire time this man was beating on child and molesting the other, the mother knew it was happening and she continued to let it happen. Needless to say, they are both serving time in prison now. Both of my cousins have grown into beautiful, young woman, but I know those memories still haunt them.

I just can't believe the world we live in....I can't believe that someone would harm a child in any type of way.