[RavenSong]

Kathy, my mom abused me physically and emotionally when I was a little kid. She was only 17 years old when I was born; my dad was 21. She was an unhappy young woman, with a husband who was an alcoholic and who beat her up like clockwork. The abuse didn't start until I was 4 years old, as far as I remember, and I have a memory that goes back to the crib.

When I was 4 y/o, my parents lost a set of twins boys...my brothers. My dad drank as his way of dealing with the grief. My mom stayed home and tried her best to take care of me, but I think her grief and her anger overwhelmed her. My dad left, and my mom lost it.

I was never removed from the home, although I did end up in foster care as a teenager thru the juvenile justice system, not DHS. I'm sure if the times had been different, CPS would have yanked me out of there.

Now here's the difficult part to explain. My mom and my dad loved me with all of their hearts. They really did...that's not just wishful thinking on my part. And I loved them. I loved my mom, even though she hurt me. And I loved my dad so much that I can't even find the right words to describe it.

My parents were messed up, that's for sure; there's no denying that. I think if they had had help or assistance of some kind that things would have been easier on all of us.

If anybody, anybody at all, had even suggested to me that my parents were not deserving of my love, I would have fought them tooth and nail. If someone had said my parents were not worthy of being parents, that they didn't deserve to be parents, I would have kicked them in the shins. I do know that when the doctors at Children's Hospital asked me how I had fractured my skull, I just glared at them and remained silent. They gave me a doll to play with in the ER, and I tore her head off when they told me to pretend that it was Mommy. And then later that night as I lay in the oversized crib, I cried for my Mommy to come get me. I called her name out over and over again.

Life is not black or white. People may not think that parents who abuse their kids love them. But most of them do, I believe. I know my parents did... It's easy to judge others when you haven't walked in their shoes.

I do know this one thing for a god-given truth, and that is kids get a lot of their identity and self-worth from their parents. If you believe their parents are trash, believe me, those kids will soon think that they are trash, too.

If it's all about the kids, then I think we must bear some semblance of compassion for their parents. For their parents' blood does run thru their veins. It's as simple as that, IMHO.