Thinking of the children

I'd heard many good things about Octavia Butler, so wanted to read at least something by her. The Parable of the Sower seemed like a reasonable starting place.

I really didn't intend to read any more, at least not for that Black History month 2018, but then it sounded so real that I ended up checking out its sequel, The Parable of the Talents too.

It is hard to put into words. I guess to some extent, when I recognized situations that were real, and predicted, I hoped that the sequel might have some good methods for dealing with the situations. I hoped there might be ways to get around it.

I will write more about that tomorrow, but the strongest thing in the sequel for me was the effect of separating parents and children.

There are some spoilers coming.

Lauren's child was taken from her, and given up for adoption. Early in The Parable of the Talents you know that Lauren has died, and her child is going through her papers and trying to understand her. As much as you can wish them both well, Asha's interpretation always involves a feeling of being of secondary importance to her mother.

It never felt right to me. It meant reading her mother's writings and not believing the words. It meant that even when they were finally reunited there was a barrier between them, and Asha would not accept her mother's love.

It just so happened that I was reading the book about a month after we had started learning about immigrant children being taken from their parents and the irreparable harm it was doing.

There were many justifications for the separation in the book. It first happened because of religious extremists, because the parents were evil cult members. They weren't really, but that's how they were labeled, and that made stealing their children and property and forcing the adults into slavery, including rape, okay.

Then Lauren's brother learned where her child was, but because he was also against her religion (and probably because the group had hurt his pride, without him ever admitting to himself that was it), he kept the information to himself. He later forged a relationship with his niece, but lied to her about her parents. In the end learning the truth did not set her free, because she couldn't believe the truth.

There are still 528 children separated from their families. There are others who have been reunited, but the trauma is going to affect them for a long time. They may be feeling those effects for the rest of their lives.

It is evil. It comes from letting the worst impulses loose in our country. And as awful as it is that it happened, we should at least be diligently working to fix it as soon as possible.

Here is one starting place: https://actionnetwork.org/groups/raices-refugee-and-immigrant-center-for-education-and-legal-services