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07/16/2004 - 9:54 p.m.

GUPPIES

The problem with religious politics---the politics within religious groups, regardless of denomination---is that it turns its practitioners into guppies. Not sharks, guppies. Sharks eat other species. These people just can�t help eventually eating their young.

The notion that what you do should be unassailable as long as you can claim that you are doing it for the sake of the children should protect the children. It doesn�t. It makes the situation worse. In the hands of feuding religions factions, actual children become fodder. It�s theoretical children that matter.

The �saving the children� battle cry makes it particularly hard to actually save the children. When your own daughter is on the border between the armed camps, the side that sees her as the way to get to the other camp resorts to saying that she must be removed for her own good. She must be removed because her position has become too stressful. It�s not that she�s done anything wrong, of course, but she should lose the job she�s been doing and the one she has a contract for--- for her own good. Never mind that if she goes, the person whose children she has been caring for is unlikely to stay. The pure never think of such things.

Never before have I been in a situation in which any organization, camp or otherwise, has decided that a child should be urged to go for her own good at midnight. Literally---at midnight. Midnight, of course, is a time when the deal will be done long before anyone who could protect or object will even know. Of course it is best to tell a child that she is unhappy at midnight and that she should go home with her mother. Saying such things at a decent hour just would not be kosher.

And what of her mother? Well, her mother could have fought for her to stay. But no seventeen year old is equal to a social worker on a self-appointed mission from a voice she believes is God that tells her to help (or who at least is pretending that such is the situation.) And her mother knew just how ugly it could get. Her mother did not put it past a social worker with very spoiled children of her own and a willingness to stretch the truth to stretch the truth all the way to an allegation of child abuse if necessary.

When the agenda is to remove a seventeen year old who is in the way and you are making a case for her being stressed, stretching the truth is done in the service of God. If you asked someone what she would do with her children if she did not have a babysitter and she said she would explore a local daycare center, it is not lying to say that you know she has thought about daycare, is it? And if the implication you create is that she is unhappy with a seventeen year old�s performance, so what? If the victory of your cause requires a stretch, why not do it?

Sharks, I can deal with. They look dangerous. Everyone knows they are dangerous and their very appearance offers its own protection. But guppies are different. I won�t leave my child in a fish tank with a guppy---at least not until she is mature enough not to be eaten. Especially if that guppy thinks the tank water is anointing oil.

_____

For those who are wondering, Kat has landed on her feet. She got on the phone today and landed an internship with our local children�s theater academy. THEY were glad to have her.

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