“Police Rescue Malnourished Girl From Closet in Kansas City,” the headline reads.
The story is about a 10-year-old girl who was found in a closet, weighing only 32 pounds, while her mother had taken the other two to a restaurant for breakfast.
It is a nightmare when your own mother decides to scapegoat you while behaving normally toward her other children. My mother’s rationalization was very similar: I sucked my thumb and that embarrassed her. Therefore, I needed to be punished for making her look bad.
Her methods, on the other hand, were more calculating, more subtle, more effective … and far less likely to get her arrested. She got others to do her dirty work for her. More often than not, that was my siblings.
My heart goes out to this poor child.
To read the whole story, go to:
The Bully Pulpit 