How Can I Tell Them?

Oh, take me back to the time when I sat cradled in the arms of one that loved me. It is a thing I cherish in moments when I breathe deep and think long and soft. I was only about three, but I remember it as though it were only a moment ago. The warmth, the care, the words, all spoke of love and trust. I was only a little child, but I could see and feel everything..

In Dumbo, the Disney movie about a little elephant with extra-large ears, Dumbo is made fun of and cast out because he is different. His mother is put in a cage for trying to protect him and the little elephant is left to fend for himself. In trying to make him useful, the circus director puts Dumbo to work as a clown. One night as the clowns are talking about their next performance and what they are going to do with the little elephant, they plot how they will raise the platform from which Dumbo jumps so the audience will be even more amazed than ever. When someone expresses concern for Dumbo's safety, one of the clowns says bluntly, “Oh, it don't matter. Elephants ain't got no feelin's.”

This little story reminds me of a place I once visited where there were people who lived in homes and cities much like the ones we live in. They had cars and televisions, work and recreation, children and pets. But the funny thing was that they acted a lot like those clowns in Dumbo. You see, although they were parents, they didn't know the first thing about how to treat children. Like the clowns, they would try to see just how far they could push their children before they would break. It was almost as if they believed that their children had no feelings.

Every day in that sad place, there were little tiny babies that would cry for their mamas and the only thing they got was a bottle. In that lonely place, small children were passed from one home to another because their parents couldn't get along. In that awful place, growing teen-agers looked with hungry eyes at anyone who would show them some kind of affection. In that terrible place the little people were fed their daily doses of “meds” to keep them under control. In that horrifying place children were even killed before they were born.

If I could go to that place now, I would take those parents by the shoulders and shake them. I would ask them to look into the eyes of their starving children and find out what they really need. I would tell them that children know when they are being shoved around, ignored, unwanted, passed off or mistreated. I would tell them that children also know when they are loved; really loved; and it isn't when someone buys them treats or gifts. If I could, I would shout from the rooftops of that place that children need real nourishment. Pure unadulterated food is hard to come by, but that is what children need; not sugar, and microwaved, chemicalized, processed garbage. I would try to teach those parents that their children also need nourishment for their little minds. Wholesome thoughts, beautiful music, and real recreation are what children thrive on, not virtual reality.

I wished that I could tell them that their children do have 'feelin's'. They feel everything. Every harsh word, every unkind joke, every malicious and every hate-filled thought is registered and felt by their hungry little minds and tender hearts. Some people say that elephants never forget. Children are a lot like elephants. Their hearts will remember every act of love as well as the absence of it.

In the movie Dumbo, we become convinced that elephants have feelings. We weep for the poor baby elephant who cannot even visit his mother and for the poor mother elephant who isn't allowed to be with and protect her baby. But why is it so easy to weep for an imaginary baby elephant while some children in our midst go almost entirely without love or sympathy, affection or understanding, kindness or compassion. How can I tell the people of that sad, lonely, awful, terrible, horrifying place that their own babies are crying but no one is listening?