You may wonder what started all this. Why am I doing this and what do I hope to accomplish? There are as many reasons for this page as there are for child abuse. However, here is a brief introduction into why I am doing this.

First, I am a child abuse survivor. I have suffered at the hands of adults many times my size. I know the helpless feeling of a young child who has no clue as to what he or she did wrong to anger this towering giant of a person. For me, and for many of my friends, child abuse was an intentional act done purposely to cause us harm. However, it is my belief most child abuse occurs when a parent is tired, frustrated, overwhelmed, immature, inexperienced, has unrealistic expectations, etc. I believe that a majority of parents do want to do what is best for their child. Most of the abuse I see while I am out at the grocery store or the mall seems to be of this kind, and this is how this idea came to me as well.

One Sunday afternoon, my significant other (SO), my best friend, her daughter, and I went to see "Notting Hill" at the dollar theater. I was in my wheelchair, so I sat in the back of the theater. My best friend and her daughter sat a few rows up from us. Right in front of my SO and I was a young couple with a little girl, about 2 years old, whose name was Angel. The movie isn't really geared for children, and Angel wasn't very interested. She wanted to get down and play, talk, check out the other people in the theater, all the things you would expect a 2 year old to do. Her mother, however, believed that she should sit still and be quiet for 2 hours, and throughout the movie she repeatedly hit the child. She did not seem to care where her blows landed, as long as she made contact with some body part of the child. It was heartbreaking. My SO had to comfort me, and also somewhat restrain me, for I really felt like slapping the mother a time or two. I cried in frustration. I felt so helpless. What could I do? Call the police? Yell at the mother? Try to talk to the mother? Nothing seemed right. I was very troubled by this and it was on my mind on the way home after the movie when I thought about all of the people I knew as a child. What if one of them had said something? What if one person I met as a little girl would have had the courage to act on their suspicions or what they observed? Then it hit me, the light bulb when off in my head. I thought about the Day of the Child and the Green Ribbon Campaign, and I came up with an idea. What if I wrote a small paragraph, printed several copies, then tied each one up with a green ribbon and small hard candy, and then each time I saw a parent abuse their child I gave them one of these packages? As I go to the grocery store, mall, movies, therapy, etc.?

And so the idea was born. As we rode home, I also thought it might be a good idea to put this all on a website, so you could do it too. You may ask what good this will do? Well, I don't expect to change the world. I rather expect many of my messages will wind up in the trash. I also suspect many of them will make the parent angry at me. However, if I can reach just one parent, if I can make just one person take a look at what they are doing and then look for better ways, if I can stop one child from being hit today, then it is worth it, and I have done the right thing.

It isn't the big things we do that make a difference, it is the small ones, the things that change one instance, one moment in time, that impact the entire future. For the ocean is not a drop of water but many many drops, add your drop today. Print the paragraph, tie them up with green ribbons, and maybe you will save a life of a child today.

Ruth