When Mothers Cry for their Children's Innocense

I was upset when I first realized that my children were coming home making weird, annoying sounds from daycare grating on my nerves and it seemed I had to of-ten tell them to stop. Then later I became irate to learn from my sons that some nasty boys and girls had decided to share with the daycare class a reenactment of what goes on behind their parents closed doors. I assumed from the details either my son’s friends saw something through a cracked bedroom door, someone’s open blinds, or accidentally saw a movie they shouldn’t have. I was enraged when I found out that two of my children as a result of looking at a couple of their classmates “show and tell” display were open to some games of discovery with little girls who didn’t know any better or was far too willing to try something new. Luckily, my children have myself and other family members who talk as well as discipline them for any misconduct.

Parents can usually tell if their children are get-ting out of line by what they say before they do anything. Yet, in the back of my mind, I wondered if my sons were ever tempted again would they remember what their father and I told them. Would they remember the punishment that they had received before giving into any future tempting situation?

This issue of childhood innocence is becoming less and less with each passing decade. I personally believe childhood innocence ends the day you let someone other than yourself watch your children. No one is as careful as a good mother. She will notice when something isn’t right with her children. The moment she suspects something isn’t right she will start investigating any and everyone. From the teacher to the superintendent, everyone is suspect including the father. She will ask questions, conduct searches, interviews, and set traps. She will leave no stone unturned. She demands names, “Who told you that? Who is Jimmy? Where does Cindy live?” A mother has zero tolerance for lies and cover-ups. She will risk her freedom, if it means that a good spanking will set the record straight. Some mothers do not want to face the reality that their children’s child-hood innocence was lost days, months, even years ago! They want everyone to believe their children had nothing to do with the writing on the wall, the theft, the fight, the rape, or even the murder. “My son would never…my daughter couldn’t…” Someone did it so it might as well have been your child, my child or someone else’s child. When the man or woman in uniform arrives at a mother’s doorstep, a mother can no longer shield her eyes from the trouble standing before her. It is a devastating truth for her when she realizes her baby did it and no one else is to blame!

As for the other meaning regarding this chapter’s title, it describes a child’s innocence even when he or she is falsely accused. The young man, woman or child has done nothing wrong, yet society still punishes a mother’s son or daughter despite the facts. There is the mother who cries for her child who is suspended from school, even though he was not at the scene of the crime. In another part of town, there is the mother who cries for her daughter who is arrested for shoplifting even though she has nothing on her. These are children who may or may not have been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and no one seems to care but mother!

While society screams, “Your child had to be guilty of something!” All she can do is say, “It wasn’t my child!” There are mother’s who cry tears every time they have to visit their innocent child in jail. Her heart screams, “My child doesn’t belong here!” She wants justice to be done for her child, just as it was done for the many other children of mothers seen on television and read about in print. Yet, it doesn’t happen for her child and she can’t help but grieve daily. “Why God? Why my child?”

I saw the grief on a relative’s face when her child was wrongly accused of a crime he didn’t commit. I saw the pain on my ex-boyfriend’s mother’s face when he had been falsely accused. How could these women fight against judges that were up for re-election, witnesses with foggy memories, and a legal aid organization that promised to help, but didn’t deliver? Mothers cry for different reasons, but by far the loudest cry is coming from the mother whose child is innocent. All she wanted to do was raise her child to be a productive member of society, but someone or something took that away. Many mothers age rapidly with this kind of stress. It is absolutely mandatory they have a faith, support system and counseling when they are faced with these kinds of issues. Without all three, some part of the mother’s being will die mentally, physically and/or spiritually.

This is an excerpt taken from the book When Mothers Cry by Nicholl McGuire, from Chapter 19 entitled, "When Mothers Cry for their Children's Innocense."