Thank You, Older Children

from Rain Child - Sunday, April 02, 2006
accessed 1124 times

To all those who were born before I, and who experienced horrors that I never had to know, and who fought for their freedom, who fought for validity, and tried to stop the things that had happened to them from happening to anyone else, I want to say, "Thank you".

Yes, during the raids, I was able to be honest about my life to the authorities. Yes, the littlest children in my home were able to honestly say that they had never heard about sex. No, these little children had never seen the purged pubs, had never heard of ffing, and certainly had no idea about children being considered adults at the age of twelve.

We were the lucky ones, you see, and so were our parents. Who do we have to thank for this? We have you, the older children. The ones who were twelve when I was five, the ones who went to the Teen Training Camps, the ones who were included in adult dance nights and sharing schedules. You have seen and heard and experienced things that should never happen to any child. You, Mene, Ricky, and your entire age group.

And I realize that my more sheltered upbringing, I owe to you for speaking out. For trying to stop the madness, and the criminal behaviour. My parents owe you too. 'Persecution' was, I believe, the biggest reason that by the time I turned twelve, we weren't even allowed to walk into the boys room. By the time I got there it was so different. Sex between adults and minors was an excommunicable offence. Why was this? Fear of persecution. Who caused this fear? Survivors, those of our generation who had gone before us and gotten out.

Even as we children were praying against you, you were there, fighting for us against a very real danger. And for many young lives, you succeeded in a way you might not have even been aware of. You protected thousands of children from molestation. By seeking justice for the wrongs done to you, you were changing the inside structure of The Family so that silence restrictions, isolations, public beatings, and most importantly child/adult sex became part of a buried past. You helped put fear of the law into the group. You helped bring into effect the mighty cover-up.

I see the gap now between those who experienced these things, and those who are so young that they can be told it never happened, and because the evidence has been destroyed, they tend to believe it. I am right in the middle. I vaguely remember things which should not have happened, happening with those children who were considered 'adults'.

I want to thank you who suffered and did something about it with all my heart. Who knows, perhaps I would have been married at thirteen and pregnant at fifteen if things had not changed. Perhaps I would have been stuck in TF forever if they had felt comfortable and confident that no one was on to them and they could do whatever the hell they liked. Perhaps I would even have been pressured into FFing when I came of age. I shudder to think of it.

Perhaps even my own parents would have been abusers if they had been so fanatical about obeying and Berg had been given free rein to continue his madness unfettered. The parents who cry their innocence and stand against you survivors do not realize that they owe their very innocence to you. I have you to thank that I lost my virginity at the age of eighteen with a boy of my choosing. I have you to thank that I was able to walk out the door at 21 when I came to my senses. I am not a strong person, and if you had not paved the way before me, I might not have been able to get out at all.

Thank you, on behalf of myself, my younger brothers and sisters, and all the beautiful children I had the honour of caring for while in The Family. We owe you so very much, and most of us (mercifully) will never know what you've done for us.