"I murdered my children."
"Let's talk about that. You must have really been hurting inside."

"I touched a child."
"You monster!"

"I spanked my son."
"Sometimes that's the only way to get them to listen."

"I massaged my son."
"I'll kill you, you evil, sick man!"
 

You can hurt him, but you can't help him heal. You can spank a child's butt, but you can't touch it. Beating a child is more accepted: "He'll get over it." If he's beat up at school, we say, "he'll get used to it," but one little touch "will traumatize him for life."

We say that we're protecting children, but what are we protecting them from? We want to keep them safe, within the imaginary playground of innocence. We tell them to stay in there or they'll be punished. We delight when children act like angels, because they fit the mold. Adults are hypocrites, wanting their children within the "happy childhood," filled only with what they feel their children should have. Any "adult behavior" is punished. What is adult behavior? "Don't get smart(er than me)!" Adults steal and hate. Adults are violent. In other words, adults fall to human nature, but children shouldn't because they aren't expected to be human. When a child can't stay within the mold of an angel, he frustrates his parents and they begin to resent him as a burden--especially the mother, who expects to much. A man might say "children can be little devils," but the mother would respond, "How dare you say that. He just needs discipline (to stay within that little mold)."

Adults love a sleeping child because they see an almost surreal beauty, absent from actions or a personality. They place so much upon children that they end up resenting them for all they have and all that they want for themselves. A touch breaks the mold. Adults want it all for themselves. They want the pleasure of sin. Why is sensual touch feared? For far too many adults in our society, pleasure, even in a gentle hug or touch, is sexual. So, unwittingly, they help to keep it that way. In our sex-obsesed culture, sex is rough and painful, but it is also pleasurable. Though we protect our children from it, we prepare them for it by getting them used to the pain that must come along with pleasure. What we never reveal--if we even know of its existance--is the comfort in touch. Perhaps, for us, the most painful touch is the touch so free of physical pain that it opens us to feel more. Open, we feel everything. Perhaps we feel too much. Pain forces us to recoil inside to protect ourselves. Is this why my father has never shown affection? Is this why so many people live their lives only knowing sexual pleasure? Perhaps the only answer to give is simply to say that touch can heal and, free from sin and pain, touch does heal.

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