I watched interviews last night on Nightline and again this morning on Good Morning America with three women who live on the polygamist compound in Texas that’s been in the news. Talk about a video oxymoron; here are these three wholesome-looking, immaculately clean women dressed in simple clothing who look like poster children for the Amish. Then, they start to speak. With haunting voices devoid of emotion, they spoke of missing their children, loving their children, and described their ranch as “heaven on earth.” Brainwashed or drugged, I can’t be certain, but these women are real, true-life Stepford Wives, and they are frightening. Or rather, whatever it is that has shaped them is frightening.
I cannot imagine living a life that must be so controlled, so contrived, so isolated and so ingrained, that there is no question that there might be other options. My heart broke for them, and for their children. Regardless of how these children came to even be, they are still children, and their mothers love them with all their hearts and miss them with a pain that only a mother could know. That much managed to push its way through the almost catatonic cloud enveloping the women; these are mothers whose children have been taken away and they are wracked with grief.
One may argue that the hundreds of children removed from the compound were in harm’s way. BUT, this is the only life these children have ever known; what must it be like for them to be thrust into the foster care system, made to live with people, who dress, speak and act so differently from what they know? If indeed, life in the compound is “heaven on earth,” then are these poor children now living in some kind of hell? I am keeping them in my prayers.
I don’t know what the answer is here, and I’m sure we’ll be learning more. Did the authorities cross the line?
Until Next Time,
Joan McCue
(c) 2008 Joan McCue All Rights Reserved
