“Daddy I love you!”

Well, today is Saturday at 9:48 pm. I am sitting here with my 4-year-old little girl at the kitchen table as she emulates a makeup tutorial using a color pencil. She is absolutely hilarious. I love her so much! I would love to share a picture or a video but she will not allow me to take one. As I sit here with her I begin thinking about all of the parents who had or have children that take them for granted or neglect them. I can not fathom how people abuse and neglect children. The crazy thing is that most of the time the abusers were also abused. They know exactly what the abuse feels like and how that took a toll on them and yet they continue the cycle of abuse. I wonder why that is? Why knowing how it feels and the affects that it took on themselves, how can they look at another child and do the same to them. It is all sad. This can be mental, sexual, emotional, or physical abuse, WHY WHY WHY? I believe in generational curses. This means that what a parent does follows their children into their children’s children and so on until someone stands up to say, “NOPE this stops here!” My proof is with my father. My father was in a home where he witnessed drug abuse, alcohol abuse, physical and emotional abuse. He unfortunately at the age of six years old witnessed his father stabbed to death. The emotional abuse or neglect did not stop there as my father will tell you that he does not remember his mother ever saying, “I love you” until he was an adult. As an adolescent, my father would watch as his older brothers began abusing alcohol and running with gangs then ultimately finding himself stuck in the same rut. My father grew into adulthood seeing jail and prison time on numerous occasions while also abusing alcohol. My mother and father met started dating, had my brother and right before I was conceived my parents started attending church regularly. My father stood up and said, “NOPE the abuse stops here”, and well here my daughter and I are sitting here laughing with each other. What better way to end the night, than with her looking up at me and saying, “Daddy I love you!”