No kid deserves to be neglected.

No kid deserves to be neglected. 

No kid needs to “earn” their right to attention and love. 

But our culture just can’t quite seem to wrap its collective brain around this. 

We didn’t “deserve” love and attention and care and the basics of survival because we’re cute, or well-behaved, or intelligent kids. 

We deserved them because we exist. 

Our culture kind of has this problem where it just can’t NOT think in terms of “earning” and “deservingness.” 

When somebody dies tragically, it’s often discussed in terms of how the victim didn’t (or did) “deserve” what happened to them. 

When somebody comes forward and describes a painful or exploitative relationship experience, it’s often discussed in terms of whether they “did enough” to extricate themselves from the situation. 

We’re very used to discussing the pain of adults in terms of whether or not they “deserve” what they are experiencing, based on their behavior (or, just as commonly, based on how attractive, appealing, or relatable they are). 

This in itself is pretty f*cked up— but even more so is the fact that we often retroactively think of children in much the same way. 

Whatever a person goes on to do or be in their life, when they were kids, they absolutely deserved shelter and nourishment and comfort. 

Is it any wonder survivors of neglect in particular grow up to doubt their essential worth? 

The implicit message of many of our cultural institutions— and a LOT of our popular media and entertainment— is that those who “deserve,” get. 

We LOVE the story of people who “deserve” things, getting them. 

But we struggle with the idea that maybe EVERY child— maybe EVERY human being— deserves to be sheltered, nourished, and even loved. 

Our culture tends to plant this poison seed in the minds of kids who were neglected: “you must not have been attractive enough/endearing enough/entertaining enough/smart enough/(whatever) enough to be loved.” 

It’s really hard to shake that BS (Belief System— but the OTHER Kind of BS, too). 

Telling a victim of neglect that they ARE, in fact, worthy, that they SHOULDN’T have been without shuttler or nourishment or care, can often SOUND hollow to victims of neglect. 

It might SOUND like something that someone is saying “just to be nice.” 

That’s how powerful that early programming, that early CONDITIONING, can be. 

Make no mistake: trauma CONDITIONS us. 

Neglect CONDITIONS us to question our worth. To assume the worst about how valuable we are. 

Recovery is a process of RECONDITIONING— but it can be hard to recondition beliefs and attitudes that were formed around the ABSENCE of care. 

Telling someone they deserved better can be a tough sell. 

We don’t like to imagine that the universe is unfair. We don’t like to imagine that, through sheer dumb f*cking luck, we got sh*tty caretakers who didn’t know how to meet our needs. 

On some level we might even WANT to believe that neglect WAS our fault— because we were annoying, or needy, or unattractive, or stupid. 

Recovery asks us to come face to face with how unlucky we were. 

The culture might tell us that’s just “whining.” After all, who spends time in THERAPY, complaining about how UNLUCKY they were? 

“Suck it up,” we’re told. “Take responsibility,” we’re told. 

We can’t “take responsibility” for love we didn’t get. 

And make no mistake: it WAS love you deserved. 

You still do deserve it. 

Yes, you.