Orphan

By Tony Robledo

Imagine.

You are a child, small and unnoticed, who wakes every morning to the bustling sounds, chuckles, and shrieks of other orphaned children. It’s the only kind of waking world you’ve ever known. Every morning, the lingering smell of ammonia from the night cleaning crew. Every morning, a nurse wiping up accidents in the hall outside your door. Every morning, alone in a room crowded with other children. You have no parents, no mist of memory, no whisper of a past, no foggy recollections. Only a small, strange mark on your chest. There was no paperwork, just a name tag tucked into a whimpering bundle on the back stoop of an orphanage waiting to be found, to be heard, to be loved. You are a child, small and unnoticed. And today is no different.

Spare the Rod: A Physically Abused Child Learns Righteous Resistance

By David T. Ulrich

Published in The Moody Standard 76:9 This story is adapted from interviews with a female college student. All names changed to honor confidentiality:

“‘Spare the rod, spoil the child,’ my mom and dad used to say. So they couldn’t risk being light on the rod.

“One time I made a snack for myself before dinner: cottage cheese and applesauce in a bowl. But I couldn’t finish it—maybe it had gone bad, or else I just felt sick—but I couldn’t get through the whole thing. Mom said she wouldn’t feed me anything else until I finished my bowl. This was her ‘discipline.’ Doesn’t seem so extreme, right?