The moment my late wife and I discovered that we were about to become parents everything changed. Our excitement mounted daily. The hours within those days were taken up with happy discussions about “What if it’s a boy?” and “What if it’s a girl?” and of course what names we wanted to give to either our first son or daughter.
We waited two years for this chapter of our lives to begin and had started to worry. Statistically, two years without becoming pregnant is not too much to worry about. The problem was, that my wife and I began married life in Gateshead, England where I was studying in it’s world famous yeshiva. Every one of our neighbors seemed to be having six children each… per week!
Our first child arrived and he was a little boy. I am writing these memories flying on a plane to Yerushalayim to spend two weeks with him, his wife and his own fabulous children.
My wife and I were very, happily married, but when that little boy came home for the first time, I remember feeling that our small apartment, which had been a warm place filled with lots of laughter, was dull compared to how it was now that our baby son lived there. Our lives simply seemed more complete and brighter.
Next, each of the fabulous (and often exhausting) stages of babyhood came along, diapering, teething, dressing him in the beautiful outfits family and friends had kindly given us. Eventually the glorious day that he ate a banana arrived. Unbridled joy!
Taking him outside in his stroller (in the UK it’s called a pram) was naturally one of the biggest moments of our lives. We happily accepted each “aw and ah!” and compliments about what a beautiful baby boy he was (well of course he was… in fact the most beautiful boy in human history!).
We got to show him his brand new world and all its best bits. As his dad, I particularly felt it was my job to look after and protect him from any and all dangers that the world might send his way.
All that was over forty years ago in 1980. We were unaware that protecting our children then was an infinitely simpler task than it would be when they occupied the same roll for their four children in 2023.
Which takes me to a few weeks ago on July 17. I was listening to BBC Radio’s UK news program, “The World at One.”
The presenter introduced a news item by asking what listeners thought was the largest group of criminal offenders in the UK today?
My mind instantly supplied its answers, Burglars? Muggers? Hackers? I was nowhere close to the right answer. When I discovered what the answer was I was shocked, sickened and very angry.
“The biggest group of offenders in the UK” the BBC presenter continued, “are those who abuse children.”
In a speech that morning, the UK’s National Criminal Agency’s Director General, Graham Bigger said, they now estimate that 800,300 adults in the UK pose some degree of sexual risk to children. That is 1.6% of the adult population.
The presenter explained that Mr. Bigger was in the studio with her and she asked him to explain this phenomenon.
He replied that the N.C.A. partly blames the radicalizing effect of the Internet. Additionally, child abuse of this kind has been historically under-reported.
Bigger continued, “Videos and images of kids being abused creates a market and normalizes such behavior.”
He said that they have seen the connection and numbers between those who have viewed such images and who go on to actually abuse a child also explode.
The BBC interviewer, Sarah Montague is a seasoned journalist but she was clearly disturbed as she continued to ask for details.
“Artificial Intelligence…now massively increases the amount of these kind of vile images. As they are indistinguishable from real images, it is making it harder for authorities to identify actual victims and intervene. It also increases the amount of such material flooding the internet and hence more normalization and increase of real abuse.”
Child abuse, both in pictorial form and in reality, is now an enormous danger to our children.
I haven’t discovered yet what the figures are for the United States of America. I do know though that shamefully, the U.S. is by far the biggest producer of this kind of imagery. The epicenter of the industry that normalizes evil is based around the San Fernando Valley in California.
But as shocked, sickened and angry as I was and am over this, I am not in the slightest surprised. I know an ex-social worker, in New York who left her profession simply because she could no longer handle the number of cases that deal with the sexualization of children even as young as eleven or younger.
In addition, Wokedom’s sickest and most strident advocates have been demanding the right to introduce children to sex and sexuality at the earliest opportunities. Drag queens are invited into schools and libraries to read to little children. Target’s stores have faced a backlash and a massive boycott over its selling and promotion of material to children that introduces them to sex at their earliest years.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, is under fire for accusations and allegations of abuse of office for his behind the scene role in the prosecution of Donald Trump and the non-prosecution of Hunter Biden. He lent his support and activated the FBI against parents that the Biden White House had labeled “domestic terrorists.” The “ terrorism” was protesting over what their children are taught in schools.
Jewish parents both here in the U.S. and UK, face similar actors and government agencies determined to expose our children and all children to sex and sexuality at younger and younger ages.
The primary job of any parent is to protect their child. They’ve never needed our protection more.
