Beautiful Boy

My friend has an 11 month old baby boy. When she was pregnant someone she knew was raped and we talked about the not-yet-child inside her. She didn't know whether the Frog was going to be a boy or a girl and we didn't know whether it was worse to raise a girl and be afraid that when she grew up she'd be raped, or a boy and be afriad that when he grew up he might rape someone.

Well he is a boy, and I still think about that conversation. I still want to protect him from what I'm afraid he'll grow up to be. Right now he's amazing and beautiful. He bangs on everything and anything. He snuggles into you for comfort. He made me read A Very Hungry Catepillar 3 and half times in a row once. He's a crazy, loving baby.

I'm so scared of what this world will turn him into. That's one of the things that the US soldeirs who have raped Iraqi women makes me think about. How our world in general, and the army more than anything, makes men into monsters.

At the moment we can protect him from all that. I can sing him songs of hopes and struggle and there ain't nothing can harm him. But that only works so long.