This is good, this is "grieving" what you feel you lost not only with this trauma, but that your parents did not protect you well enough.

It's unfortunate, but countless parents do leave their children in the care of strangers and over the years I have heard of countless things that happened to children with these strangers. Even here in this forum have been so many accounts discussed of different individuals who were victims when they were children. And I found out from my older brother that he was molested/sexually abused by a babysitter when he was very young and he never told anyone, he was very young only 4 or 5.

It's unfortunate but predators do put themselves in all kinds of situations where they can find victims and they come across as "nice/good/safe/caring" people. Think about it, teachers, priests, babysitters, daycare, doctors, boy scout counselors, family friends, even relatives to name a few situations where predators set up that are so nice to the children and seem harmless and trustworthy.

When my daughter was little I did not trust strangers to watch her, no babysitters and had playdates with friends at my home, and when she was old enough I made it a point to sit down with her and tell her not to allow "anyone" to touch her, or have her touch them, even other children. I made it a point to make sure my daughter felt I was very approachable to ask or tell me anything that bothered her.

It's unfortunate, but more than ever before parents are leaving their children to be cared for by strangers. There is always a risk and as you know it only takes "once" for a child to be traumatized and it can have an affect on them for the rest of their lives.

When I was only three, I was swinging on a swing at the neighbors when two little boys pulled me off the swing and into a small shed and took off my clothes. I was terrified and I don't remember "how" I got away from them. I did tell my mother and she did get mad and went over to the neighbors house and yelled at them. However, I was left with experiencing that "trauma".

That became a part of how I made sure my own daughter was protected. And when my daughter was growing up I made sure I read about raising children and at that time there was more awareness about child predators and there was a new effort towards taking the time to educate children at very young ages to not be afraid to name ALL the body parts and to also make sure children were more empowered with "knowledge" and I did that with my daughter.

My daughter was definitely "empowered", and she ended up coming to me because one of her friends was beginning to experience a brother and his friend trying to molest her, and she told my daughter about it. My daughter came and told me (see, I was approachable) and I made it a point to take this little girl's mother aside and tell her what was going on that the mother had no idea was happening.

My daughter is now 32, and in all the years I experienced raising her, I have lost count how many of her friends over the years did not feel comfortable going to their parents with challenges. My daughter knew more than any of her friends and because of that "she" was the one they tended to go to for help and advice. My daughter would say, "we can tell my mother because my mom will do something, my mom knows just what to do". And one day I found myself sitting in my car with my daughter and her friends telling me about the abuse and neglect they were seeing a horse trainer's children experiencing. These children were AFRAID to tell their own parents. My daughter told them, "we can tell my mom, my mom will listen". It was so hard to listen to these children shakesphere, so deeply disturbed about what they were seeing. So sad that they were AFRAID to tell their own parents.

Parents seem to think that parenting is all about "ordering and controlling and diciplining" their children. That is NOT what good parenting is all about. We are supposed to help our children understand the world and help them develop skills and knowledge about the world, that there ARE bad people and what to do if they come across bad situations. And our children most definitely need to feel they can come to us and talk about ANYTHING that they don't understand or upsets them.

A father's role in the family is VERY important. Children are not supposed to grow up afraid of their father, and it's also important "how" the father treats the mother in front of the children too.

Unfortunately, for many years the father role was "king of the castle" and often the "diciplinarian" too. Children were often encouraged to "fear dad", and that has proven to be "unhealthy" on a lot of different levels.