I join the masses in saying that I am sorry to hear of the passing of Michael Jackson today. He was such a HUGE part of my youth. An icon. But mostly I’m sad because he was such a conflicted human being and never seemed to find happiness and peace in his lifetime.

HOWEVER, as a mom, I’m conflicted too. I have VERY MIXED FEELINGS about this man. Yes. He was a true talent. A great singer, dancer, and songwriter as everyone is saying everywhere on the internet and in the news. But he was also a very disturbed and disturbing man.  Whether or not you believe he was a pedophile, whether you see him as a VICTIM or a VICTIMIZER, he definitely had an unnatural attraction to young children. A grown man who had sleepovers with little boys is NOT NORMAL. And neither were the money-grubbing parents who allowed their children to be alone with this man. Whatever they accused Mr. Jackson of could not have have occured without their complicity. In my book, they were as guilty as he was… if not more so. And even if he was never convicted…where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

While everyone else is going on about the sadness of the loss of this great talent, I have to ask myself: WHAT ABOUT HIS THREE CHILDREN? My thoughts turn to PRINCE, PARIS and BLANKET. (None of whom, by the way, were even mentioned in any of the articles I read about his death).

I wonder who will take them? And will they be in a safe and loving home? I don’t know about you, but I’m not convinced they were in a safe home with Mr. Jackson, given his history and predilections. One hopes that whatever someone is capable of doing to others, they would not do such things to their own children. Unfortunately, statistically, that is not always the case. In fact, it’s usually NOT the case. Most child sexual abuse happens at the hands of a family member NOT, as we mommies are brainwashed to fear, STRANGERS. Whatever happened to these kids behind closed doors (and we may never know)– they certainly did not have a “normal” life, living in the public eye, forced to wear surgical masks over their faces.

So where WILL they go? Will they go to their mother(s)?  The women who essentially were nothing more than the female equivalent of sperm donors? Who seemingly have been very absent from these kids’ lives up to now?  That can’t be good for them. But it might be the lesser of evils. However, given that DEBBIE ROWE signed away all her legal rights to the kids for BIG BUCKS, she’s not in line to take them anyway. The identity of the mother of the 3rd child has not been released. She may have been a paid surrogate, in which case, it’s unlikely she has any legal claim either.

So who DOES LEGALLY have rights to the children? God forbid they fall into the hands of their GRANDPARENTS. Look what they did to their own kids! Michael Jackson did not become the self-loathing, mentally disturbed human being whom we watched deteriorate over the last several years without some underlying reason. Someone who disfigures himself so extremely, who changes the very color of his skin, is not happy in that skin. AND WHY WAS THAT? Some of it may have had to do with his celebrity.  But, I’ve no doubt it also had something to do with, yes, his parents. His siblings have come out and said that their father JOE JACKSON was not only physically abusive, but even sexually abusive.

It is my sincerest hope that those three kids DO NOT go to the Jackson clan.

To break them up and put them into foster homes would also be wrong, and not likely. Let’s hope Mr. Jackson had the the presence of mind to make appropriate arrangements and that he did so with a suitable guardian who would be genuinely interested in the welfare of the kids and NOT any money they could make off the freak show that was Michael Jackson’s life.

My heart goes out to these kids.  Every child deserves to be loved and protected. Tragically, usually due to the adults around them, this is not always their fate.

UPDATE: Julia just walked in and accidentally saw the picture of Michael Jackson above while I was working on this post. It FREAKED HER OUT! She doesn’t know who he is. She’s whimpering that now she’s going to have nightmares.  Even after he’s gone, he’s still messing with kids.