I was on a clinical rotation in psych and assisting in a therapy session for a group of siblings who had been taken from a very rough home and put into foster care. While my preceptor talked to one of the children, I played and talked with the others at a little toybox over in the corner.

This little girl, maybe about 5 or 6 years old, was lining up all these doll figures in a little sandbox and then putting some male action figures in front of them. I asked her what was going on there, and she said, "This is where [the women] get judged. Then [the men] will decide whether they want to buy them or not." She showed the dolls parading in front of the male figures one by one, and then made a pit where she threw 3 or 4 of them. I asked her what was going on there, and she said, "Those are all the rejects. [The men] don't want them, so they have to die now." She said that we would be burning them, and then covered them with sand, saying, "Now we'll forget about them forever." She then had the doll figures line up and march to one side of the box, and the male figures followed them. "They'll behave now, or they'll sleep in the fire."

I asked her if she wanted to play Jenga, and we left the doll-buying and fire-sleeping for another day. Now, I know these siblings' entire histories, so I know how messed up their upbringing was, but still...what the heck?