Unimaginable

I've just watched a video by and about a woman who uses puppets to help herself and others recover from trauma.  The trauma she is recovering from is having been sex trafficked by her parents when she was a child.

Sex trafficked by her parents when she was a child.

I have a pretty good imagination, but I swear, I'm having a terrible time trying to imagine the conversation those parents might have had.  "Edith, it's time little Cindy Sue helped out around here.  I know she's only seven, but she needs to earn her keep."  "You know, Joe, I was thinking the same thing, and I have an idea.  Some people might think it's wrong, but just hear me out...."

I know the above makes bad comedy out of something unimaginably horrible, but honestly, I just can't wrap my mind around what her parents could possibly have been thinking, how they could have justified themselves, what sort of twisted psyches they must have had (or have still) to do something like that to a child.  To anyone, of course.  But to a child?  Their own child?  Did they think of her as property rather than as a person?  Did they figure their need for money outweighed the damage they might do to her?  Had they been so disgustingly abused by their own parents that they truly didn't know any better?

I realize that every human carries within us the possibility of every kind of thought and deed and emotion.  I probably, under very different circumstances than anything I've experienced before, could become primitive or cruel, vicious, indifferent to others, capable of the most heinous actions.  I don't deny it.  But I can't find any place in myself, even in fantasy, that could knowingly, purposefully abuse a child.  I just don't understand.  What were they thinking?