PLAN FOR A NEW TOMORROW
HOW TO GREATLY REDUCE CHILD ABUSE
by
Faith Amadio
written April 10th , 1992
revised June, 1998
"In the words of Marian Wright Edelman, 'Our Children are either going to be invested in...or they're going to shoot at us.'" ( Interview, 60 Minutes, CBS-TV, October 22, 1989 in Sylvia Ann Hewlett, When the Bough Breaks: the Cost of Neglecting Our Children, U.S.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 274. )
We need to realize that child abuse is not just a national crisis but a world-wide crisis. This crisis is so profound that unless we address it and correct it, it threatens our entire survival.
Strong words. Hysterical, some would say. Sensationalism, others would say. But absolutely true words.
"Today's abused children will approach adulthood with a high risk of impaired relationships, limited capacity for becoming adequate parents, with the significant risk that they will themselves become abusers; and a probability that at present we cannot estimate, of chronic psychological disturbance which will impair productivity, be destructive to those around them, demand psychological or psychiatric resources and so on." (1)
The implications and ramifications are staggering and terrifying. Can we ever hope to address and correct child abuse? Is it beyond our scope and abilities?
Not at all. Child abuse CAN be greatly reduced.
Maybe it isn't possible to eliminate child abuse from our society entirely. There will always be the wild-card psychopath that will wreak destruction on society through our children. It is my contention, though, that although child abuse may not be able to be eradicated entirely, because of this factor, it CAN be almost totally eliminated except in those rare cases where a psychopath does run amok.
Where do we start? How do we start?
Dr. Prothrow-Stith, in her book, Deadly Consequences, says it most eloquently, "As individuals we do not have the power to protect all the children. We do not have the power to ban the sale of handguns, end the sale of illicit drugs, or require that violence be portrayed realistically in the mass media. Collectively, we must struggle toward these ends. As individuals we only have a little power, but the power that we have is profound nevertheless: It is the power to care." (2)
We can begin by increasing our awareness and the time to begin is now.
Educating ourselves about child abuse is the first step. Yes, we know that abuse exists but what is it, exactly? How is child abuse defined? Child abuse is limited only by the imagination of the abuser. When we think of child abuse, we automatically think of physical or sexual abuse, but, child abuse has many different faces. Dr. David Sabatino writes in his book, A Fine Line, "Maltreatment of children takes a variety of forms. Most service providers and researchers list nine categories:
1. Physical abuse
2. Sexual abuse
3. Physical neglect
4. Medical neglect
5. Emotional abuse
6. Emotional neglect
7. Educational neglect
8. Abandonment
9. Multiple maltreatment(3)
It isn't possible to list all the symptoms or forms in which the varying types of abuse appear. There are many excellent books that do that. Sufficient to say our children are crying out in pain and terror for our help. The very people that are supposed to love and nurture them, their parents and guardians, are brutalizing them. We can educate ourselves as to what abuse consists of, how it is defined, etc., and, in the process, lose our compassion in the terminology.
The next step is to heighten our awareness, on an emotional level, as to what abuse means to the victim. Even the term "child abuse" itself covers a great deal of ground, and, lacking impact, sanitizes the horrifying facts. The terms we use to describe child abuse de-sensitize and insulate us to the horror that our battered and bloodied children live with daily. We have to stop distancing ourselves from the injured child. The jargon we use to describe child abuse helps lesson the pictures we paint in our minds of the pain our children are suffering. Even the term "child abuse," is less painful and far less descriptive than stating clearly, "the child's body had weeping, gaping holes where he was burned with a cigarette." It certainly hits home more than the whitewashed phrase, "The child was physically abused." We say a child was "sexually abused," instead of, "this two year old female was raped repeatedly until her vagina was torn." When we lessen the impact of what is happening to our children with watered down terminology, we are protecting ourselves, at their expense. We downplay their suffering to avoid suffering ourselves. By refusing to empathize with the abused child's pain, it becomes almost too easy to say, "Isn't that terrible?", shrug our shoulders, feel momentarily outraged, which helps to decrease the guilt we feel and further increase our emotional distance. When we continually distance ourselves from the suffering of others, we are, in reality, permitting their suffering to continue. The time has come for all of us, society as a whole, to stop protecting ourselves and start protecting those who cannot protect themselves -- our children. If a child cannot find safety in his/her own home, the physical damage may be able to be repaired over the years, but the psychological damage may be irreparable.
Begin by increasing your awareness, insist that the media fully disclose the suffering of our children, as painful as that may be, it isn't nearly as painful as it is for the child being abused. If we can increase our outrage perhaps we can be galvanized into action.
There are other, less altruistic reasons, for attempting to prevent child abuse. Human beings are self-serving. If we can not co-ordinate our attempts to eliminate child abuse for the sake of the children themselves, we had better take a very strong look at what the next generation will be like, for they are OUR caregivers in our old age. To coin a very old phrase, violence begets violence, and "an entire generation of children is growing up immersed in violence, cut off from non-violent standards and values. Children like this may never know anyone who handles emotional crises and difficulties without violence." (4) Children like this will be OUR caregivers in our old age. Do we really want to be cared for in our "golden years" by people who think violence is the way to resolve conflict? "Our children are our most important national resource. If we do not provide for their basic needs when they are small, they will repay us for our laxity by spending the rest of their days as predators dependents upon us all. This is not speculation. We know this to be true."(5) We need to send out a clear picture that violence is not acceptable in our homes, in our communities or on television. Violence is not acceptable behaviour period. If we don't send out this clear picture to our children that violence is not acceptable, then who will protect us from the children who survive violent childhood?
Our children are our future and they are being murdered and mutilated. We have attempted to stanch the gash of abuse with bandaid techniques. We have set up weak, ineffectual programs and then beat our chests saying we've done our best. We have turned our backs on the abuse, looked the other way, dulled our senses to it, cut programs and funding for programs, refused to remove children from abusive homes, returned children to abusive homes, vilified abusive parents, yet, not done anything to break the cycle of abuse to help them. "However the long-term solution does not lie in better methods of detecting abuse that has already occurred and swifter and stronger retribution for the perpetrators. The long-term solution, for every society, must be to reduce as far as possible the occurrence of the abuse." (6)
How do we go about reducing the occurrence of child abuse?
By taking a firm stand, by committing ourselves wholeheartedly to providing our children with the very best possible care and by strengthening the family unit. We need family leave with benefits and job-back guarantees; mandatory prenatal and maternity care; quality, subsidized child care; educational reforms; decent, affordable housing; tax breaks; workplace policies that encourage and develop parenting skills; resource and referral services for child and elder care; flex hours, select time or compressed work weeks; family illness allowance; job sharing; on-site child care; universal health care for families; nutritional services for poor children; preschool programs for educationally disadvantaged children; universal, after-school programs for the children of working parents; schools open and serving our children both educationally and recreationally from morning until night all year round and behavioural parent training. Besides being the right thing to do in preventing a child from being battered, there are economic reasons, as well. Sylvia Ann Hewitt writes in her book, When the Bough Breaks, "If we take good care of children, they will add to the productive capability of the economy. If we fail to look after our children, they will drag this nation down."(7) It's to our advantage, then, to prevent child abuse. Part of our reasoning behind why we don't have these resources available for children is money, or rather, lack of it. People bemoan that programs are expensive and we "taxpayers" cannot afford it. "It is now abundantly clear that it's a whole lot cheaper to take care of our children then to foot the bill for the swelling tide of child neglect."(8) We have to accept the facts that child abuse is not going to just go away. We have to deal with it, and, yes, it is going to be expensive. We either pay for correcting the problem, now, or pay a much higher cost later, for our inaction, and the price we pay won't be exacted in just dollars and cents, either. "In the words of Marian Wright Edelman, 'Our Children are either going to be invested in...or they're going to shoot at us.'"(9) We need to vote in a government that gives our children, our greatest national resource, the highest priority. A government totally committed to our future, a government that will establish policies that enhance the value of family and children and establish guidelines for business to do likewise. We need to tell our government that not only is it the right thing to do but that it is cheaper to create healthy conditions for healthier children than it is to deal with unhealthy adults in the future. We need to teach values and morals like self-control and self-discipline, hard work, honesty, kindness, compassion, integrity, decency, gentleness and respect for others in our schools, social programs and churches. We have moved away from teaching values and morals under the sad illusion that we would infringe on the rights' of others if we did so. We have deluded ourselves. Values and morals instill tolerance and tolerance insures that the rights' of others aren't violated. We need to strengthen the family unit. Presently the family is devalued. "We know that kids learn by example, that they absorb family attitudes and imitate parental behavior. And what do they learn in many homes today? Self-indulgence. Abusive language. Violence. Bigotry. Use of dangerous substances. Distorted attitudes toward women, sex, race, religion, discipline, honesty, the work ethic, and the family itself. All this starts very early on."(10) Finally, but, most important of all, we need to teach parents how to parent. "However the long term solution to the problem cannot depend on State employees to protect children against their parents. Our objective as professionals and academics, and as a society, must be that parents will protect their children, and refrain from abusing them."(11) You need a license to drive a car, go fishing, hunt, buy a gun, build a house, but you do not need a license to undertake the monumental and awesome responsibility of raising a child. It's presumptuous and foolhardy to think that all parents know how to parent. They don't. And when they don't, the short-term results can be tragic and the long-term results terrifying. It begins with caring. By caring, we force ourselves to be more aware of the suffering of children and the terrible consequences. By caring, we look for solutions. By caring, we are moved to act on the behalf of the children. By caring, we begin.
Let us begin.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Browne, Kevin; Davies, Cliff; and Stratton, Peter, eds. Early Prediction and Prevention of Child Abuse. Britain: John Wiley & Sons, 1988.
Fontana, Vincent J. and Moolman, Valerie. Save the Family, Save the Child. New York: Penguin Group, l991.
Hewlett, Sylvia Ann. When the Bough Breaks: the Cost of Neglecting Our Children. US.: HarperCollins Publishers, l991.
Pearsall, Paul. The Power of the Family: Strength, Comfort and Healing. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
Prothrow-Stith, Deborah, and Weissman, Michaele. Deadly Consequences. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.
Sabatino, David A. A Fine Line. Florida: HSI and TAB Books, 1991.
Shengold, Leonard. Soul Murder. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.
Windell, James. Discipline: A Sourcebook of 50 Failsafe Techniques for Parents. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991.
Wylie, Betty Jane. All in the Family: A Survival Guide for Family Living and Loving in a Changing World. Toronto: Key Porter Books Limited, 1988.
1. Kevin Browne, Cliff Davies and Peter Stratton, eds., Early Prediction and Prevention of Child Abuse,(Britain, John Wiley and Sons, 1988), 263.
2. Deborah Prothrow-Smith, M.D. with Michaele Weissman, Deadly Consequences, (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 202
3. Dr. David A.Sabatino A Fine Line, (Florida: HSI and TAB Books, 1991), 18.
4. Deborah Prothrow-Smith M.D., with Michaele Weissman, Deadly Consequences, (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 70.
5. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D. with Michaele Weissman, Deadly Consequences, (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, 200.
6. Kevin Browne, Cliff Davies and Peter Stratton, eds., Early Prediction and Prevention of Child Abuse, (Britain, John Wiley and Sons, 1988), 263.
7. Sylvia Ann Hewitt, When the Bough Breaks: the Cost of Neglecting Our Children, (U.S.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991) 10.
8. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, When the Bough Breaks: the Cost of Neglecting Our Children,(U.S.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 59.
9. Interview, 60 Minutes, CBS-TV, October 22, 1989 in Sylvia Ann Hewlett, When the Bough Breaks: the Cost of Neglecting Our Children, U.S.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 274.
10. Vincent J. Fontana, M.D. and Valerie Moolman, Save the Family, Save the Child, (New York, Penguin Group, 1991), 119.
11. Kevin Browne, Cliff Davies and Peter Stratton, eds., Early Prediction and Prevention of Child Abuse, (Britain, John Wiley and Sons, 1988), 302.