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.. ¡
by
Ron Horswell
8
l
very year, hundreds of thousands of
chltdren sulfer the pangs of chlld–
hood's most common,
an<1
certalnly
Ita most dangerous, disease. Th'e
• symptoms may
be
Invisible, or they
may be bruises or broken bonea. The
resuft ls often dealh or permanent b<aln
damage. For !hose who survl\re, the
elfects usualty r.em!'in for a
l~etlme.
The disease that sends them lo
a
hos–
pital at age five also puts !hem In a !&for·
matory at age l ifleen and In a state
penltentlary by age twenty.
11
ls the rare
delinquen! In Juvenile hall who dld not al
ona time or another sulfer from thla dls·
ease. Thlnk of as many notorlous crlml'
nata, lnternational despots, and assasslns
as you can, and you wlll flnd that almoat
aJJ of them were afflicted wfth1hls dlsease
u
a chlld.
This
disease lseh/Id abuse.
Chlld abuse ls epidemlc. In the Unlted
States, some
300,000
cases
are reportad
eech year, but all
!he
experta agree that
thls la merely !he tip of an lmmeasurable
Iceberg. Furthermore, !he Iceberg
seems
to be growtng larger. Between 1966 and
1970, lhe lncidence of reportad chlld
abuse swelted ovar
500%,
although a
great deal of this increase l.s due to better
reportlng.
The Paren! ea Criminal
In the late 1950s and earty 60s, the
media (and hence all Society) "dlscov·
ered" chlld abuse.
11
made predlctably
good copy - lots of inhuman lnterest.
Shortly thereafle¡. state alter atete
passed laws lnsuñng lhat abusad chll–
dren could be teken from their parents 11
nec<tSSary and lhe
abuSé<S
prosacuted as
crtmlnals. In
!he
public's mlnd, chlld
abuseno became eriminals needing pun·
lahmenl rather than troubled people
needlng help.
Even 11 society had been Inclinad to
help, no one seerned lo know what to dd.
In 1962, the Journal of the Americen
Medica/ AssociaUon publlshed an ·ex·
tremely lnfluential artlcle entltled "The
Battered Chlld Syndrome," whleh
summed up the professional approach to
the problem at that time. The authol'$
etated that "at present there is no sale
remedy .•• except the separaUon of bat·
tarad chlldren from lheir ... parants...
Tha sÍigma of a chikl abusar belng un–
worthy of our sympathies
an<1
probebty
l ncorrigible remalns with us today. The
paran! who has an abuse problem end
would like to help finds
himse~
or
herse~.
• In !he words ol one former chlld abusar,
"locked into a soeiety that really has lo
get lis pound of
flash."
lndeed, one of the
primary ri!$Uits of the newiy passed chlld
abuse laws has been to keep people from
comlng forward for help, slnce the "help"
would llkely be In the form <JI a jall sen–
lance.
In the las! few years, however, the pie·
ture has been brightening for both
abusad children and abusiva perents.
Vatious new organizations and programa
have emerged, and lha people that run
them
teet
confident that they can flght
ehlld abuse by effectivety hefplng the
abusiva adults. They now have !he ave–
ceas storles lo prove
it.
In lighl of th–
succesaful deveiopments, worrlea that
the chlld abuse epidemil: may turn pan–
demic are probably iiHounded. fn fect,
the dey may nol be lar olt when tha dls–
ease ls all but eradlcated.
Parenta Anonymous
Jotly K. was
;¡
chlld abusar. Her young·
eat daughter was a battered chlld. t:lka
moS1 othens wilh her problem, Jolly
de–
testad what ahe
was
doing lo her daugh–
ter and desperatety wanted someone to
hefp her stop.
In 1970, Jofty, with lhe help of her ther·
aplat, founded Molhers Anonymous, an
experlment lo see
n
child abusers could
effactlvely help eaeh other to hefp them–
selves. Al the time, Jolty was not moti·
valed
so
much by a desire to help other
abuslve parents as by
a
desperata need
to changa har own behavlor. Today Par–
ente Anonymous (the nama was
changed) has over
2QO
chapters acrou
the U.S. and Canada and well over
5,000
members.
The success of Parents Anonymous
tles In its unspoken principie that whan
you
see
a picture of a battered ch1Jd In a
newapaper,
you
see
only
hall
thelragedy.
The other
ha~
1s
!he emotionally battened
adult. The
abusiva
parent
teels
allenated
from · hls family, from society, and lrom
tM
1-.
" The gunt feelings,
!he
leellnga
of rottenneas. lhe feellng of
'1
should
be
dead,' the depression, the sulcldel
thoughts - lt's not fun to walk around
wlth that on your back," says Jolly. When
' lt cómes to !he parents involved, "We've
baen long on pointing our flngers but
very short on dolng anythlng else."
When a troubled person calls Parents
Anonymous, PAtries as muchas postlble
to handla !he case according to the lndl–
vldual's immediata naeds. 11 !ha callar ls
so emotionalty distraught lhat he or ehe
•needs someona to eonfida In at once,
there is 'someone there, ·elther on the
phone or through
•~
qulck vial!.
Most chapters of Parents Anonymous
heve weekly meetings at
which
one ol tha
primary loplcs
iJ
!he discu#ion of alter·
natWü. For example, ata recent meeting
a young molher describe<! how her young
son made her very angry a few daye ego.
At !he time, she happened to
be
holding a
carton of mllk. lnstead of flying out of
contr.ol and hlttlng her chlld, she
squee%ed the carton as hard as she'
could. Her son was spared. Tha mllk,
however, was not. 11 shot up out of the
carton, hlttlng lhe ceiling and most every·
thlng elp In the kitchen. The kltchen was
a mest, butlhls was lar better !han ..nd–
lng her son to the hospital. (Besides, tha
had a cat and a dog lo help her elean !ha
kitehen.)
Alter thls unusual narrativa, the meet·
~ng
evolved into a diSQJssion of possíble,
lesa measy, aflematives to defuslng anger
In similar
situations~
T1>a Vwtous Forma of Abuse
Although most people think of chlld
abuse in terms of brokeo bOnes, that la
ter from a eompleie picture. Reportad
cases of sexually molestad chlldren out•
number cases of physical abusa. Most
chlld molestors are. surprisingly anough,
not playground lurkers but rather the par·
ents of the chlldren they
molas!~
"The most typical situation is that of a
natural lather (not a loster paren! -or atep–
father) sexualty abusing hla ehildren wfth
the molher's complicity. lt aeems lo
be
common in middl& and upper·lncome
farnllles as well as among !he poor"
(Wayne Sage, Human Behavior, July
1975).
Saya Jolly K., "Sexual abuse
is
com·
mon - ft's somathlng around your nelgh·
borhood all the time. And there are mora
women lnvolved In sexual abuse !han we
llke to !hink."
Probabty most widespread of all ls the
ehlid suffering- verbal abuse, emotlonel
WEEK ENOING OCTOBER 18, 1975