Child Abuse and Maltreatment: Inverted Priorities and Warped Values

We have our priorities all wrong, nationally and globally. The attack on entitlements for women and children, and the attempts to restore the institution of adult male "ownership" of, and dominion over these groups through a perverse and narrow definition of "family values," has resulted in a generalized devaluing of the rights of children. Groups of people who are denied basic individual rights have been transformed from human beings into objects, and children rank foremost among these groups. As our statist and corporatist masters gradually reduce us all to children with the erosion of our basic rights as adults (see Nanny State, by David Harsanyi), the plight of children becomes the plight of adults too. All too often, the loss of adult power and control through political and economic hardships and coercions, results in the attempts of parents to define their own power through psychological, emotional, and all too often physical abuse of their own children.

Even as a libertarian, I still disagree with cutting government spending on women and children; there are many other expenses such as war, and enforcement of useless and harmful laws where funding could be drastically reduced, or eliminated entirely, to the benefit of all (except for the profiteers whose livelihoods depend on these things). I'm all for cutting paperwork, and firing useless bureaucrats and incompetent and apathetic social workers; indeed, many of the more outrageous cases of child abuse resulting in injury or death can be directly attributed to social service agencies dropping the ball. But when budgets for food, housing and medical care for single mothers and working to middle-class families are cut, people get hurt, and people die. Too often these people are children.

The four major forms of child abuse/maltreatment are

1. Physical abuse: The intentional infliction of pain and injury on a child through physical violence.

2. Emotional abuse: The use of continuous verbal criticism and attacks and/or the withholding of affection.

3. Sexual Abuse: All forms of sexual contact with or exploitation of children, including exhibition and involvement in pornography, inappropriate touching, and sexual intercourse

4. Neglect: Failure to provide adequate food, shelter, medical care, supervision or anything else the child may need for proper health and growth.
(Source: Nevid 2003, Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World, p.519)

Child abuse and neglect are global in scope, and pose questions that are too painful for most people to contemplate. "How many starving children do you consider acceptable in your world?" is one of them.

Another is "How far away does a child have to be from you, for you to be exempt from responsibility for its well-being?" If the child is in another town, or on the other side of the planet, do you have the right to say "Not my problem?"

I don't claim to have answers to these questions, instead feeling some sick sense of helplessness when facing the gargantuan problem of starving, and abused children.

I will say this much about it: it's not something that can be solved without solutions that are also global in scope. The obvious solution in individual cases of severe physical abuse is removal of the child and/or the abuser from the home, followed by a careful and objective examination of the facts of the case. But in practice, denied the autonomy and rights of adults, children are still essentially pieces of material property, and nothing more,in the eyes of the law; things, that may be the subject of litigation. This ensures that a generalized neglect and abuse of children continues.(see: John Holt, Escape From Childhood:
The Needs and Rights of Children)

Applying the term "treatment" to interventions by society in cases of physical and sexual abuse of children doesn't sit well with me. As a retired career criminal, my views strongly favor holding individuals accountable for the harm they do to others, although my criticisms of our courts and penal institutions remain quite harsh. So, in the case of child-molesters, what is there to "treat?" The phenomenon of maltreatment of children is only an illness in the most broad and metaphorical sense. Cases of sexual abuse of children whether incestuous or by strangers are not "treatment" issues for the offenders. Responsible parents need to remain vigilant in a dangerous and dysfunctional world, and child molesters are best separated from the opportunity to be in any contact with children, whether by confinement, or "containment" (intensive community-based monitoring). The problem with all of this is that a certain number of sex-offenders, a minority for sure, are in fact capable of changing their behavior permanently. How can one tell in advance which ones will reform? I don't know. Unfortunately, for victims, legal retribution seems inadequate. Some states have programs that allow victims to confront offenders (sexual and otherwise) under carefully controlled conditions. I believe there is potential for healing on both sides with this, and perhaps children could eventually confront their assailants as empowered adults.

Maybe I'm cynical about this, but I think that emotional abuse and dysfunctional families are the norm. Even the best-intentioned parents may unintentionally damage their offspring through continual exposure to their neuroses. The exploitation of family dysfunction by American television (mostly in the "sitcom" and "reality" genres) and its tremendous success is due to the fact that everyone can relate.

Once more I find myself coming back to the point of a fundamentally distorted value system which, in spite of pronouncements to the contrary, places the care, protection and feeding of children at a lower priority than subsidies for the rich via war-related spending and other wasteful uses of public funds, and regulation of private, individual and consenting behaviors of adults by a government with an ever-increasing sense of entitlement to "moral authority." Ordinary parents are indeed faced with a grim battle, and if they manage to feed, clothe, protect, and educate their children, while refraining from physical battery and intentional emotional abuse, they are nothing less than heroic.

References:

David Harsanyi,
NannyState:
How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders,
Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded
Bureaucrats Are Turning America into
A Nation of Children,2007
Broadway Books, a Division of Random House
NY, NY

John Holt, Escape From Childhood:
The Needs and Rights of Children, 1995,
Holt Associates Inc., Cambridge MA

Jeffrey S. Nevid, St. John's University
Spencer A. Rathus, Montclair State University
Beverly Greene, St. John's University
Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World, 2003,
Pearson Prentice Hall, Saddle River NJ