Reiterate Reform or Self Destruct? Horrors of Child Abuse

As Susan Smith's fate was announced, all of America was in turmoil. To advocates of capital punishment, Smith is not worthy of the taxpayer's money that will be used to support her in prison. Even those who oppose the death penalty are in shock. Why? The infamous South Carolinian begged our nation to find and return her babies safely; later, she admitted that she had driven her car into a lake with her children strapped inside, drowning her two young sons. Mothers across our country gasped in horror; fathers shook their heads in disbelief. A tragedy indeed.

In past centuries, the realm of society may not have registered the incident as a tragedy. Our ancestors, during childhood, were regarded as miniature adults- to be seen and not heard. They had little function in society, serving mainly as property of their parents. More astonishing to our era of thinking, a 17th century Massachusetts' law approved capital punishment for children over the age of sixteen who cursed their parents (Jost, 1993).

Private groups began the philosophy of child protection during the nineteenth century. With the government's blessing, progressive reformers founded the Children's Aid Society in 1853. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children began laying the foundations so the courts could remove children from abusive homes in the 1870's. Historical parents begot children for the benefit of the family. Today's standard has evolved children as essential for their parent's emotional gratification (Winn, 1983).

In 1974, our government realized similar tragedies happen on a daily basis; thus, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect was formed. Child abuse has many dimensions and is defined in many ways. Some definitions characterize it as "non-accidental harm to children by their parents and/or caregivers" (Lexicon Universal Encyclopedia, 1993). Others describe it as "any intentional act of commission or omission that prevents or impedes a child's normal growth or development" (Forward, 1989).

Volunteering at the Wayne County Mental Health Association, I have seen the many faces of child abuse. The special frown I vividly recall belongs to Kim. Growing up in a broken home, her situation is all too familiar, yet the overall approach by our country has been dereliction.

During the early years of Kim's life, her mother neglected her, leaving the girl alone for days at the time. When Kim reached the age of six, Kim's grandmother took her and her mother in, promising to support them until Kim's mother, a habitual drug abused, overcame her addiction. Two years later, her grandmother's financial burden increased as she also allowed her son, Kim's uncle, to return to her home.

Over the years, Kim's mother continued her drug habit and the uninvolved manner in which she raised her daughter. Kim soon came to grasp the significance of negative attention versus the total disregard she received from her mother.

By the time Kim was in junior high, she was getting in trouble at school and had two confrontations involving the police. Both her mother and grandmother had resorted to physical punishment as a means of controlling Kim. The occasional slap escalated to a black eye from her mother, then to a scratch, which required four stitches, caused by her grandmother's finger nails, to a broken wrist after being shoved down a flight of stairs.

Kim's uncle started displaying questionable behavior at the start of her freshman year. His sporadic exhibitionism transformed to fondling. Soon after, he instigated oral and anal sex, from which her ushered her into sexual intercourse. At sixteen, Kim found herself pregnant with a child conceived by her uncle. While some may find it hard to imagine, Kim desperately wanted to keep her baby. One might ask, "Why?" The answer is sad but simple. Kim wanted someone to love and someone who will give her unconditional love in return.

Since nine out of ten abusive parents claim they were raised in violent households, what can America do for the "Kim's babies" who are being born every day? Clearly, generation to generation abuse must end.

Stemming from five ancestral sisters, the Juke family of nineteenth century New York produced 1200 individuals over six generations, 300 of whom died young. Causes were substantiated to be neglect, disease, physical abuse, and criminality (Dugdale, 1877). In Wiltshire, a study of records concluded that more than 20% of abused children came from families in which the parents themselves had been abused (Oliver, 1988). A review of major studies put the overall average of intergenerational abuse at 30% (Kaufman & Zigler, 1989). America's concern should be to stop the savagery that has taunted our children since the beginning of time.

Before the American public can constrain the halt of child abuse, society must re-evaluate the ideas of our predecessors. Until twenty five years ago, people generally assumed child abuse was a direct result of personality defects. Evidence now shows that not all, but many instances of child maltreatment are related to social and economic conditions. Drug use, poverty, crime, unemployment and other stresses are associated with the abuse and neglect of American children (Lexicon Universal Encyclopedia, 1993).

Evidence and reports are productive; however, the facts they contain are the real key to solving this nationwide dilemma. Fact: Each year, 40,000 children require hospitalization due to child abuse (Gelles, 1978). Fact: 700 children per year die at their parents' hand (Gelles, 1978). Fact: In 1981, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect reported at lease 625,000 children had been abused and/or neglected to the point that the minors has endured demonstrable signs of physical or mental harm (Packard, 1983). Fact: More than two million official circumstances of child abuse are reported each year. The true incidence is suspected to be higher, possibly three to four trillion (Kendall, 1995).

Physically abused children's destiny is by far the most controversial. The most common conventional wisdom, "Spare the rod and spoil the child" remains a frequently referred to piece of advice in parenting. The problem has become so widespread that Congress enacted the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 which defines child abuse as "the infliction of physical injuries such as bruises, burns, welts, cuts, bone and skull fractures; these are caused by kicking, punching, biting, beating, knifing, strapping, paddling, etc." (Forward, 1989). Some common characteristics are shared by parents who violate their children using the previously stated methods. They have an amazing lack of self control. Assaulting their own innocent children, many abusive parents agree, is a safe way to release strong negative feelings from various sources. Many enter adulthood with overwhelming emotional demerits (1989).

The mistreated children of these parents live with perpetual qualms. Even during the calm times, they are haunted, knowing the anger will resurface. The youngsters wait for a wave of unstoppable rage, recognizing it as unavoidable. What does this experience generate? A life long fear of being hurt and a never ending panic that they will be betrayed.

Along with the physical abuser is the silent partner. This other person is often the passive parent who walks away, maybe the neighbor who sees repeated incidents, perhaps the grandparents who do not want to get involved, anyone who knows and watches in silence. If this person does not protect our nation's children, he or she is a comrade in the abuse. Subsequently, millions of American's are guilty silent partners.

Not nearly so disputed, the majority of Americans agree that sexually abusing a child is the epitome of pure evil. Sexual transgression steals a child's innocence, destroying the most basic trust. Many experts agree that incest happens when there is a significant amount of secrecy, isolation and a lack of respect (Constance, 1995).

On January 9, 1984, the American Broadcasting Company aired "Something About Amelia," which was the first made-for-television movie given national prime time coverage dealing with father-daughter incest (Gibbs, 1990). The ground breaking premiere touched base on the fact that most families who are faced with this type of abuse are a patriarchal unit, where mothers are often found to be weak, incompetent, and subservient, usually not responding to the problem when informed. The fathers assume they have the right to exploit female members of the family as they see fit (Tussel, 1986). Fathers who take indecent liberties with their daughters share some characteristics. They often have difficulty dealing with empathy and lack proper social skills. Masculine identities tend to be weak, as the fathers are frequently isolated (Williams & Finklhor, 1990).

Americans frequently make the tragic mistake of assuming that all abuse is either physical or sexual. Emotional abuse is usually overlooked, as the pain is less obvious. The old "sticks and stones" like in not true, particularly when it is a parent who hands out a constant barrage of insults, teasing and humiliation. "You can tell kids you love 'em, " says April, a runaway living in Hollywood. "Beating kids will hurt kids. Sexual abuse will hurt kids. But verbal abuse is the worst. I've had all three. If you're not strong enough as a person, and they've been telling you your whole life that you can never amount to anything, you are going to believe it" (Time, Oct. 8, 1990). Children like April are possibly the most fragile. They have no confidant. Alone, they carry the burden of invisible bruises.

It is a very real probability that the major obstruction allowing the continuation of child abuse is the vogue tactic used by defense lawyers across the nation, more commonly known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). "To be diagnosed with PTSD a person who has experienced a major trauma must display three characteristics:

1. The person repeatedly re-experiences the trauma in memories, dreams and situations that remind the person of the event, or flashbacks that vividly re-create the trauma.

2. The person avoids anything that might arouse intense feelings of any kind.

3. He or she must appear to be physiologically aroused, as shown by sleeplessness, or lack of concentration, or being easily startled, or very watchful (Jaroff, 1994).

Although the defendant may not fit all of the criteria for a correct diagnosis, the label is still conveniently applied (Academy Forum, 1993).

At society's introduction to PTSD, the disorder was originally diagnosed for prisoners of war. Later used to protect battered wives on trial for murdering their husbands, PTSD has risen over 200% as a general defense (Jost, 1993). In the Smith case, was PTSD a convenient way to avoid the death penalty, a ploy to gain sympathy, or both?

"The criminal justice system is on the verge of a crisis of credibility," says Los Angeles District Attorney, Gil Garcetti (Time, June 6, 1994). A team of judges, heads of state and county bar associations have, at the bidding of Garcetti, requisitioned a task force to study the altercation of jury's rules. The group aims to broaden the pool of jurors in attempts to fill the jury boxes with peers from all segments of society. It also plans to stress the importance of judges clearly reminding the jury to consider values and personal responsibility when deliberating (1994).

Defense attorneys and overly sympathetic jurors are not the lone contributors to the problem. Some overzealous therapists have claimed virtually all adult psychological abnormality stems from "repressed" childhood abuse and offer "memory restoration" methods of skeptical validity. To date, there is no real data which supports the effectiveness of these methods. Real incidents of repression and denial do occur, but little research is available to indicate how widespread this is, how legitimate the abuse, the best method for retrieving such experiences in memory and the most effective means of repairing the psychological harm caused (Kendall, 1995).

"Recovered memory therapy will come to be recognized as the quackery of the 20th century," asserts psychologist Richard Ofshe, at the University of California at Berkeley. He elaborates, "Recovered memory therapists have invented a mechanism that supposedly causes a child's awareness of abuse, particularly sexual abuse, to be entirely driven from consciousness. Belief in this bizarre type of repression can only be found on the lunatic fringes of science and mental health professions" (Time, Nov. 29, 1993).

The Courage To Heal, written in 1998 by Davis and Bass, tells women if they think they were sexually abused, they probably were; otherwise, where would these thoughts come from? Furthermore, if they think they were not sexually abused, they may very well be in the phase of denial. The book has sold over 800,000 copies (Time, Nov. 29, 1993). It is commonly referred to as a Bible, never mind the fact that neither Davis nor Bass has had any formal education in psychology (Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, 1991).

In many sessions of therapy involving memory restoration, therapists convince the patients that their "dissociation'' has caused a multiple-personality disorder (MPD), which was basically unheard of until the 1972 publication of Sybil. The book summarizes the account of one woman's ordeal. Until recently, MPD were considered extremely rare, yet in the last decade, many "MPD experts" allege the disorder is frequently related to the trauma of childhood abuse (Academy Forum, 1993).

Having a mid-life revelation, suddenly remembering abuse at an opportune moment, has become fashionable. Supposedly, there are warning symptoms: chronic pelvic pain, spastic colon, stomach pain, headache, dizziness, fainting, chronic gynecologic complaints, sleep disturbances, depression, asthma, heart palpitations, eating disorders. All of these physical disorders point to sexual abuse according to the multitude of readily available pop-psychology books.

Private psychiatric hospitals advertise, "We can help you remember and heal. Remembering incest and childhood abuse is the first step to healing," declares Compton California's ASCA Treatment Center (Time, Nov. 29, 1993).

It is even common in American homes everyday, during talk shows. Dan Lungren, attorney general of California, says, "I call it the Oprah-ization of the jury pool. It's the idea that people have become so set on viewing things from the Oprah view, the Geraldo view, or the Phil Donahue view that they bring it into the jury box with them. And I think at base much of that tends to say, 'We don't hold people responsible for their actions because they have been the victim of some influence at some time in their life' " (Time, June 6, 1994).

When asked her opinion of Mr. Lungren's Oprah-ization Theory, the talk show queen admits it could partially be her show's responsibility; however, she also states,"What happened to you in the past is part of who you are today. If, in the process, we have made people think that people are not responsible for their lives, then that is a fault" (Time, June 6, 1996). However, one of her hour long segments was entitled, "Can you get away with murder?" (1994).

Repressed memory therapy harms patients, their relationships with accused family members, and their emotional well being. In recent years, several former patients in this type of therapy have filed lawsuits against their former psychiatrists, as did Melody Gavigan of California (Time, Nov. 29, 1993). A couple in California was not so fortunate. It took them six months and $20,000 before they could win a court decision to dismiss false accusations of sexual assault by their four year old daughter (State Legislatures, May/June, 1990).

A New York mother, Denise Perrigo asked if it was normal to feel aroused while breastfeeding her baby. The local Department of Social Services categorized this as child abuse, removed the child from the home, and Perrigo spent the night in jail. One year and several thousand dollars later, she was finally awarded the rights to her daughter (Academy Forum, 1993). The list of similar cases goes on and on. The recent tidal wave of mid-life recollections and hysterical charges does nothing more than hinder the plight of innocent children who are truly hurting.

Many organizations have been formed, offering emotional support for the false accusations to which many people have been subjected. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation in Philadelphia has opened the doors, helping former victims of repressed memory therapy and their families. The foundation has also publicized the countless wrong doings that occur each year (Time, Nov. 29, 1993). Victims of Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL) also render similar services (Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, 1991).

The American Psychological Association selected a committee to analyze the repressed memory controversy. After three sessions, experts left the heated debates unresolved. However, The American Medical Association's house of delegates announced apprehension with the memory restoration approach, principally the guided imagery, hypnosis and body massage. These techniques amplify suggestibility. AMA delegates affirmed that memory restoration therapy is "fraught with problems of potential misapplication" (Time, Nov. 29, 1993).

Controversy set aside, child protection laws vary from state to state. In 1974, Congress also provided supplemental funding for each state that set up child abuse research, education, prevention etc. All fifty states now qualify for the subsidiary (Time, Nov. 29, 1993). What do the American taxpayers think of their tax dollars being spent in this fashion? Epidemiological surveys find 67% of Americans think they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports elevated spending for children's programs, even if it meant a tax increase (Time, Oct. 8, 1990).

Pennsylvania's law, Act 124, established in 1975 is cited as exemplary. It includes severe mental illness in the definition of child abuse: "A psychological condition as determined by a psychiatrist, psychologist, or pediatrician apparently caused by acts or omissions of a parent or person responsible for a child, including the refusal of appropriatement treatment which:

1. renders the child chronically and severely anxious, agitated, depressed, socially withdrawn, psychotic, or in reasonable fear that his/her life and/or safety is threatened.

2. makes it extremely likely that the child will become chronically and severely anxious, agitated, depressed, socially withdrawn, psychotic, or be in reasonable fear that his/her life and/or safety is threatened.

-or-

3. seriously interferes with the child's ability to accomplish age appropriate developmental milestones, or school, peer, community tasks" (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Public Welfare, Child Protective Services, Social Services Manual. Section 2-23-41, 1976).

Family Preservation Services (FPS) has created an unconventional approach to the problems caused by child abuse. Peter Forsythe, an advocate of FPS, states the removal of the risk, rather than the child, is the primary goal of the organization. The program pursues modification of the home environment so that parents can "learn new ways of coping with stress and child rearing. Indeed, FPS seeks to protect children and heal families by keeping them whole" (State Legislatures, 1990). With FPS workers available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, The Clark Foundation asserts there has never been a case of parental abuse or neglect causing serious injury or the death of a child while being guided by family preservation services (1990).

Society's first reaction to various problems has been to promote education. In our elementary schools across the nation, children are being taught to distinguish a "good" touch from a "bad" touch. Children are taught that they should speak to the school counselor, a trusted teacher, anyone they feel comfortable with if they have a problem.

However good the intention, America's progress has not adequately met the needs of the youngsters who wait desperately, hoping for a change in their lifestyle. The slow progress failed to help "Rebecca,'' the two year old who didn't make it to the bathroom. As she had a bowel movement in her underwear, her mother and her mother's boyfriend heated cooking oil, easily overpowered Rebecca and poured it over her. Waiting a week, until the odor was unbearable, her mother finally sought medical care. Hospitalized for a month, Rebecca's legs were saved from the gangrene that set in (Time, Oct. 8, 1990).

The laws, the taxpayer's money, not even Michigan's Department of Social Services helped 62 children who died via child abuse; twenty of whom had been the subject of prior reports. One child, Michael Scalisi, had been reported abused at the tender age of two months. Later, a karate chop to the stomach, delivered by his father, caused Michael's death. He was four months and seven days old when the fatal blow took his life (State Legislatures, 1990).

Every person in America was granted the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by the founding fathers of the country. Michael was killed before he had the chance to live. He died before he could giggle with glee at his accomplishment of a task most take for granted: walking. What about the Smith boys? Their liberty was stolen as they struggled to free themselves from the car seats that bound them to their deaths. "Rebecca" was held against her will and tortured with hot oil poured over her little body. April, the Hollywood runaway, has a difficult time pursuing happiness because her self esteem has been shattered. Her parents gave her memories of self-doubt and anxiety rather than the unconditional love every child deserves. These five children are an example of America's future. When will society realize that childhood is the only carefree time in a person's life, and once the privilege is stolen, it can never be replaced? When will citizens of the United States stand united and demand change?