if you can't love children you shouldn't have them

[boglach]

Would the daily fucking fail address the real issues please

It seems a bit hypocritical to accuse me of being pretentious and arsey when you can post in such an appallingly nasty manner about quite a sensitive issue

Of course you are allowed to disagree but do you have to be so angry and confrontational about it? Got issues? Or just aggressive generally

lentilly and cassette presumably you read this "I learnt the term through years of counselling for childhood abuse btw" and then felt comfortable to continue right the fuck along in deriding the OP's use of a term which to her is (sadly) a normal and familiar term.

i think that speaks of knobbery far more than anything the OP said.

anyway back to the OP. I agree with you. tackling child abuse (in its many forms) should probably be society's highest priority, not 'just' because of the children suffering from it but also the far-reaching issues that often result from it.

what could we/the government/whoever do differently?

In my experience Season, people like Lentilly and cassette would rather attack survivors of abuse and deride them, just like they have done here, than to acknowledge them or try to talk to them. That's a huge part of the problem boglach is talking about.

I think a first step to tackling the problem would be to get rid of the absolutely ridiculous idea our society has that children must be kept "innocent" by denying them knowledge about adult relationships and sex. All that does, IMO, is create a safe place for abusers to operate, as children don't have the knowledge and vocabulary to understand what is happening to them. IMO children should have school-based sex education from reception onwards, using the PROPER words, not silly euphemisms and children should be armed with the knowledge they need to protect themselves first and foremost. Parents should not be trusted to provide this knowledge, as that allows the abusive parents to keep their children in the dark.

I don't know seasonofthewitch

I think the NSPCC are trying to raise more awareness. Support for those that speak out about abuse is important. Sadly even perfectly kind and caring people would prefer to sweep it under the carpet. It can be so perplexing and upsetting people would rather not know.

I include myself because although I am a survivor of abuse I feel I should do more.

Boglach, am off out, so will rejoin the thread later, but just wanted to say thanks for starting the thread - I totally agree with you.

Am with you on the cognitive dissonance as well - Having grown up in a fairly abusive environment, I still have to frequently contend with my families 'fantasy' version of our family dynamics - it's very hard work!

An example of Cognitive Dissonance in action: I was abused by a family friend. Rather than face up to the reality of what that would mean for me/our family/my parents social circle/their standing as middle class professionals, it was easier to write off my subsequent 'acting out' and emotional trauma as mental illness and ignore the abuse accusations.

It's a pretty extreme example, but broadly, it's the idea that in order to protect their belief system, people will ignore or 'bend' conflicting evidence so that they can continue to feel comfortable with the way the world works. In my parents case, it meant deciding I was mentally ill rather than facing the possibility of their family being touched by abuse.

I do think part of the problem though us that a lot of people that I've met seem to have a fairly narrow view of what actually constitutes abuse. They view it as either beatings or sexual abuse and seem to have much less understanding of the effect that psychological abuse has on children. My ex was hugely damaged by years of put downs, criticisms and neglect, but if you told his parents that, they'd think you were crazy. As far as they were concerned, they were just loving parents doing the best they could (which is probably true)

Sadly though, some people's (my parents being a case in point) 'best' or 'good enough' is pretty poor and actually can be quite damaging.

In my experience Season, people like Lentilly and cassette would rather attack survivors of abuse and deride them

Idiotic comment of the century. I am deriding the use of pretentious pyschobabble. If that leads you to label me a child abuse apologist then I would suggest it's you with the problem.

So how should I have explained my abuse in a way which wouldn't offend you?

I used one psychological term lentillyfart. Just one. And it is a recognised term and not babble. Read the posts you might learn something.

You really are being very aggressive and actually quite hurtful. Not because you disagreed with me but because you have used hurtful terms to describe my posting style.

Cloud base put it much better than me

Have you read her post? Cognitive dissonance is very real and not babble at all lentillyfart

I am always slightly boggled by parents who come on MN worrying that turning on the tv for an hour might damage their precious ones. I suppose I'm jealous to think that there are parents out there that worry so much about something so trivial, when my mother couldn't give a shit that I was being terrorised by a psychotic teacher or sexually abused by her friend. I do think some parents focus on trivial things too much, perhaps to divert themselves from the real dangers of the world.

Just reassure all good parents out there - you can feed your lovely children McDonald's every week of the year, let them watch hours of tv, never take them to a single after school activity and they will be fine, as long as you care about them and truly love them and don't hurt them yourself or let others hurt them. It's the children whose parents don't give a shit that will struggle, not yours, please don't worry.

I read a thread earlier where a mother was worrying about giving her sick DS a McDonald's twice in one week because he isn't eating anything else. I am truly heartened to think there are mothers out there who genuinely worry about things like this. When I was sick I was put to bed and ignored, and I was brought to the doctor, grudgingly, with much annoyance, if I was on death's door.

cailin sex education makes sense although (and i have no evidence for this) it seems as tho most of problem with abuse continuing is more down to children not feeling able to speak about it and/or not being listened to and taken seriously.

and how about emotional abuse - how could we 'lift the lid' on that?

actually, maybe you're right, perhaps it does all come down to education in the early school years - if all abuse types were spoken about then we'd ALL be far better equipped to recognise and deal with it, whether we're experiencing it or witnessing it.

ergo, i guess that means we should talk about abuse with our own children. school should just be a 'back-up' for those children who aren't told about these things at home and/or are being abused.

(sorry, that was all a bit garbled as i was forming the thoughts as i typed but hopefully it made sense)

I find people expecting others to write in "plain English", who assume that a word of greater than two syllables is "pseudo intellectual" worrying. Look it up, avoid being nasty. You might learn something and increase your vocabulary.

I get loads of stick for not talking to my toxic alcoholic father even though he is not speaking to me because I told my mother I was pregnant with dc2 before him as I was threatening miscarriage (he feels he is entitled to this knowledge despite having made no contact himself in two years). The stories I could tell... sigh. "Oh but you'll be sorry if you don't make the effort...". Really? Sorry my children can't hang out with a man who once cornered me in a dining car of a packed train roaring into my face about what an ugly fat bitch I was and how he wished I'd never been born and subjected me to this on and off for 4 hours while others shifted uncomfortably in their seats? How disloyal of me!

I agree with you CailinDana. I think it's one of the nice things about having had a shitty upbringining I've had therapy for, in some ways. I can't believe it when people talk about how ashamed they feel about their two year old throwing a paddy in the supermarket. It doesn't really compare to your father tossing himself into a grave or piddling up against the wall of your workplace.

I learnt what cognitive dissonance was from MN.
Of course I knew what it was but I didnt have the words to discribe a big lump of actions/emotions displayed by people/groups of people.

It helped to click things into place to have a term for it.

Its not one I would use in everyday conversation, nor do I use it to prove how clever I am, but it is useful nonetheless.

I wonder if those objecting to it object because they think others are too stupid to understand it, or find out what it means?

Whatmeworry - haha microwave!

I still have no idea what you are talking about tbh. I don't get what peoples expectations of a party has to do with child abuse or what 'class' a person is.

www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2012/04/05/nspcc-calls-for-action-over-child-sexual-abuse-86081-30696412/

For those wanting evidence that child sex abuse is much more common than we would like to think

DPrince I think what boglach meant is that all over MN you have ridiculous threads about parties and after school activities and hand wringing about McDonald's and tv when there are children out there who are being raped by their relatives. As a survivor of abuse it can feel a bit galling, which I know isn't the fault of the people with those concerns.

DPrince I was a bit tipsy last night so maybe not making perfect sense!

When I have told people about the abuse I suffered, I sense a bit of disbelief. Because I seem so..... well normal and middle class. Actually my background is very working class and was very dysfunctional and abusive. I escaped through education because luckily I was quite a bright child.

You're right class is irrelevant in a way but I do wander if in a protective bubble of relative wealth and education it is easier to pretend those things don't happen. On a grander scale, every day children are abused through exploitation in third world countries. So that we can maintain certain lifestyles here. I think the world is a crazy place sometimes but I am just as culpable as anyone else.

No you are completely right OP. IME actually a lot of the abuse that goes on in middle class families is more damaging long-term because it is done in such a way that people can't see it from outside and disbelieve it so the victim(s) end up ostracised. At least with 'normal abuse' everyone can see it is wrong- less so if parents do it in secret and enforce the message that the child is dirty/disturbed/sinister so deeply that they, the parents, end up being thought of as the victim. We Need To Talk About Kevin is a very good portrayal actually. And people do encourage it to go on- you see loads of threads on here where women who are in a relationship and supporting themselves, even though they are so ambivalent about children that they didn't think about it until their 30s and don't appear to have any interest in child development, plus a lot of internalised misogyny (there was a woman saying that her daughter's period was disgusting or something- way to make sure the child will grow up hating her own body and possibly developing anorexia to stop puberty- someone who clearly should not have been allowed around children but for some reason had been allowed to adopt this poor girl!), and a demonstrable lack of compassion to the vulnerable (illustrated by benefit bashing on other threads) are encouraged to have children merely because they can financially provide for them. Whereas a poor woman, or a single woman on benefits, who has a good understanding of child development, and a normal sense of compassion, is told that she is 'selfish' or irresponsible for wanting/having children. It is so bizarrely backwards that it is almost incomprehensible except looking from within the capitalist myth that money=morality. No wonder so many grow up as sociopaths when morality is erased by financial considerations. It scares and disgusts me equally (speaking as a past child suffering middle-class physical and emotional abuse) that this is now seen as an unquestionable ideal.

I agree Wibble. People who have children, then don't bring them up at all but send them to an institution to be brought up are considered good parents just because they pay for the institution. So parents who have their children taken away and put in a children's home are terrible, awful, but parents who actually send their children away and pay for it are fine, just because the institution is called a "boarding school." Money allows you to legitimately neglect your children for their entire childhood.

I grew up in a "middle class" home with a psychologist father who was terribly abusive. I never understand why people assume abuse is confined to a particular class? It's not all about poverty and lack of education and opportunity, you know.

It's easier to believe that if you have education and money your children will be fine than to think that your middle class friend might be an abuser who is targeting your children. I don't think parents should worry about everyone they come in contact with but equally I don't think they should kid themselves that being well off protects their children from abuse.

As an abuse survivor raised in a rich family, I have to agree Boglach.

I was labelled a "posh princess" at school, by teachers, as they thought I was spoilt due to my families wealth, rather than them thinking I was being abused.

After many years I have disclosed the abuse but been labelled as "mentally ill" directly by family and friends who have said "I was too scare to leave my child with him" and got upset when I had the audacity to say "yes but you left me with him". Get that.

Oh and the fact that some parents will defend boarding schools to the hilt, as though they genuinely believe a child is better off being brought up by strangers than by their own parents, makes me think that society's determination to ignore abuse is not going to end any time soon. When you have that sort of fucked up thinking out in the open it makes me shudder to think what might be going on behind closed doors.

My parents were so deeply shamed by the idea that their lives could be blighted by child abuse that they simply couldn't cope with it. With this happening against a background of alcoholism, my family just literally reinvented the family mythology so that all the bad stuff could be erased.

If issues around abuse were more openly and honestly debated and were considered in a more mainstream way, it may have been different. (this was the 70's by the way, so different times).

But I've had conversations with perfectly rational, intelligent adults who simply refuse to accept that children are statistically far more at risk of harm from their families and people around them than they are from random strangers. It's still such an uncomfortable truth for many people that it's just ignored.

Things are definitely going in the right direction and it is much more open than before, and less of a 'dirty secret', but my feeling is that overall many people are still very reluctant to accept that this happens on their own doorstep. Until they do, I fear many children will continue to be badly served