to be utterly shocked my another mothers comment today?

[sparkle09]

i was at a group today and the subject of the gary glitter programme came up in conversation,

so i was saying how i felt about when gary glitter was sobbing about his rights to live and said my feelings about that was what about the childrens rights to not be messed up for life because of what he done,

well this other mother replied, and i quote...

"if they were young they wont remember so wont be that messed up"

there was a sudden and shocked silence across the room, and i then replied, "of course they will be messed up if they were abused! how can you say they wont?!"

so after my outburst it went back to a shocked silence, i felt like i was going to explode!

i have been reeling about it all day, totally shocked!

My son's brain has been damaged. Not by assault, by neglect and trauma. The danger stopped when he was 8 weeks old. A good deal of disruption went on for some time but the actual physical neglect stopped at 8 weeks.

The affects are still with him 6 years later and always will be.

again, sorry Lilylou, but I can only see a two liner which could be taken either way..am I suffering MN post blindness?

Suppose the abuse, though still entirely abhorent and repellant, didn't result in any pain? Would a baby 'remember' it if it happened at that age?

The reason I'm asking this question is that last week I listened to a programme about the Romanian baby orphans who came to Britain when they were adopted. Work done with those children suggested that up to the age of six months they were less 'damageable' psychologically and developmentally than they were between six months and one year, at which stage damage was far more severe and long-term.

It was on R4. Very interesting.

Fair enough Madame the valid point being 'her' ignorance

they might be less damageable, but they are still damageable, as chegirl can testify to.

abra - i think that babies learn an incredible amount about what they see or feel around them,

there is a thought that we are conditioned to think and be a certain way when we are young babies, so a baby that is abused may not phyically remember but that "memory" is there sub-consciously,

so yes i think even babies who are abused can be deeply effected.

While I agree about babies brains being changed by negative experiences, what I thick Charis was saying is that not all abuse scares children. Obviously penetration and things that cause physical pain will also cause fear, but not all abuse is like that. Much abuse, while abhorent, may not cause an infant physical distress (if you want specifics, ejaculating on a child, getting a child to touch an adult for example), and many paedophiles are very clever - they don't want a child to show obvious distress in their company, so they make activities seem like fun for the child.
In cirumstances like these the abuse, while totally wrong and indefensible, may inflict less lasting damage than the subsequent barrage of examinations, interviews and anxiety that happens once the abuse is investigated.
It is not an easy or popular viewpoint. It is far easier to say all abuse has negative consequences for the child. Of course, abuse is not good for a child, but it may not damage them (and that is without going into the concept of resilience which also has a lot to say about it).

Oh ffs charis is very far from saying paedophilia is in any way acceptable. she is saying that it is a tad better than having your child murdered. Ye gods.

Although I have used the term myself I dislike 'damged' as a way of describing children. It seems to imply negativity about the child rather than the events that have caused the 'damage' IYSWIM.

A bit of topic I know. Its a term which is widely used in social care and I began to cringe when I heard it.

Perhaps 'injured' is better?

Because whilst I agree that abuse, neglect and trauma have long term and far reaching implications, nothing is inevitable or hopeless.

Children can do amazingly well given the right support. There are many adults on MN whose lives are testimony to their resilience.

I would never, every downplay the affects of abuse (spend quite a lot of time trying to explain how profound the affects are). Its hard to get into a dialogue about how people can overcome abuse without giving ammunition to those who seek to dismiss how important understanding and intervention can be.

I often think it must be horrible to be an adult surviour of child abuse, to be almost automatically seen as a potential abuser. Just as it must be horrible to have your childhood experiences dismissed because they happened when you were 'so young'.

Horrible is an inadequate word but best I can do this time of night.

I am not at all sure that being murdered is the worst thing that can happen to a person. So I am not sure that I can agree with the starting point for some of these posts.

I am also not sure about this debate about whether children are damaged by abuse in different situations and different ages. For eg of course a baby will not be adversely affected by someone taking a photo of it with nothing untoward going on apart from maybe it's got no clothes on. But the onus is not on the victim to be affected or not, to prove damage done or otherwise. It is about the perpetrator, whether long term damage is done or not is neither here nor there from that POV. And I don't think we actually know anyway do we, it's all guesswork.

i find abra1d's bit here interesting:
'If someone (God forbid) told me I'd been sexually abused at, say, four months but not badly enough to leave lasting physical wounds, I'd have no way of knowing if it was true or not.'
it's a good point.
before i get jumped on, of course child abuse is one of the if not the most horrific acts that society has to endure. and people come away very traumatised from it. for some people it takes over their lives, and for others it may not appear to have any effect at all [that's not to say it hasnt]
it's just when a child is too young to A. remember the abuse. and B. know that what is happening to them is wrong.
it's a wonder whether if a child was then rescued from that situation and placed in a secure environment, and never told of the abuse or never treated as an abuse victim, any damage would become apparent later in life at all?
just something to wonder about in my head i suppose....

Britfish - I have similar questions. Obviously babies brain wiring develops early and in response to the love and tenderness - or otherwise - that they experience. And pain and trauma can have a huge effect.

However, I sometimes have to touch my DS's penis - when I'm trying to clear up his latest pooey nappy.

Supposing another adult was to similarly touch - only this adult was thinking about it not as a caring activity but as a sexual one.

I would regard that as abuse, as the intention is everything. However I would hope that it would not actually be damaging to the child as they would be unaware of the difference in intention.

It's all such horrible murky territory .

BritFish, why are you resurrecting threads?

Just noticed... Just curious...

Oohh MsSpentYoof - I'd not noticed that. Thanks