Re: Why do we hate paedophiles but accept child abuse?

On Mon, 1 Sep 2008 02:34:26 -0700 (PDT), Turk182
<digitalradiouk@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On 1 Sep, 07:50, MM <kylix...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:49:56 +0100, Maria <oldwo...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Turk182 wrote:
Child abuse is either: sexual, physical, and emotional or involves
neglect.  Why do we concentrate our hatred on people who blight a
child's development with their sexual indulgence, yet leave the
reputations unscathed of the majority of abusers who repeatedly
assault, smack, punish, scream at, emotionally torture, threaten,
isolate, humiliate or crush the spirit of a child ? Do we have a blind
spot to the latter based on logic that the child must have somehow
deserved this mistreatment?  Are we unaware just how serious the
consequences are for children later in life following any ill
treatment?

Is society not deeply hypocritical in ignoring the plight of children
in cases where there has been no sexual element to their ordeal?

I believe that Britain is a notoriously neglectful and abusive
society.  Could it be that people need to focus on a criminal; someone
they identify as 'lower' than themselves, in order to take the wrap?
Perhaps we do this with such gusto because it deflects attention away
from our own failings and our endemic abusive attitudes to children.

I have a question - why is it that when we are talking about a species
which is intellectual, emotional, demonstrative and communicative, a
species which is highly dependent on body language and touch in our
communication, do we expect parents of that species to treat their
children like perfect china ornaments?
I agree with you that Britain has a negative attitude towards children -
they are highly undervalued, and I am certain that this has contributed
to the alienation of youth in this country, which has ended up in
violence and drug-taking. But I do not believe that it is due to the
parents of the children, or smacking, or other forms of punishment, but
due to the attitudes of British people towards other people's children.
Victorian attitudes of seen-but-not-heard still linger.
We are not perfect Turk, and never will be, and if we were, I suspect we
would be a highly emotionless race of automaton-type beings, lacking any
warmth or sensitivity at all, so disconnected from the world and from
other humans that we could commit any atrocity against others and not
feel a thing.
What we need to do is compare how our wider society treats youth to
other countries where these youth problems do not prevail. The key IMV
is the value family, and loss of it in Britain. When families value
themselves, they value other families. In Britain there is a tendency to
blame the parents (and ergo the rest of the family is rubbish) for
everything. I am fairly certain that many an Italian child has received
a swift swat around the ear* for committing a wrong, but it is
considered permissable because they are close families and the
punishment was meted out by a trusted member of the family and they are
considered to have the child's best interests at heart. No-one sees it
as abuse - just a part of learning what is tolerable and what isn't in
wider society using 'language' appropriate to the child's understanding.
In Britain, the parent is considered an abuser, almost an outsider, who
wishes only to harm the child, and someone to be seperated from that
child as soon as possible. I wonder how much this has to do with
children feeling alone and isolated? If smacking is considered basically
acceptable to both parent and child as a form of communication, then
what does it say to the child if wider society condemns that parent? I
wonder exactly what it is our children are feeling? Parents invisible
through long working hours, and the children not even important enough
to warrant a smack anymore? I recall a border collie someone I know had
- it used to crap on the floor because the owner never stroked it, and a
kick up the arse was better than being ignored.
I would ask you one thing to consider - if smacking children is abuse
which leads to problems, why is it that today, less and less parents
smack their children, but more and more children are behaving very badly
indeed?  What if it turns out that physical punishment (not physical
'abuse') is an essential element to a child's learning to be a 'normal'
human being? At least as important as a cuddle and demonstrative love?
Of course if you are lucky enough to have a child that never does
anything wrong, then a smack would not be considered necessary, but
there is a problem with that also. When I had a troublesome boy,
physical demonstrations were necessary (not smacking, but the threat of
smacking) and that became less and less as he got older, and I have
never had him call me a name or swear at me. My daughter, who behaved
like an angel for 16 years, where we had a close and loving
relationship, very passive, and never ever needed any kind of punishment
at all, has turned out to be rude, abusive and stroppy to me. She is
very difficult to handle, goes hysterical and violent when she can't get
her own way. She is not spoilt - I never had the resources to spoil her,
but firstly she sees all these other girls her age(nearly 18) talking to
their parents in an appalling manner, but also she never learned at an
earlier age what would happen if she was bad (because she never was),
and now when she is bad, what can I do? What do I do when she says I am
a retard or tells me to eff off because she doesn't like my rules or
simply because I don't like being talked to like that just because she
is in a bad mood? I can't smack her now, so I have to put up with her
smacking me, or throw her out on the streets, or what? I do understand
that this is puberty and this is what it does, but my son knew where the
line was and never to cross it - she does not know because she never
challenged me and never needed to be told, and now she is older, when I
try to tell her, she couldn't care less anymore. I can only thank
goodness that she is polite to everyone else in the world, but it might
not have been that way, and I suppose if she is unchecked now, she may
end up not being polite to outsiders. What should I do? In a way I wish
she had done naughty things, so I would have had to show her some
punishment, because then she might know now when she has gone too far,
but she doesn't know. She thinks she can stand alone in the world as
young people tend to, and so there is no sanction I can impose that can
any longer have any effect - it's too late for that. I am at a loss and
can only pray that it is a phase. The lesson for me is that children
have to learn the rules one way or another, and if they don't learn the
rules (even if it because they are very good when they are youngsters),
then there can be trouble later.

NBI must stress that I am referring to punishment that falls into the
'normal' range and not beatings, torture, bullying or anything else like
that, which I agree is abuse.
* I also realise that a swat around the ear is probably no longer
considered permissible since the advent of shaken-baby syndrome, or
whatever it is called when it is older children.

That was a very good post. In the case of your daughter, it sounds
like she might have been a little schemer as a child, clever enough to
realise that she got what she wanted by being passive and obedient,
thinking ahead to the day when she could pupate and emerge as the
*real* person she wanted to be. In other words, she might just be a
very good actor who can control her emotions, but now doesn't need to
because she's practically grown up and maybe bigger than you anyway.

This is your own stuff and it is flawed as you cannot deduce this
without understanding what the conflicts are based on in the
relationship between mum and daughter.


I
think you need to think not in terms of chastisement any more (for
her, I mean), but design more subtle ways to improve her behaviour
towards you, since *she* IS of an age where reason has started to
flourish. Maybe ridicule, satire?

What a disaster that would be - in other words, avoid the issued and
humour her. What a pompous stance.

Along the lines of Spitting Image,
Steve Bell, The Fast Show? I mean, cartoons are meant to be a
shorthand way of getting a message across by exaggerating certain
aspects of a situation. You and her could go shopping, and you buy
some outrageous piece of clothing. "Mum! You're not going to wear
THAT, are you?" "Well, dear, I just feel like a change will do me
good, d'you see?" She's perplexed. In her room with the door shut and
the stereo threatening to bring the house down she might just start to
think that your seemingly dolally behaviour is a form of punishment.
However, even it it is, she reasons, it is nevertheless embarassing
and her mates at school are starting to take the piss out of her for
having such a "funny mummy". Repeat the exercise a few times or change
the theme somehow - e.g. ordering strange food in restaurants so that
she might have suspicions that you're pregnant and she will soon be
less important AGAIN! The fact that she can behave perfectly
acceptably when she either wants to or needs to (as with other adults
as you said) must somehow suggest that she is using you as a foil to
practise on. You could think of things that she really likes doing,
then either do them to death (e.g. chicken nuggets with EVERY meal) or
not do them at all, but not doing them NOT in an obviously punitive
way, but absent mindedly, as if you just forgot, er, sorry, oops,
er... and so on.

Your well intentioned post is suggesting that Maria not be real, to be
fake, and you have overlooked the possibility that Maria may be
ignoring a long term loss or issue for her daughter which has become
the 'elephant in the room'/. In other words 'we can't talk about that
because mum get's upset'. Her child is not a toy and her pain is very
real. While taking on a lighter touch which I think can be very
helpful, at the top of the list must be for Maria to know what it's
like to be her daughter - she must be able to understand how it feels
for her daughter and accept that the pain is real. To deny, evade or
avoid it is a bad move. Maria may not like what she hears but she has
to be strong for her daughters sake. Strong means being able to
listen and process it, to feel it and be able to allow her daughter to
use her as a person who she can trust to take her deepest and most
painful issues to - without mum breaking down or becoming defensive.
Her daughter may be acting out Maria's pain that she can also not
address. (NONE OF THIS IS BASED ON KNOWING THE CIRCUMSTANCES PRESENT
- but these are processes that often help.)

Turk182

Right-o.

MM
.

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