The Culture of Abuse

"Shelter  me, O God, hide me in the shadow of Your wings, You alone are my hope."


A little girl of age two or three was standing in her bedroom crying. Her mother told her, 'Stop crying, or the neighbors will think I beat you.'  She cried harder, hoping one of the neighbors would rescue her.

When she was three and four and six, she was getting black eyes. Her family told neighbors that she was just a tomboy.

When she was five, she learned to ask each morning what was for dinner? -- because she was anxious about whether she would be fed. If she could not stomach what was served for dinner, she knew that she would be given nothing else to eat. Each morning, she had to plan where she would get enough to eat.

When she was five, she came home from kindergarten every day exhausted. When she told her mother that she needed a nap, her mother told her, "No, you don't. You are five." She learned to put herself down for naps.

In kindergarten, she refused to participate or to investigate the colorful toys and books. She stood, ever watchful at the edges of the room, wondering who the children were and how she would be treated. Her mother told the teacher, "Oh, she just has her own way."

When she was about 8, she had become a very serious little girl, with pale skin and deep, dark circles under her eyes. She rarely smiled or looked anyone in the eye. The school librarian told her, "You look so much better when you smile. Smile!" She felt so sad all the time. She didn't have anything to smile about.

She was called ugly every day by a sibling. Her parents told her not to cry or get angry.  They said, "You are too sensitive. " She learned that she WAS ugly. She learned not to cry or protest. And because she could not end the verbal abuse herself, things escalated to physical abuse.

The verbal abuse continued. At age ten, she decided to stop speaking. Maybe then, the abuse would stop. Teachers began to notice that she was so very shy. Her mother explained it away airily: "Oh, 'Still waters run deep.' "

Her parents were telling her not to cry or get mad. She thought that if she showed no emotion, or had no feelings, she would be safe. She learned to numb her feelings. Maybe her emotions were what got her in trouble.

At age ten, she had a mysterious infection. The doctor scolded her and told her to be more careful about hygiene. She learned to blame herself.

Around that time, she learned to keep herself up at night reading books, until everyone in the house was asleep. She was learning to stay vigilant, day and night.

Around that time, she began sleep-walking. Her mother asked the doctor about it and he said she was probably just stressed, or maybe it was a phase she would grow out of.

By age ten or twelve, she was barely eating. She had grown quite thin. In high school, teachers noticed it. But her mother praised her for keeping her figure.

She was diagnosed with a chronic lung disease when she was 7. By the time she was 14, it was no longer being treated. Everyone pretended that this condition had gone away.

When she was about 14, two teachers kept approaching the girl, asking her what was wrong? But at that point, she was too shut down to even understand what was wrong. And she was too afraid to speak up for fear that talking about family secrets would get her in trouble at home.

How many opportunities might she have had to be rescued, if only all this had NOT been explained away? Or if someone had asked some sharper questions and become more involved?

Abuse is insidious and secretive. Abuse develops gradually but steadily.

Abuse gets explained away.

Lifelong abuse creates lifelong scars.

Abuse is murder of the soul.

Eventually, society becomes numb to Abuse. Abuse becomes part of the landscape. We don't even call it Abuse any longer.

When adults today talk about bullying, some shrug and say, "Well. . . kids are cruel." As if this is just the way it is.

When Rutgers University basketball coach Mike Rice was videotaped verbally and physically abusing his players, he was merely reprimanded at first. Only after public outrage from a widely circulated video on You Tube, was he finally fired. Several players said later that they believed this was "just the way the basketball culture is."

When an assistant saw Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky in a locker-room shower, abusing a youth, the assistant reported it to unversity officials as "horsing around."

When are we going to stop looking the other way when we see what amounts to Abuse?

When are we going to stop accepting Abuse as the "norm"?

When are we going to call it for what it is: Abuse ?

When are we going to stop being bystanders, and become champions of the Truth?

When are we going to rescue our children, who belong to all of us?

[Related Posting: "STOP Abuse", April 14, 2011; " Rescuing the Invisible Child, April 18, 2012.]


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