Child Abuse: Society’s Symptom of Stress

It was once the custom in some societies for the villagers to load symbols of their problems in times of trouble upon the backs of goats, tie colored ribbons to the goats’ horns, and send them braying into the wilderness. The villagers could watch them go, then turn back to their daily concerns, their fears and tensions eased. It was a simple way to cope with stress. Those were also far simpler times, and while the problems of people were no doubt much the same—illness, hunger, cold, death—societies were not so complex that a man or woman felt alone and helpless before such burdens.

Today in some segments of our society, the richest and most powerful in the world, people are having a difficult time coping with their problems, and some of them, far more than most of us probably realize, are turning on the nearest possible scapegoats—their own children. For all our wealth, for all our abundance of food and material things, we as a nation are not tender toward our young.

When Jesus said, “Suffer little children …,” he did not mean this: a little girl, her skull fractured by a blow, dying slowly as she crouches in the corner of a filthy tenement room, her eyes staring blindly as her mother feeds a younger sister and her mother’s boyfriend drinks from a bottle. He did not mean this: a child so badly beaten that it dies, abandoned, on a wet mattress. He did not mean this: a young American infantryman explaining, “I just blew him away, that’s all. I know he was just a kid and he was crying. He’d been shot in the leg. I don’t know why. I just blew him away.”

Jesus meant, as we know well, that children should be as much of God’s kingdom as anyone else, and he said it plainly: “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14).

The abuse of children is not new. Primitive man practiced a kind of birth control by killing the third or fourth newborn. Later peoples sacrificed children to their gods. Before the child labor laws, children were stunted, mutilated, starved on the wheel of industrial progress in this country and abroad. Children have been scapegoats throughout human history, and they still are. It would seem, however, that it is high time for a nation that calls itself Christian to call a halt to the cruelty that is frequently visited upon the most helpless among us.

First, we must understand what child abuse is, for the term covers a multitude of sins. Such abuse can be defined as repeated mistreatment or neglect of a child by his parents or parent or other guardians, or by society itself, which results in injury or harm. Child abuse can be physical, such as beating or burning the child, failing to provide the necessities of life such as food, warmth, clothing, and medical care, and even stunting a child’s physical and mental development by subjecting it to toxic pollutants such as lead in paint and automobile exhaust in inner cities and along freeways. Child abuse can be emotional, such as failing to provide love, attention, normal living experiences, proper supervision, and the like. Emotional abuse can also include such things as constant belittling, scolding, nagging, yelling, and teasing. Abuse that is both emotional and physical abuse includes such assaults on a child’s mind and body as incest and other indecent sexual activity within or outside the family.

The physical effects of child abuse are clearly evident, although the actual cause may remain in doubt. The child’s injured body is its own witness. Parents offer various stories of how the child slipped in the bathtub or fell down the stairs or had some other accident, but a skilled and properly suspicious doctor can usually identify the cause of the injuries.

The emotional effects are often hidden; there is no convenient X ray to corroborate suspicion. It may take years before such emotional disturbances surface. When they do, they may appear as an inability to love or trust others, as immaturity and irresponsibility, as a poor self-image, as a tendency to turn violently against authority, and as a marked tendency to inflict abuse upon one’s own children. The Proverbs (22:7) tell us to “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” If we train up a child in violence and hate and distrust and frustration, will he depart from it?

The Psalms tell us that “children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (127:3), but we do not act as a people as though we really believed this. If we accept the definition of child abuse that I gave above—repeated mistreatment or neglect that results in injury or harm—we find that estimates of the annual toll of such abuse within our nation range as high as 4.5 million suffering children. This is incredibly shameful. How can true believers in a God of love tolerate such violence against children?

All of us as a society inflict such abuses upon children as malnutrition, lack of adequate medical and dental care, overcrowding, toxic pollutants, and poverty, but who are the individuals who physically and mentally abuse children?

Actually, we don’t really know. It is probable that most child abuse goes unreported. We can estimate that 5 to 10 per cent is the work of pathological “monsters” who derive sadistic pleasure from inflicting pain on the helpless. We can be certain that most abuse, however, is a result of the inability of rather ordinary people to cope with life’s stresses. They must have a scapegoat to relieve themselves of unbearable frustrations.

Such people exist in all classes of our society, among the rich as well as the poor, the educated as well as the uneducated. But poverty breeds the most terrible stresses in our technological world, and since it is the poor who most often have to deal with people in positions of authority, it is their mistreated children who are most evident. Statistically, child abuse often occurs in large families struggling with poverty. Statistically, too, when unemployment rises, child abuse increases. A father frustrated by loss of a job and the difficulties of finding a new one, a mother overburdened by a family too large for her mental and physical capacities, may strike out even at children they love.

In general, however, a composite picture of the typical child abuser would show an immature person with poor self-control and a poor self-image. Often lonely, almost always badly frustrated, with little family or social support, such a person takes out the stresses of daily living on a helpless child. As a society, we tend to believe that parenthood is a natural process for everyone, that we fall into it quite simply. Unfortunately for children, we do not all make good parents. Many of us approach parenthood not only ignorant of its demands but also emotionally and sometimes physically ill equipped to meet them. Some of us not only do not comprehend the needs and limitations of children but are so crippled by immaturity and emotional hurt ourselves that we cannot identify with a child’s problems and needs. And our personal inadequacy may be compounded by economic and other stresses.

But parents are not the only child abusers. Some of our institutions are no kinder to the young than the worst of parents. There is a dark undertow of neglect, mistreatment, and cruelty beneath many of our so-called enlightened attempts to handle abandoned, orphaned, and delinquent youngsters. Beyond this, there are hundreds of thousands of American children who are deprived of adequate medical and dental care, of proper nourishment, of decent life experiences, because we as a society have not practiced what we as Christians have preached.

What can we as individual Christians and as members of a community do to lessen this tragic problem of child abuse?

We must recognize that it exists, even among “nice” people who may be our friends or relatives. Among people we know, we can offer support ranging from a ready ear to advice on marital difficulties, financial problems, child care, and the like. We do not have to pry into private matters; we only have to be available. Frequently the abusive parent feels trapped by his problems and very much alone. He may be so frightened, so frustrated, so exhausted by stress that he cannot think of a way out. He may even be unable to recognize his abusive behavior. To condemn such people solves nothing; to offer support and whatever aid seems possible may go a long way toward solving everything.

We should direct the abusive parent to appropriate social agencies, or to organizations that offer help in much the same manner as Alcoholics Anonymous, or to a minister or priest. Counseling for abusive parents is essential. They need to be helped to understand why they strike out at their children and to learn how to handle their emotions. Of course, for the sake of the child, if we fail to get the abuser to seek professional help, we must report the abuse to the proper authorities. The child is in danger and is our first responsibility.

By his very behavior the abusive parent is crying for help. It is a tragedy if the needed help is not available. As a community we must put the welfare of our children at the top of the list of our concerns. We must support outreach medical programs to ensure that every child receives adequate medical care, including immunization against childhood diseases. We must support programs that ensure adequate nutrition for all children and daycare centers for the children of working parents who would otherwise be neglected or deprived. We must keep constant supervision over foster-care programs, juvenile detention centers, and the like to ensure that our institutions do not abuse or neglect the children entrusted to them.

We must also insist that our leaders and lawmakers on a local, state, and federal level provide for the children of our nation not only the necessities of life but also the possibility of healthful life experiences. In this vein, we must rethink and revamp our inner cities, for instance, and curb the pollution of air, water, and food with toxic substances to which children, who are not fully developed physically and mentally, are far more vulnerable than adults. We should investigate how we can nourish the loving and compassionate side of young people during the educational process and better prepare our young for their own future parenthood.

The future of our society resides in the hearts and minds of our children. We cannot command them, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right; honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth,” unless we add the next verse—“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:1–4). That nurture and admonition surely is based on love and compassion, and love and compassion should be our greatest gift to our children—all our children.

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

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