For most cultures, the birth of a child heralds an exciting and happy time in the lives of the parents and other family members.
Or, this is the ideal expectation we all hold onto.
When this is the case, the first and perhaps the single most important emotion we are responsible for as the parents is to make our child feel welcomed.
Babies feel this; the effects of being welcomed into a new environment not only heals the trauma of the birth experience, but also teaches the child a lifelong lesson about how they will be perceived in the new world they have entered.
They almost never forget this first lesson.
Maybe more times than we are aware of, this was not the case when a new baby arrived.
Typically, this stems from struggle; either personal, financial or a combination of both that leaves the parents feeling overwhelmed and under impressed with the experience.
New parents who find themselves in this situation follow one of several paths; they swallow hard and buckle down to "do the best they can" in the situation, they ask their parents or grandparents to help in the parenting of the child, they allow older children in the family to assume the responsibility of parenting the new arrival, they find good child care and use it frequently, they elect to allow the child to be adopted, or the most extreme and reprehensible remedy of simply abandoning the child or killing it.
These things actually happen...
we know they do.
We don't know how to process this or how to feel about any of the people involved.
Bad parenting runs the gamut of simple neglect and a failure to provide the most basic needs of the child to verbal abuse, physical violence, permitting the child to be molested and failing to act to protect them and sometimes, actually putting the child into child porn and other industries that destroy the psyche of the child.
Relatives who love the child, neighbors, the school system and a host of strangers and acquaintances become of aware that things are not as they should be in the family and yet are reluctant, for one reason or another to confront the situation.
This only serves to further imbed into the consciousness of the child the belief that they deserve to be mistreated, beaten and verbally abused.
It seals the deal on their perception of their own value.
The people who have looked the other way have done so for a variety of reasons; they don't want to hurt a son or daughter by holding them up to the scrutiny of the law or worse, to cause their own child to lose custody of their grandchildren; they may try hard to make up for things when they are around the child, they pray hard and even talk to the abuser but, at the end of the day, they look the other way.
And a part of the child dies every time this occurs.
Imagine that people you love know very well that someone is beating you or abusing you daily and they do nothing at all but pretend it did not happen.
The child now learns that trusting the people who say they love you is not a safe choice.
Adults discuss it among themselves, and in the extreme cases, teachers and churches actually allow students and members to bring it out into the open and look closely at the circumstances and what may have contributed to the end result.
At least, good ones do; but what happens to the children in these situations? In spite of a really bad situation in the home, the very young child is frequently afraid of going to school; they rebel and try every method to escape this.
I have often wondered if they are so scarred by the first few years of their life that anything new is bound to be worse in their imagination.
The truth is, when these circumstances are in place, an extremely dysfunctional history has become a firmly entrenched part of the child's foundation and very basic belief system about life and what to expect from it.
The secret veil is in place now; they must never tell anyone or worse things will happen and God forbid that should occur.
Frequently obesity becomes an issue for the child as they turn to food as the only solace left in a life filled with distortions, deceit and betrayal by the people they had every right to expect protection from.
Life has become a recognizable hell on earth for a child who is ill equipped to make sense of this.
Like the proverbial pendulum that swings wide, the abused may become people pleasers making peace at all costs regardless of the personal cost, and risk becoming a human doormat; or they will be trouble makers who cannot participate successfully in the classroom.
Many become bullies at school and in their neighborhood, finally transcending into becoming an abuser as an adult.
Probably the somewhere in between are the children who just struggle with learning what being happy means, who have low self esteem and very low expectations of the life they will live is more normal.
Still, this is not a good place to be; this is a child who has become a survivor.
They tend to stay in that survival mode for the balance of their lives unless some really significant event alters this course.
If you are an adult who has survived the experience of being traumatized by the people you naturally expected to protect and nurture you, congratulations.
Nothing in front of you will be as hard as the path you have already traversed.
If you are like most who have endured this experience, you have a few good friends whose names are denial, delusion and not me.
They have been your best friends for many years.
They help you get angry when anyone suggests that your beginning was a rough road you should not have been required to travel.
It has become your 'norm' and is the only reference you have for that word.
You will probably protect this memory, however horrid, at all costs.
Children caught in this situation began to identify with their captor, the parent in this instance, and defend their behavior and keep their ugly secrets.
Through no fault of your own, you have become an accomplished liar through the efforts of the parents who warn you to never tell anyone about any of these events.
It is the dirty laundry of abusive parents, dumped on the shoulders of their innocent children.
If you are a child caught in this trap you must accept the fact that people who do this to their children are sick; from their very soul, they are sick.
Secrets make you sick.
Their secrets can kill you.
You must lose the fear of telling the truth.
It is your only way out.
It does not 'get worse' out there.
It gets different, but not nearly as scary.
The people who have looked the other way share in this tragic story and are guilty to some degree.
Once the 'secret' is out, they will be confronted with the effects of what this has done to your life; one of them may well be the one chosen to shelter you while your own parents make some acceptable effort to do a better job.
You will probably learn that they felt stuck as well.
Even knowing a child is being abused is a heavy burden to carry; anything closer, such as witnessing this is almost unbearable.
Everyone feels helpless.
If the adults around you don't make a strong stand, you must find someone to talk to at school, church or the police.
If someone does make a complaint, your silence and secrecy will only reinforce the belief that there is nothing they can do.
You must participate in your own success.
It is hard to believe that the simple act of being truthful will set you free.
And yet, it is the most important thing required.
You are not being a 'turncoat,' a 'snitch' or a 'tattletale.
' You are choosing to survive; know that you have the right to be sheltered safely, protected and to receive good guidance from the adults around you.
The sooner you stop helping people abuse you by keeping the secret, the sooner you can begin to live your life as you planned it before you arrived in this life journey.
You may end up spending the rest of your childhood with the new caregiver; if this is the case, you will have the opportunity to build a different relationship with your parents as an adult, if you choose to do this.
The best word in that sentence is "choose.
" Suddenly you will be living a life that has choices.
The right to choose is a God given right that elevates you to a place higher than even the angels.
Never allow anyone who claims to love you to enslave you with their secrets and bad behavior.
I was close to my father; in fact, I cherished him.
I thought he was the most exciting and handsome father in our neighborhood.
I was proud of him! He was also an alcoholic; this caused severe strain in our home life.
There were six children and our mother took us to church to escape from the effects of his alcoholism.
It was confusing to a child to see both of these sides of life that are so opposite.
My father died when I was only 13.
His death left me utterly bereft, doubting a God that would take my Daddy and filled with remorse for ever having been angry at the things that happened in our home.
Later I learned these feeling are pretty normal; but what was I to do with all those emotions? I talked with a therapist who helped me tremendously when he told me these simple words, "You can love someone and hate what they do.
" Those simple words allowed me to love my father and still be honest about the effects of his behavior that resulted from his alcoholism.
We all become better people when we accept responsibility and are accountable for our actions both at home and in society.
Your ability to begin the healing process may be easier when you accept that you can indeed still love the abuser but hate what they did and remove the opportunity for more damage to your future.
Child abuse in any form is wrong; it is unacceptable and can be stopped.
It requires the adults who know it is happening to do something effective about it; it also requires the child to lose the fear of being honest.
Break the veil of silence and save yourself or some completely defenseless child who is wondering why you watch and do nothing.
Regardless of the emotions expressed in the first stages of breaking this code of silence, the effects of bringing this to the light and then following through until a change is made that protects the child, will bring a lifelong change to a child that has probably begun to lose hope.
I saw a daycare worker in the grocery store in Florida wearing a paper badge that said, "I'm telling.
" It had an image of a parent abusing a child.
It is a good creed; we should all be wearing a badge of honor like hers.
If you are the child, once the changes begin to happen, you still have a long road back to being healed from this hideous pattern of behavior.
But you will at least have a road map to continue on your journey.
That is priceless in making sure you don't get lost on the way.
Know that the worst is behind you and you are going to make it.
Denial, the friend that forced you to keep the secrets, will have departed to capture more victims; delusion that allowed you to see the truth and believe it was something else will get glasses and get going, and 'not me,' well, he may have gone into hiding just to see if there is another opportunity to reenter your life in the future! He shows up when no one wants to be responsible; meaning, he is never, ever there for the good times.
Park this friend in a no parking zone until he gets towed away.
Good riddance to bad rubbish with these false friends! Give these friends a swift kick to the curb, get up and get a life; a better one!
Or, this is the ideal expectation we all hold onto.
When this is the case, the first and perhaps the single most important emotion we are responsible for as the parents is to make our child feel welcomed.
Babies feel this; the effects of being welcomed into a new environment not only heals the trauma of the birth experience, but also teaches the child a lifelong lesson about how they will be perceived in the new world they have entered.
They almost never forget this first lesson.
Maybe more times than we are aware of, this was not the case when a new baby arrived.
Typically, this stems from struggle; either personal, financial or a combination of both that leaves the parents feeling overwhelmed and under impressed with the experience.
New parents who find themselves in this situation follow one of several paths; they swallow hard and buckle down to "do the best they can" in the situation, they ask their parents or grandparents to help in the parenting of the child, they allow older children in the family to assume the responsibility of parenting the new arrival, they find good child care and use it frequently, they elect to allow the child to be adopted, or the most extreme and reprehensible remedy of simply abandoning the child or killing it.
These things actually happen...
we know they do.
We don't know how to process this or how to feel about any of the people involved.
Bad parenting runs the gamut of simple neglect and a failure to provide the most basic needs of the child to verbal abuse, physical violence, permitting the child to be molested and failing to act to protect them and sometimes, actually putting the child into child porn and other industries that destroy the psyche of the child.
Relatives who love the child, neighbors, the school system and a host of strangers and acquaintances become of aware that things are not as they should be in the family and yet are reluctant, for one reason or another to confront the situation.
This only serves to further imbed into the consciousness of the child the belief that they deserve to be mistreated, beaten and verbally abused.
It seals the deal on their perception of their own value.
The people who have looked the other way have done so for a variety of reasons; they don't want to hurt a son or daughter by holding them up to the scrutiny of the law or worse, to cause their own child to lose custody of their grandchildren; they may try hard to make up for things when they are around the child, they pray hard and even talk to the abuser but, at the end of the day, they look the other way.
And a part of the child dies every time this occurs.
Imagine that people you love know very well that someone is beating you or abusing you daily and they do nothing at all but pretend it did not happen.
The child now learns that trusting the people who say they love you is not a safe choice.
Adults discuss it among themselves, and in the extreme cases, teachers and churches actually allow students and members to bring it out into the open and look closely at the circumstances and what may have contributed to the end result.
At least, good ones do; but what happens to the children in these situations? In spite of a really bad situation in the home, the very young child is frequently afraid of going to school; they rebel and try every method to escape this.
I have often wondered if they are so scarred by the first few years of their life that anything new is bound to be worse in their imagination.
The truth is, when these circumstances are in place, an extremely dysfunctional history has become a firmly entrenched part of the child's foundation and very basic belief system about life and what to expect from it.
The secret veil is in place now; they must never tell anyone or worse things will happen and God forbid that should occur.
Frequently obesity becomes an issue for the child as they turn to food as the only solace left in a life filled with distortions, deceit and betrayal by the people they had every right to expect protection from.
Life has become a recognizable hell on earth for a child who is ill equipped to make sense of this.
Like the proverbial pendulum that swings wide, the abused may become people pleasers making peace at all costs regardless of the personal cost, and risk becoming a human doormat; or they will be trouble makers who cannot participate successfully in the classroom.
Many become bullies at school and in their neighborhood, finally transcending into becoming an abuser as an adult.
Probably the somewhere in between are the children who just struggle with learning what being happy means, who have low self esteem and very low expectations of the life they will live is more normal.
Still, this is not a good place to be; this is a child who has become a survivor.
They tend to stay in that survival mode for the balance of their lives unless some really significant event alters this course.
If you are an adult who has survived the experience of being traumatized by the people you naturally expected to protect and nurture you, congratulations.
Nothing in front of you will be as hard as the path you have already traversed.
If you are like most who have endured this experience, you have a few good friends whose names are denial, delusion and not me.
They have been your best friends for many years.
They help you get angry when anyone suggests that your beginning was a rough road you should not have been required to travel.
It has become your 'norm' and is the only reference you have for that word.
You will probably protect this memory, however horrid, at all costs.
Children caught in this situation began to identify with their captor, the parent in this instance, and defend their behavior and keep their ugly secrets.
Through no fault of your own, you have become an accomplished liar through the efforts of the parents who warn you to never tell anyone about any of these events.
It is the dirty laundry of abusive parents, dumped on the shoulders of their innocent children.
If you are a child caught in this trap you must accept the fact that people who do this to their children are sick; from their very soul, they are sick.
Secrets make you sick.
Their secrets can kill you.
You must lose the fear of telling the truth.
It is your only way out.
It does not 'get worse' out there.
It gets different, but not nearly as scary.
The people who have looked the other way share in this tragic story and are guilty to some degree.
Once the 'secret' is out, they will be confronted with the effects of what this has done to your life; one of them may well be the one chosen to shelter you while your own parents make some acceptable effort to do a better job.
You will probably learn that they felt stuck as well.
Even knowing a child is being abused is a heavy burden to carry; anything closer, such as witnessing this is almost unbearable.
Everyone feels helpless.
If the adults around you don't make a strong stand, you must find someone to talk to at school, church or the police.
If someone does make a complaint, your silence and secrecy will only reinforce the belief that there is nothing they can do.
You must participate in your own success.
It is hard to believe that the simple act of being truthful will set you free.
And yet, it is the most important thing required.
You are not being a 'turncoat,' a 'snitch' or a 'tattletale.
' You are choosing to survive; know that you have the right to be sheltered safely, protected and to receive good guidance from the adults around you.
The sooner you stop helping people abuse you by keeping the secret, the sooner you can begin to live your life as you planned it before you arrived in this life journey.
You may end up spending the rest of your childhood with the new caregiver; if this is the case, you will have the opportunity to build a different relationship with your parents as an adult, if you choose to do this.
The best word in that sentence is "choose.
" Suddenly you will be living a life that has choices.
The right to choose is a God given right that elevates you to a place higher than even the angels.
Never allow anyone who claims to love you to enslave you with their secrets and bad behavior.
I was close to my father; in fact, I cherished him.
I thought he was the most exciting and handsome father in our neighborhood.
I was proud of him! He was also an alcoholic; this caused severe strain in our home life.
There were six children and our mother took us to church to escape from the effects of his alcoholism.
It was confusing to a child to see both of these sides of life that are so opposite.
My father died when I was only 13.
His death left me utterly bereft, doubting a God that would take my Daddy and filled with remorse for ever having been angry at the things that happened in our home.
Later I learned these feeling are pretty normal; but what was I to do with all those emotions? I talked with a therapist who helped me tremendously when he told me these simple words, "You can love someone and hate what they do.
" Those simple words allowed me to love my father and still be honest about the effects of his behavior that resulted from his alcoholism.
We all become better people when we accept responsibility and are accountable for our actions both at home and in society.
Your ability to begin the healing process may be easier when you accept that you can indeed still love the abuser but hate what they did and remove the opportunity for more damage to your future.
Child abuse in any form is wrong; it is unacceptable and can be stopped.
It requires the adults who know it is happening to do something effective about it; it also requires the child to lose the fear of being honest.
Break the veil of silence and save yourself or some completely defenseless child who is wondering why you watch and do nothing.
Regardless of the emotions expressed in the first stages of breaking this code of silence, the effects of bringing this to the light and then following through until a change is made that protects the child, will bring a lifelong change to a child that has probably begun to lose hope.
I saw a daycare worker in the grocery store in Florida wearing a paper badge that said, "I'm telling.
" It had an image of a parent abusing a child.
It is a good creed; we should all be wearing a badge of honor like hers.
If you are the child, once the changes begin to happen, you still have a long road back to being healed from this hideous pattern of behavior.
But you will at least have a road map to continue on your journey.
That is priceless in making sure you don't get lost on the way.
Know that the worst is behind you and you are going to make it.
Denial, the friend that forced you to keep the secrets, will have departed to capture more victims; delusion that allowed you to see the truth and believe it was something else will get glasses and get going, and 'not me,' well, he may have gone into hiding just to see if there is another opportunity to reenter your life in the future! He shows up when no one wants to be responsible; meaning, he is never, ever there for the good times.
Park this friend in a no parking zone until he gets towed away.
Good riddance to bad rubbish with these false friends! Give these friends a swift kick to the curb, get up and get a life; a better one!