Thursday, March 02, 2006

But Mom! All the other kids are sleeping in cages!

This makes me fucking sick.
Ohio Woman Says Kids Requested Cages

Before I get to my reaction, I want to address my reaction to talking about my reaction. I feel very real trepidation about expressing myself here because I was abused. I even cringe writing that, not because I am ashamed of myself but because I know there is a very strong and negative stigma associated with people who disclose this. This is not pretense folks. There are numerous social punishments for expressing an honest and personal reaction to anything bad. It's just not polite. Heard any of these lately?
"Too much information!"
"You need to learn to let go of your anger"
"Ok, now tell me how you REALLY feel (hahaha)"
"You can't spend your life as a perpetual victim"

There are so many explicit ways we censure disclosure and implicit ways we threaten it. I usually assume those who do this to abuse survivors were not abused themselves, although the numbers suggest that some of them were. We tend to default to the false assumption that everyone has no history of abuse, which is ridiculous. Based on the stats of just the reported cases, each of us knows and is probably even close to an abuse survivor. The worst part is, we all are at least marginally aware of the high incidence of child abuse. And still we assume "everyone" or "everyone else" never suffered in this way. I blame that on the silence.

"Silence? What silence? This stuff is all over the news," you might be thinking. But the news is not real. It is a report of real. Real is the your coworker whose office is next to yours who you avoid because she's such a downer. Real is that your wife can't have an orgasm unless she knows you can't see her face. Real is the kid you wish your kid wouldn't hang out with. Real is a husband's distress when his inlaws casually chat about the sensationalized abuse story in the news and he knows he can't voice his honest reaction without risking the nearly physical pain of the family's most likely ignorant reactions to his explicit or implicit disclosure.

Hearing reports about abuse can elicit all sorts of negative emotions - disgust, revulsion, anger, sorrow, fear. We do not deal with those feelings well. We do not express them well. And I think we know this. So these feelings are more readily expressed as reactions to a remote situation. Utlimately, I think this is because the emotional impact of these feelings is easier to avoid if the issue is kept remote. We will acknowledge it in a public sphere - abuse is an ok topic for tasteless jokes, state and municipal budget battles, TV melodrama ("reality" or not), and controversial social-behavioral research. But it remains not an ok topic for the abused. Allowing that there is a large scale social ill of abuse but no real in the flesh abused people is more comfortable for most people, but it perpetuates a climate of dangerous silence. That silence keeps kids quiet while it is happening and sends survivors a message to "get over it" even before anyone has even had time to acknowledge an "it" to get over.

The stigma is there and felt quite directly at the personal level. There are countless mechanisms to keep it in place, to maintain the social silence. Today I'm chewing through the gag because I am just revolted at how the silence allows ignorance to guide personal decisions and public policy, thus putting and keeping children in high risk situations.

So, let me tell you how I REALLY feel about this fucked up situation and this fucked up couple.
What the fuck was this woman thinking? Not the locking her kids in cages part. I mean, I do think I follow her screwy reasoning for that. It went something like: The kids are getting up at night and causing 'problems'. I'll just put them in cages!" A normal person might have responded to the apparently overwhelming behavior problems these kids have by thinking "I'll not adopt 11 emotionally disturbed children whom I do not have the skills or resources to adequately care for." But she and her husband are clearly not normal.

What I want to know is what the fuck she was thinking when she declared in court that the kids wanted this treatment. She portrays the cages as cheerful little playpens. They were not. According to a local paper's Sept. 15, 2006 article about this family, the average dimensions of the cages were 4 feet long, 3.3 feet high, and 2.5 feet wide. Local police who entered the home also reported:
- "The insides of the cages were lined with "hardware cloth" - criss-crossed sections of what (a local police officer) called 'heavy-gauge wire'"
- "One of the bedrooms contained six cages, stacked two high upon each other against one wall"
- "In one of the cages, the wire lining had been partially ripped open from the inside"

I can't fathom that these people were allowed to adopt not one but 11 special needs kids. Today's news report says the mother claimed to have "sought help from...county social workers and received none". I have no way of knowing if that is true or not, I sincerely hope the state can check to see if she did. If she did and none was given, that would strongly suggest there is a massive problem in the state's child services program.

Clearly Ohio should re-examine it's adoption process since there is obviously something seriously wrong. Further, the state legislators in Ohio who recently proposed a gay couple adoption ban should be slapped, hard. Their ignorance, bigotry, and utter lack of genuine concern for child welfare is grossly apparent if despite the caged children story making national news, they are wasting time and tax payer money exploiting the issue of child endangerment as yet another means of criminalizing homosexuality.

The blame does not belong solely to the state. Support for adoptive parents of troubled kids would be a more tractable issue if our country had less fucked up attitudes about children and child rearing. The prevalent mainstream attitude of "breed til it hurts" is promoted although it is obviously destructive on so many levels. I see attitudes like this as strong contributing factors in the Ohio situation. According to the local report, a neighbor said "she thought it was unusual for them to have so many children but never noticed anything amiss at the home. 'Like anybody, you'd think that house wasn't big enough for 11 children,'" Indeed, you'd think. I don't blame the neighbor for not calling social services if all she saw were happy well fed kids playing outside. I don't even blame her for not thinking collecting 11 kids in a house that is too small to accomodate them is by definition a neglect situation. It probably was just something she saw as evidence of "low class", like having 11 cars up on blocks in the front yard. I mention her quote to illustrate that what can only be described as child hoarding is not seen as dangerously pathological in our culture.

Unless we tacitly agree that some kids are just made to be used, harmed, or destroyed, then we must assume responsibility for creating a social climate where child abuse is intolerable. Currently, social intolerance is skewed towards the victims, a sort of mean spirited "kill the messenger" attitude. Our intolerance should be directed at the beliefs and values that allow abusive situations to arise and persist in our communities. It should held for perpetrators who continue to breed, adopt, or be employed in jobs with child contact. It should be applied to government policies which promote pregnancy, child birth, and child rearing without concomitant programs to eliminate socio-economic injustice.

5 comments:

Kate said...

Yeah, I was abused as a child too. Yeah, people don't want to know. They don't want to ask, they don't want you to tell. Or they do want to hear all the details, but I don't want to get into it. It's a weird thing.

I do it anyway, and everytime I do, I wonder inside if I'm an imposter, or if the listener is secretly wondering if I'm making it up or exaggerating.

There are 2 sides to every story, after all. And my parent's side of the story is: I am deluded. Whatever I remember is distorted by time and a child's perspective. Memory is a faulty thing.

Additionally, (and contradicting this, although they don't see it...) they have a lot of excuses.

They were under a lot of stress. They did the best they could. I should forget the past. Who's to say what really happened? Why does it matter now? Only a petty, small person would hold a grudge. Forgive and forget. That's the Christian thing, right? etc etc etc.

Ever see the movie "Gaslight"? The worst part is always questioning myself, my own perceptions. What is truth? A person who wants to be absolved of blame asks that question so he can wash his hands of the matter, right?

Anyway, sorry. I hear you though. It's a hard thing to talk about but I think it's important to talk about it. Even if I feel I'm betraying them. Even if I feel like it's not my right to tell their story, it's MY story too. I have the right to my own side of my own story. They don't have the copyright on my life. So I'm telling my side. And I'm glad you are too, it takes guts. :-)

cjblue said...

Wow, much to respond to here. I agree that there are some things that we need to talk about more. It's strange, because I think the issue of child abuse has in some ways been talked about quite a bit. But it's always in the TV movie, or like you said, on the news. It's always THEM. It's never a neighbor, friend, sorority sister... We hear about the extreme cases - children locked in cages, children chained up in the basement, starving, children abused by priests (and boy, did it take a long time for this issue to come to light). We don't hear about the quiet abuse of quiet children by respected parents (or other family members), community leaders.

We need to.

I read a book once, called "Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You." Just the name gives you chills, right? It was an incredibly difficult book to read, but there should be more of them. This is not somebody else's problem, it is everybody's problem.

And yet, you were the first person I ever knew who talked about it openly. I thought then that you were the first person I knew who had been abused - I know now that I was wrong. I don't remember what my reaction was when you first told me, but judging from our friendship I can only assume I didn't turn away.

I remember the caged children story - in NJ we hear all about horrific child abuse stories from other states because our own child welfare department (the division of youth and family services, DYFS) is so horrendously fucked up that we need to make ourselves feel better.

I'd like to know why a couple who adopts 11 special needs kids should ever have to ASK for help (although I doubt she did). She should have social services people there weekly. If Ohio is anything like NJ though, they're understaffed and overworked and their case loads are just too full. It takes cases like this to bring those issues to light.

I don't know the answer, but I find it interesting that you and another blogger (Trina from my life, my words, my mind) chose to discuss this issue this week, in much the same way: I will not be silent - this needs to be talked about.

PFG said...

First off, thank you all for reading that huge blog entry, and for commenting. Also, for sharing your own reactions.

Kate,
I have the (questionable?) fortune of siblings who endured the same and in the case of my father worse abuse. It's questionable because it is horrible that it happened to all three of us. What is fortunate about it is that we have always had one another to corroborate and validate each other. I can't tell you how much I think this has helped. The three of us remain exceptionally close for adult siblings, although my brother chooses to maintain a relationship with our parents. I and my sister do not. My own choice came after trying very hard to live as an adult with them in an adult context, that is the same problem I think most mid to late 20s people deal with in their relationships with their parents. The problem with mine was that I felt they had no right to any claim of parental authority and would become just enraged when they would fall back on it as if it were some a priori fact. So I broke my ties with them. It is easier in so many ways - not having to deal with casual and crushing invalidation at holidays for example. As for the "christian forgiveness" thing...that one gives me a lot of trouble. I'm not christain, however I don't believe in persecuting or tormenting someone who has genuinely reformed and "attoned" for crimes, but I'm not sure about "forgiveness", or if I'm in a position to offer it when it was such a large scale crime done to me. I feel like what is expected in the "forgiveness" option often pragmatically speaking is "absolution". It's such a major topic for me...a whole other issue, too long for a comment reply. Not to put you off, there's just so much to say about it and I don't want to under-express on it. My therapist and I spent some time discussing it recently, so I'll end with a paraphrase of what she said about this. "I can't tell you how much damage has to be undone in people who've had ignorant counselors encourage them to 'forgive' mom and dad or old uncle so and so as the only way to recover...as if having the whole family together for christmas is the key to someone's emotional well being. Sometimes someone just can't forgive, and they have to learn how to deal with that."

Burning fingers, The "we don't want to separate her from the family" thing was why DSS left me and my siblings in our home. We were also coached by our mother in what to say to lead them to believe everything was just great now. Our mother told us that if they thought things weren't, they would separate us. There was no support, moreover, there was really little discussion with any of us about what we wanted or needed. It was like another victimization, assuming that we had no say over ourselves, our minds, our bodies, anything. Just let the nice grown ups decide. Because they had all done such a great job up until that point. At least I know exactly where my problems with authority came from.

cjblue, Of course you were great. You are honest, sincere, open, and wonderfully able to express righteous outrage about the right things. I'm glad I was the first person to talk about this openly with you, I really am. I dont know why, but it makes me feel sort of honored. Is that fucked up? I don't talk about it to everyone, I never did. I went through a period where I was more open, late twenties, but I got sick of counseling people through their reactions to my disclosure. I wanted to buy a book on recovery and say "here darling, read this and get back to me when you have something useful, or at least not horribly insulting, to say". But I have no recollection of EVER feeling that way with you.

Anonymous said...

I cannot agree with you more, someone, everyone, has to keep on putting it in peoples faces. They keep turning away refusing to ackowledge what has happened. Not only the general public but the families involved also refuse to face the truth, they would rather not face it and simply ignore it. My wife survived a lifetime of abuse from being a baby kept in the basement of her parents home to being literally rented to pedophiles for their own use to being raped repeatedly by an uncle while her mother and grandmother pimped her!!! Humanities inhumanity never fails to make me sick to my stomach, and maybe that is why these people refuse to face it, they can't take it, they don't want to face it and the feelings it creates in them.

PFG said...

Thanks for stopping by and posting a comment John. Inside the families is just horrible. This is why I don't speak to my parents anymore (unless it is truly necessary...my brother still lives with them b/c of health problems so I do still have contact with them when he is sick). My mother not only won't accept what happened, but constantly tried to recast the perpetrators in my family as positive people and also tried to recast herself as a victim and not a perpetrator and collaborator. Which just made me nuts. My life is calmer and happier without them in it. I can only imagine that your wife deals with this on a much more intense scale due to the more severe scale of her abuse. I hope she finds good ways to care for her self and be cared for, especially around mother's day.