MovieChat Forums > Dark Touch (2014) Discussion > The old child abuse cliche..

The old child abuse cliche..

posted 10 years ago by rushknight
17 replies | jump to latest

Forgive me for sounding insensitive.. But this movie got me thinking about society's current concept of "child abuse." Our society has really flipped itself on it's head with this child abuse hysteria, and I just feel the need to rant.

Just a hundred years ago kids were beaten, whipped, shamed in front of their peers, physically punished in school, shouted at, left at home for weeks at a time.. Some kids even *GASP* had sexual experiences before they were ready! And guess what? They actually turned out pretty good. My grandparents used to tell me stories about what their parents used to consider good discipline, and about the terrible things that happened to them growing up. It was downright scary!

The point is, children are sooo much more resilient and tough than we give them credit for. They HAVE TO BE. Because no parent is perfect, we all screw up one way or another and our kids need to be capable of taking the blows and abuse and learning to sort it out later.

Society has a huge role in this. A hundred years ago childhood wasn't made of porcelain, something valuable that breaks easily and is essentially irreparable. Instead, childhood was treated for what it is: A PATH TO ADULTHOOD. You were supposed to grow up, man up, toughen up, learn about life, and deal with it as it came. They were encouraged to grow up faster. Sure kids had it tough, but in response they grew up tough.

Today the sentiment is very different.. it's like every child is soooo exceptionally delicate... We can't even RISK letting them have a bad experience.. it might scar them forever! Childhood is sacred! We can't take their CHILDHOOD from them!

I'm not saying child abuse is good OR bad, all I'm saying is that we make such a huge damn deal out of it that sometimes we can't even adequately define "abuse". Can children be permanently scarred by abuse? Sure. But frankly I don't think such instances are as prevalent as we believe them to be. I can tell you that teaching children to live as victims is not helping at all, teaching them to deal with it and move on is a better answer.

So we seem to get a lot of these movies based on the concept of "the broken child." It gets pretty cheesy, and I think that 100 years from now people will look back at these films and laugh a little bit at how paranoid we were.

Be sure to post hateful replies if you disagree!

[–] melissadani 10 years ago

There is a difference between discipline towards your child and out right beating the crap out of them with fists! That is all!

[–] lilith_in_lilac 10 years ago

Wow, it's like all those well-adjusted adults who were beaten and had sexual experiences before they were ready are raising their kids differently than they were treated so their kids are not like them! It makes so much sense now...

[–] ZombieBroad 10 years ago

Except if you're going to relate any of that to the movie, you forgot the glaring SEXUAL abuse she also endured. Or the fact that her infant brother had giant bruises on his body and obviously, he wasn't even old enough to walk, he couldn't have done them himself out playing or what not.

Also, cycle of abuse. It doesn't make you tougher, you don't get used to it. it just gets worse.

[–] SenteZa 10 years ago

"I'm not saying child abuse is good OR bad..."

Sorry, but this must be one of the weirdest sentences I have ever read. I really thought there was a common understanding about child abuse being simply bad.

If you´re somehow relating child abuse to the Nietzsche saying "that which does not kill us makes us stronger" or something like that - I must say I think the quote is anything but true, especially in the case of child abuse. And I don´t believe victims of child abuse are taught to live as victims, but acknowledging that something did happen is probably the most important part of dealing with it and "moving on" as you call it.

[–] the_spiral 10 years ago

I really think this person is trolling, trying to start a debate on the relative merits of child abuse. Either that or seriously loonie.

[–] roell29 10 years ago

According to psychohistorian Lloyd Demause, children have been used throughout human history as what he calls "poison containers" - receptacles into which adults can project the disowned aspects of their own psyches. The concept of childhood itself has only existed for a few hundred years. Before that, children were treated as little adults with no particular rights who could be used and abused at will. It's true that children are highly resilient although it is when they become adults that the long-term effects of child abuse manifest themselves, nowhere more tragically than in their treatment of their own children. The cycle of abuse has existed throughout human history and it's only in the recent past that it has been broken for some, although child abuse is still rampant and occurs in many more subtle forms than blatant physical or sexual abuse which are nonetheless extremely damaging.

Leave the gun, take the cannoli...

[–] rushknight 9 years ago

Just so folks here know..

I wrote my OP statement in something of a huff, but I still stand by every word.

Except for that "I'm not saying child abuse is good or bad" part. That was not really what I meant to say.

I just see that there's a panic that is developing more and more. There's this drive to over-protect children in almost every aspect of our lives now. What good is protecting our children if they discover when they become adults that we have given up their freedom to do it?

My friend has a daughter. He can't take her anywhere until he has the right car seat installed in his car. The law says that a person has to be a certain height to sit in a normal seat. Well, his wife is so short that SHE legally needs a booster seat. Once he left his daughter unattended in the back yard for like 2 minutes, and she got into trouble with a garden hose, spraying the neighbor's laundry. The neighbor then accused him of being a neglectful parent and threatened to call child protective services on him. A child in my state ran in front of his school bus and got hit by a car and now EVERYONE has to stop on both lanes of the roads whenever a school bus turns on it's red lights, exacerbating traffic to unreal levels in my neighborhood. A law is currently being proposed by proponents of child protection in my state (California, by the way) that when one child is SUSPECTED of being abused, that child and ALL the children in the household need to be removed and placed into foster care until the parents are proven innocent. What good is "innocent until proven guilty" if the punishment precedes the vindication??

My own pastor warned me that I should be careful not to give hugs to the kids in my church after Sunday service, as though hugging a kid is too suspiciously close to molestation.

This. Is. Hysteria. And I won't stand by it. Although I do need to stop ranting about it late at night. I occasionally say things that offend people.

Thank you for your thoughts.

[–] BlackDog123 9 years ago

So ... I am also in California, and every single one of your "bad" examples is something I find reasonable.

Having the proper car seat can save a child's life. That's based on ... well, science.

Adults may be safer in a car seat, but they are expected to make that choice for themselves.

How old was the kid left in the back yard?? I still supervise my just-turned-five niece in the yard. We live by a busy street. I have a large (friendly) dog that might knock her down if he got excited. We also have a trampoline - no way is she permitted to use that without supervision. If I can't be in the yard or by the door with it open, she can play in the house.

Your neighbor was probably just mad. Unless you have a history of leaving your child alone - hard to tell from your post:/

Do you know how hard it is to get a child removed from the home by CPS? I do. I'm a mandated reporter. Obviously all children would be removed from the home in an abuse situation. Are you going to leave them there until ALL of them have been abused? And, if they ARE removed, it's very short term (until a hearing can occur in 48ish hours), and due to imminent danger, i.e. children have witnessed severe domestic violence, have visible burns, cuts or bruises, etc. I've had kids with cigarette burns left in the frggin' home until the hearing after I reported. KIds who hadn't been to school in weeks. Kids who had been slapped in the face. All left in the home. So please don't tell me that CPS is the boogeyman, lurking around every corner, and waiting to snatch your kids for no reason. I wish they WOULD err on the side of child safety, and not parents' rights.

It sucks that men are looked at differently when it comes to childcare. It isn't right. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in. Personally, as a woman, I don't do more than a high five with a kid unless I know him/her.

I can simply not tell if you're trolling, or if you really think car seats, CPS, and supervision are unnecessary lol.

They're coming to get you, Barbara!

[–] rushknight 9 years ago

I'm not a troll. I honestly do think that we have gone overboard and we do a lot of things in the name of "protecting children" that obliterate our rights.

As for CPS being overworked.. well apparently not in my area. CPS seems to be the threat of the day.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I am somewhat concerned about your final comment though, "It sucks that men are looked at differently when it comes to childcare. It isn't right. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in. Personally, as a woman, I don't do more than a high five with a kid unless I know him/her."

You say it's wrong, and then finish by saying that it's just life, deal with it. I disagree. I think it needs to be changed. We have turned children into porcelain dolls and adults into charging bulls and I for one won't sit by and call it life and deal with it. It's a bad impression.

Nice that you have responded. Thanks.

[–] AtheistRevolution 9 years ago

One of my main problems with CPS and courts is massive gender discrimination. They allow way too many women with various issues to have the kids just because they're the mothers.You can read dozens of stories of mothers killing their kids. A story I read a month ago about a mother that pretty much swung her kid on a swing until he died.The father was petitioning for custody because she was known to have mental issues. Of course the kid died before CPS or courts did anything.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

[–] deem_bastille 9 years ago

I'm a mandated reporter

just so that everyone knows...

what makes anyone a MANDATED reporter... it is not they are MANDATED TO REPORT.

we are MANDTATED TO GIVE OUR NAMES!!!!

and with the schoolbus... from where I come from [NY] it is the law to stop whenever a bus has their red lights flashing. and everyone is involved in the safety of the children, even the children. we were often given lessons on what to do with the bus and how to handle crossing the street. and if a child is running in the middle of the street, it shouldn't be anyone else's fault BUT the child and his or her parents. obv someone is not watching him or her and is not telling him or her how to behave near the street. that can't be a driver's fault. no matter how slowly you go, a child running into traffic runs the risk of getting hit.

Reading the paper can really be depressing. Mr. Dithers fired Dagwood again.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] the_spiral 9 years ago

I think you need to step back and take a breath here. Out of all the legitimately horrific injustices in this world, the thing that really makes you enraged is that society does too much to protect children from abuse? That's just ridiculous.

I've worked as a teacher and mandated reporter with hundreds of children over the years. Let me tell you child abuse does happen regularly, it is not a minor event in victims' lives, it has severe and far-reaching consequences (including adult PTSD, significantly elevated rates of depression, suicide, and addiction relative to the general population, and the very real possibility that victims will become abusers themselves later in life), and if anything it is chronically under-reported and under-investigated. All of this is backed up by statistical evidence and at least half a century of psychological and psychiatric research.

And your "it happened a hundred years ago and everyone turned out fine!" argument holds no water. A hundred years ago people had a much shorter life expectancy than they do today, children died of easily curable diseases, and labour exploitation was rampant. Are you against penicillin and polio vaccines too? Are you seriously suggesting we return to a more harsh and backwards era? The only reason child abuse wasn't prosecuted back then was because they didn't have the research-based evidence we now have about its overwhelmingly negative effects on human development. Hell, my own grandfather had exactly the type of bleak childhood you describe as "normal" back then, and he turned out "just fine" too...as an angry, withdrawn, emotionally abusive alcoholic who eventually drank himself to death. But hey, he got married, held down a steady job and raised eight kids (most of whom ended up in therapy themselves) so I guess according to you there were no after-effects whatsoever!

I take back what I said about you being a troll, because I believe your struggle here is sincere, but you really need to rethink this. NO child would choose a life of beating, neglect or sexual exploitation over a safe and healthy existence. And your "right" to hug strange children does NOT supersede their legal and moral rights to their own individual bodily autonomy and safety. Period. Ever. Sorry dude. There are plenty of countries you can move to without child protective laws if you really find them so enraging. The rest of us are happy to live in societies where the basic human rights of our youngest and most vulnerable citizens are protected.

And P.S. if you're not a troll and you want people to take your arguments seriously, posting silly things like "Be sure to leave hateful replies if you disagree!" isn't helping your case.

[–] deem_bastille 9 years ago

sweetie... as a teacher myself, I have to let you know...

we are not mandated to report.... we are mandated to give our names.

it is true.

Reading the paper can really be depressing. Mr. Dithers fired Dagwood again.

[–] the_spiral 9 years ago

Err, no, in my institution and state we are legally mandated to report all suspected incidents of child abuse or neglect. There's also training and certification that goes with it which I've both taken and administered, so yes, I do know the parameters of the legal obligations of my profession. Sweetie.

And I don't believe for a second you're a teacher. If you are, I sincerely hope you lose your job.

[–] deem_bastille 9 years ago

funny how a year ago this was posted but within that year we have ACS going batshi7 crazy on the wrong side! they take the kids side all the time. even when there is no 'abuse' at all but discipline.

it is even worse for teachers. heaven forbid a teacher has to PHYSICALLY REMOVE A CHILD BECAUSE HE IS BEING DANGEROUS TO THE REST OF THE STUDENTS!!!! the parents call not only ACS but also THE DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT TO LOOK INTO THE SITUATION. heavenforbid these parents' children are found GUILTY of beating others up! oh, no, not my baby!!!

We can't even RISK letting them have a bad experience

but let's let them explore freaking broadway in the middle of rush hour traffic! ohh, the wonderness of a child!!!

I'm not saying child abuse is good OR bad

um... what??? good child abuse??? it is not abuse, then it is discipline. a teaching tool.

teaching kids to live as victims

.... that is what every able bodied person on public assistance is doing, imo. living as victims.
The only kids who are taught to live as victims have parents who wander around whining about BEING victims themselves.

Reading the paper can really be depressing. Mr. Dithers fired Dagwood again.

[–] netsirc 9 years ago

Please quit your day job.