Photo credit: fanpop.com / Stop child abuse |
This post is another response to something I read….where my comment became way too lengthy, and spilled over into my blog. This time from a blog post on BlogHer about whether we should have any compassion for child abusers.
My honest answer? Absolutely not.
I am all about forgiveness and understanding how someone got to be where they are in life, but this is a very personal topic for me. I was abused. Physically, verbally, mentally and sexually, for nearly 10 years of my childhood. My ex-step-father was a piece of work. Was he abused as a child? Yes. Did that give him the right to hurt me and my brothers? To touch me? Hell, no.
You hear this sort of thing come forward a lot during the trials of child abuse crimes and it makes my blood boil. Just because someone was abused as a child does not give them some sort of semi-free passage to inflict pain upon any other human being, let alone a defenceless child.
There is a line of compassion based on what you do in life, and when it comes to abusing a child, that line can’t be crossed.
To be completely frank, it pisses me off. I was abused and yet I know absolutely that abuse is wrong. I don’t have some warped sense of behaviour correcting justice in my head. I look at my daughter and wonder how anyone could ever harm someone so small?!
Does she make me mad? She’s a toddler. Obviously And I am well aware that the button pushing gets worse with age. I am sure I drove my poor mother batty! But no matter what she does, it will never be ok for me to hit her, and especially not because I was hit. If anything, I feel I am more aware.
There has to be more focus on helping people overcome what they go through as a child. This is no different than promiscuity, drugs, etc, that abuse victims fall prey do. I wish more people who have been abused could stand up and talk about how good their life is. How they grew up to have success, health, love, family. I have those things, in spite of my abuse.
I have made mistakes and definitely ones that I can assign to my childhood, but there is a line, as mentioned above. And it should never be crossed.
I know this blog post doesn’t fit with the regular chipper and witty tone that I usually write with. I’m not always going to be funny. But honestly, my childhood is part of why I started Ideally speaking. It has always amazed me that I still have this Wally Cleaver-esqu way about me, even after everything I’ve been through.
Ideally speaking, no grown adult, no matter their experiences, would ever feel the need to cross that line.
Anonymous says
Great post. Thank you for your honesty.
Crys Wiltshire says
Thank you.
Anonymous says
Ive been through the same and youre completly right. I only started realising what happened to me was horrendous when my daughter turned the same age and i just freaked out! all of it just completly suddenly hit me. thankyou for that post xxx
Crys Wiltshire says
Thank you for reading it & sharing your experience. One of my main goals by opening up is to help others who may have been through something similar. One of my other goals is to show my strength for my daughter. I want her to see that mommy is not a victim anymore.