It really is awful what happened. And a shame that it takes something like this to make the news, when incest and abuse by people familiar to a child is happening all the time. This is not just a problem in our time. Freud's original theory was that the problems he was seeing in his patients were the results of child abuse. But he revised his theory because those patients were the children of priminent local citizens in a wealthy community, and that community was never going to accept the truth. Doesn't sound much different from today, does it?

We do need more awareness that this is a problem that occurs quietly within our homes and with people we know and trust and tell our children they should respect and obey. There needs to be more education. People need to communicate with their children, and listen even when a child says something hard to hear, and believe the children. And we need to do something about it. We need to teach children that they don't have to let someone do things to them that don't seem right, and that they should tell someone they trust. And then we need to be available and trustworthy and protective without being overbearing or disempowering.

Be careful reading the rest of my post if you are concerned about being triggered. I want to tell you what I know about what people who are trusted do. It isn't extreme, but probably much more common than we think.

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I was molested when I was eleven years old, by a neighbor. He was an old man (our landlord) who lived in the apartment across the hall. My parents intruduced him and his wife to us as our "new grandparents." It happened a couple of times, and his wife must have suspected it because she told my mother that we couldn't go over there anymore. My mother didn't understand why (we were in Spain and this couple didn't speak English, and my mother only knew a little bit of Spanish). My mother said that his wife was saying something like "he is cold or sick or bad." I didn't know at that age that there was something wrong with how he touched me. Nobody had ever taught me about appropriate or inappropriate touch. And I was starved for any kind of attention from adults, and would have accepted any attention that I got. I didn't remember what happened until about 15 years later.

My daughter was molested by a cousin only three years older than her. She was eleven too. She told me about it after a boy she used to play with (younger than her) made some confessions and a social worker contacted me and asked to interview my daughter. My daughter said that the boy they asked about had not done anything. Then on the way home she told me that her cousin had, and she was afraid to tell him no even though she knew it was wrong, because she wanted him to like her and didn't want to get him in trouble. She was afraid that she had done something bad. I told her that she was a child, and her cousin knew better and should not have done what he did. I also told her that now she knows that she doesn't have to let anyone do something that she doesn't want or think is appropriate, and that she can talk to me about it if she wants to. When I asked her again a few days later she said that she felt better and didn't want to talk about it anymore, or to tell anyone else. She didn't want to go through another interview, so I didn't report what she told me. I don't know if I did the right thing, but I know that my daughter is safe now. It was something that only happened once. Now it's been a few months since she told me, and the incident was at least 3 years ago. I'm still not sure that I did the right thing, and would appreciate input on that.

My husband checks the sex offender lists regularly, but I'm not nearly as afraid of the people on those lists because my children know not to go anywhere with someone they don't know. It's people we trust who scare me.

Rap