I am not talking about tribal cultures. The reason I mentioned the "past times and cultures" was because your post had referred to medeivil times. I do mean to refer to western culture.

Yes, I agree that cultural norms differ even within our own western society that we live in now. However, when I said that now we know better, I mean we, in our western culture, have documented the effects of child abuse.

I did not say biological parents and used the term parents loosely---it could have said caretakers, or parental figure. Nor did I say how much love, attention and care children need. BUT I remain firmly convinced that all children need some love, validation attention. It's the concept of the "good enough" parent that we are after here.

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So you want to use the word 'abuse' to refer to events that cause traumatic illness?

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No. I didn't say that.


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Do acts of nature like hurricane and tornado count as 'abuse' as well, or for an event to be 'abusive' does it require an agent (person) to be responsible for the act?

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I don't think a natural event would be considered abuse. I think abuse is a person-generated event.

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In order for a person to be abused their abusers needed to have malevolent intent towards them - intentionally desiring to cause them insult / injury / harm etc?

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No I don't believe this to be true either. I think many people have suffered abuse at the hands of persons who didn't understand their actions. Nevertheless abuse occurred.

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So we should label hurricanes and tornadoes 'abuse' too - in order to prevent a repeat? I

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Again, no these are natural disasters.

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My mother hit me.
My mother yelled at me.

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I am so sorry. Only you can define your experience.

I think that what I was trying to say is that we have to be vigilant in the here and now in our culture toward acts of blatant child abuse--not cultural differences. There are all too many children who are suffering at the hands of those who think it's okay to bash them around or use their bodies. It isn't.