Replies to '09/19 "Afraid of My Mom"'

I'm not a victim of abuse nor do I abuse, but we have had this effect us here because we are loving & nurturing *responsible* parents.  Knowing a child is in danger we couldn't turn our backs on her & do nothing but frankly the laws aren't friendly to people interviening.  You see all these parents who become so defensive of the why they are the way they are & get upset because we want to just take their kids are always crying "I've got rights".  It's in the name of our "rights" & protecting these parents "right to privacy" etc. that the kids are left to the abuse.   

It's been years now but I've always been close to my children & they tell me *everything*.  If someone suggests that "your parents don't need to know" it would prompt them to come straight home & tell me first thing.  This is how the story of a girl being abused was related to me.  She'd shown my son bruises on the play ground & it had been sparked by a program on drinking they'd just had in class.  So I called the school & spoke with her teacher who had said she'd suspected & told me why she did which she really wasn't allowed to do.  Just like this story on Dr. Phil what she'd been told was just shocking & frankly now that she had another adult confirming the outrage of it she needed to get it off her chest.  She said she'd already called DFS & they were coming into school that day etc. etc.  Of course DFS will check to see that this abuser is still in family therapy & then they leave the kid there because they don't want to break up the family & he/she is seeking the help they need.   

Now I'd told my son that it was just SO SMART of him to come home & tell me & that if she came to him with anything else to please let me know right away.  Clearly she'd been told in school during this drinking program to "tell someone" & this was her cry for help.  Fast forward a week & the kids are getting off for the spring break for a week.  This girl would be home with her abuser for a solid week!  This isn't something that is a part of our lives here & so it hadn't dawned on me.  But when my son came home that day like all the other 3rd graders he'd gone out in joy to play.  All of a sudden I see him do a 180 in the yard & came back to the house & he said "Mom I forgot to tell you what happened today at school".   And he starts telling me how this little girl did not do well on her report card & that she knew "she was gonna get a real beating for this now".  I was FRANTIC because it would be a full week before I could contact his teacher to get an address or any way to find out where she was to send DFS to check on her.  though I did try to reach his teach & I & several other teachers were breaking all kinds of rules/laws to reach out that night to help.  I finally called in a favor of a friend I know who had connections to addresses etc. & I did indeed call DFS & I took names of who I was speaking with & insisted they check on that girl that night!   

It was so unnerving & that night I'd toldthis all to a couple who we'd invited over for drinks & we all just sort of sat there in disbelief that a "parent could do such a thing" & at the helplessness we all felt.  Please know that there are those that saw & heard & wanted to intervien &many will try but it's this same damn system that lets you all down that protects the parent that can "hate her own child so much".   I was prepared to watch for this girl for the rest of her school years if I need to call again, but they moved in less than 3 months.  I was told that where they went would have no idea of what had happened because of their "right to privacy".   I know it's not the same pain but believe me when I say it pains the nurturing parents to be helpless to rescuing the children from the hell we know they're in.  It makes for many sleepless nights for us.  :(  But you're all always in our thoughts & prayers & yes I'll always speak out against this & for the "rights of the child" who has no voice.  It's my duty as an adult.