Keeping our children safe

This was originally published on the blog for CSA (child sexual abuse) Awareness in April 2011.

The newspapers are often full of horrendous stories of young children who suffer severe physical, mental and emotional injuries, or even die as a result of sexual assault while the parents keep the incidents under wraps, sometimes because the perpetrator is a family member/ friend, and often out of a misplaced sense of ‘shame’. According to statistics released by Tulir Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), 40 per cent girls and 25 per cent boys below 16 in India are victims of such predators. The Bill against CSA, currently in Parliament, provides for stringent punitive action against perpetrators of CSA as well as for the protection of the identities of the victims and their families. However, the fact remains that CSA is one of the most terrible, yet least acknowledged horrors of our society.

Paedophilia or sexual abuse of children—a parent’s worst nightmare— is hardly something unknown. The mental disorder that drives adults or almost-adults to sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children has existed throughout recorded history of humankind. However, even more horrifying than the vile acts of paedophiles, is the fact that in an unbelievably large number of cases of child sexual abuse (CSA), the victims’ family members, whose responsibility it supposedly is to safeguard them, either choose to look the other way, as though wishing away the unpalatable truth, or else, sweep it under the carpet out of considerations of ‘family’ or ‘honour’. But the fact remains that children who have been victims of sexual abuse end up with serious psychological issues related to self-esteem, self-image and confidence which, if not addressed promptly, become a baggage that they carry all their lives and are liable to taint all their relationships, rendering them dysfunctional, asocial, or even anti-social.

Threat from ‘near ones’

In an alarming number of instances the perpetrators of these heinous acts are either close family members or family friends. A case that comes to mind is that of a neighbour’s extremely aggressive and rebellious young niece, who was openly contemptuous of her parents. She was later discovered to have been raped repeatedly by her uncle (father’s brother) when she was less than five. Her parents had refused to believe her, choosing to ignore the entire incident and warning her to be careful, rather than open the can of worms within the family, especially since the girl was too young for ‘visible’ consequences like an accidental pregnancy. Warped for life, the abused girl started wielding her sexuality like a tool while in her early teens, perversely going out of her way to shame her parents publicly. As she grew into an adult, it became obvious that she could neither sustain a job nor a relationship. Then at about 30 years of age she was involved in a serious road accident that crippled her for six months. Lying in bed with nothing to do, she was visited by an old neighbour who initiated her into an alternate healing therapy. That was a turning point in her life. After she was cured, she left home to work as a healing therapist and has exorcised her own demons in the process.

When protectors turn predators

There was also the case of an ex-colleague who left her home in one of India’s interior towns with her two daughters at a moment’s notice when her maid alerted her to the fact her husband was trying to sexually abuse their 12 year-old elder daughter, thinking that she had gone to the market. Landing in Delhi with nothing but an airbag of clothes for all three, some of her mother’s jewelry and the phone number of an old school friend—who, along with her husband, miraculously came through for her—she eked out a living for herself and her daughters as a journalist for years, cutting herself off from her family as well as his, because if word of this were to get around, the shame to the family would mean that no one in their caste and community would marry her daughters! This was 20 years ago. Today both her daughters are married and well settled and she has become a nun in a convent. No one in the family has any idea of all this, even to date!

Harmful helping hands

Another common source of CSA is household help. With the number of double income families on the rise, it is very common for young children to be left in the care of hired help, sometimes (though not always) under the supervision of older family members. And although there have been instances of extremely caring and loyal caregivers, there are also plenty of cases where the child has been abused, either by the caregiver, or by the boyfriend of the female caregiver who visits her in the absence of the child’s parents.

Newly-wed Bela’s sister-in-law (husband’s sister) used to leave her 15 month-old daughter with her mother (Bela’s mother-in-law) on her way to work every morning and collect her on her way back home every evening. A 14 year-old male servant used to help the arthritic mother-in-law with childcare tasks like heating the baby’s milk, fetching and carrying, etc since both Bela and the child’s mother were at work during the day. As the baby grew older and more active and unmanageable for the grandmother, she relegated more and more of her tasks to the servant, such as rocking her to sleep and pacing with her whenever she was restless. Soon she let him take her out. It was Bela who saw something amiss and alerted her mother-in-law, who chose to turn a blind eye to the matter, realizing that she would have to stretch herself beyond her physical capacity to take care of the child herself. Next Bela alerted the child’s mother, but she too chose to ignore the matter, since to take remedial action would have disrupted her well-ordered professional life. She then broached the matter with her husband. He was snubbed when he discussed it with his mother and sister, but deeply disturbed, he fired the servant immediately. The child is now sixteen, and a lovely, confident young lady, and hopefully, has no memory of theseincidents of her infancy.

Prevention and pre-emption

The menace of CSA is a reality that cannot be denied. It is high time we face it head-on and take preventive measures, the most important one being educating our children and building enough trust and rapport with them to enable them to share their darkest secrets with their parents. Innumerable cases of CSA go undetected, even by the victims’ parents and near ones, because some atavistic instinct of shame or fear impels them to keep the secret, even though it is something that they don’t understand.

A few years ago I noticed that my seven year-old daughter winced as I changed her underpants. Filled with foreboding, I questioned her gently. Hesitating, she said that for the past two days a ten year-old boy in her school van would push apart the legs of the six and seven year-old girls in the van and prod them with his boot. I was filled with a murderous rage as I heard my baby stammer out this atrocity, but controlled my own reactions. I asked her if this had been going on longer than the past two days. She denied it, and I believed her because it was the first time that she had shown such signs of discomfort. When I asked why she and the other little girls did not scream or complain to the driver or the teachers in the van (there were two of them!), she said they had protested and complained, but that no one had paid any attention. Deeply disturbed and upset, I pondered over the best way to handle this, fully aware that the situation called for immediate action. After a lot of thought I decided to confront the situation head-on.

Next morning I requested the teachers in the van and the driver to give me two minutes and told them the entire story. I demanded the telephone number of the offender’s parents from the van driver, preferring to take the matter to them. I then politely asked the teachers what they were about to let such things happen while they were present in the van. The teachers looked sheepish and admitted that they thought that the little girls had been screaming and complaining because one of the boys must have been bullying them, as usual. The van driver was mortified, and apologized, and although he did not then give me the numbers I asked for, he promised to personally inform the child’s parents of this incident and to discontinue his usage of the van with immediate effect. He was as good as his word. I did, however, inform the parents of the other little girls in the van about the incident so that they would be on their guard in future. And as it chances, my daughter took no harm from the incident, but has now, hopefully, been warned for life against objectionable behaviour by anyone.

CSA is a social disease that needs to be dealt with the pesticide of exposure, education and prevention. More important than anything else is the need to divest it of its aura of shame and secrecy, and bring it out in the open, to be understood and condemned by society at large, while extending understanding and help to the unfortunate victims, so that parents take proactive measures to help their children instead of turning their ‘shameful secret’ into skeletons in the cupboard.

A society of brats?

I don’t wish for children to be patterns of propriety — sitting with folded hands and closed mouths in the presence of adults. I don’t believe, as did parents of an earlier generation, that ‘children should be seen, not heard’. And I certainly don’t think that to spare the rod is to spoil the child.

But yes, I do prefer youngsters — and not only them — to behave with a modicum of good manners and courtesy — not only with their elders, but with everyone. I expect them to ask questions, express their points of view; even contradict and refute when they don’t agree with,  or are not convinced about, something — but within the bounds of decent behaviour and good taste. I LIKE them to be spirited, even naughty, but NOT BRATS!

Just my own, personal opinion …

When my nine and ten year old students either do not understand, or do not feel the need to listen to, such simple instructions as ‘Please talk amongst yourselves quietly so that others in the room (and those in the neighbouring buildings!) are not disturbed’; ‘After drinking water, please throw the paper cups in the trash bag, and not on the floor’, ‘Please go out if you need to eat, and throw any wrappers in the bin’, ‘Please wait for your turn and do not break in while I am talking to another student’, I can’t help wondering — even at the risk of sounding judgemental — what on earth they are being taught at home!

When I find chewed gum on the ground — with the bin just a few paces away; when I see a twelve or thirteen year old in a boutique, trying out dresses and tossing them on the floor, ignoring the harassed shop assistant requesting her to hang them on the pegs — I wonder how such kids will assimilate into a civilized society, or shake down in workplaces and in families of their own as adults.

Then, on second thoughts, I realize that we are already getting a taste of what is in store for us — the exponentially growing lawlessness, unruly traffic, road rage, violence, the utter, unshakable conviction on the part of a growing multitude that they can virtually get away with murder!

We are fast becoming a society of brats, and the ‘brat quotient’, so to speak, is growing by leaps and bounds. That being the case, shouldn’t we sit back and try to see where we are going wrong? Isn’t it a logical contention, then, that parenting has a definite role to play in raising the citizens of the future, and in shaping the kind of society we are becoming, and are going to become?

What are the parenting factors that go into the making of such brats? I have been talking to a large cross-section of people, as well as to child psychologists, and the sum total of all experiences and opinions expressed seems to be that there is a wide variety of factors that contribute to a child becoming a brat — from insecurity due to marital discord between parents to mindless pampering by family; from neglect in a double-income nuclear household to overindulgent grandparents; from total absence of training and control to too much regimentation and performance pressure.

Each child is different, and so is the ideal method of dealing with it, but awareness of the need to guide our youngsters to be sensible, responsible people definitely needs to be the first step in positive parenting.

Hurry Up!

Someone posted this article from Huffington Post on facebook, and the title: “The Day I Stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up’“, seemed to call out to me. Because this is exactly what I seem to be saying to my child … from ‘Hurry Up and get ready for school’, the moment she wakes up, to ‘Hurry up: brush your teeth and get into bed” last thing at night.

Admittedly, the child in this article is much younger than my teenager, but this brings home the point even more forcibly to me — all these years of ‘hurry up’ have not succeeded in making her hurry up! The one saving grace is, that since I am as much of a dreamer at heart, my ‘hurry ups’ are more an expression of anxiety about how she’ll cope when she is on her own, besides being liberally interspersed with ‘I love yous’ and bonding stuff. Otherwise, I shudder to think of the damage I might have inflicted on her.

My moment of revelation came when I overheard her (at the age of eight) confiding to a cousin: “You see, I’m so slow! My mamma really loves me, but she gets irritated …” I was dumbfounded, and I think my ‘hurry ups’ have been much fewer since then, besides being much kinder and more understanding — and I’ve seen her blossom, even though she still hasn’t learned to hurry up 😉

And one can see the damage that highly driven, extremely busy parents can unwittingly inflict upon their children who are built for a more leisurely pace. Perhaps we all need to understand that the breakneck pace of life notwithstanding, there is room for all things under the Sun.

After all, we don’t really want our children to break their necks on the fast-track of life do we?

And as William Henry Davies said in my all-time favourite poem:

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

To Mom, with love …

I don’t think we ever saw eye to eye
About anything under the great blue sky;
In fact, as Dad often says:
We were a pair of book-ends, looking opposite ways.

But now, as I see my own child grow
In a mould that I, oh! so intimately know,
I’ve come to realize so many things
About the joys and the angst that motherhood brings.

And yearn for the days when I’d dump every care
In your lap, and relax, ‘coz ‘Mamma is there’!
You were my harbour when I floundered amidst woes;
My bulwark against life’s cruellest blows.

The one who rejoiced more than me in my joy:
Whose unconditional love nothing could alloy;
Whose eyes showered love and benedictions in my life;
Whose strength gives me courage in my hours of strife.

If I can do a tithe of all this for my child,
My life as a mother would have been worthwhile.

This was written for my Mom in 2003, when I was in USA with my husband and she was undergoing chemotherapy in India. Published on ‘Unboxed Writers’ on 8th May 2011.

The babbling brook

Today Sonal Gupta posted on this blog’s Facebook group. The post was a poem about her kids’ chattering: My kids talk and they talk a lot. And it brought back a flood of memories of my teenager’s childhood …  my own little babbling brook. So, here’s to sweet nostalgia …

Have you ever been driven up the wall by your child’s chatter that just wouldn’t end?

I certainly have — times out of mind, when my teenager was a toddler. So much so, that whenever I would talk to my mom on phone and she didn’t hear a constant stream of babble (excuse the mixed metaphor) in the background, she would automatically assume that the little one was sleeping, and adjure me to put the phone down and go, get some rest while I could!

And later, when her teachers would say of the same kid: “Your child is really quiet. Do encourage her to speak up a little more”, I would feel like tearing my hair out at the roots!

One incident stands out particularly in my memory as I look back at her childhood years. I had been feeling a little under the weather for the past few days and by the evening of the day in question, I had a raging headache. Hubby was touring and dinner was cooked, with a few hours to go till it needed to be served. Popping an analgesic and hoping to catch a quick nap, I settled myself in bed, when my two year old climbed in beside me with some of her stuffed toys and blocks and proceeded to babble her way right into my shattered nerves!

In too much pain to really register what she was saying, I could vaguely make out “Ki-ku” (a variant of King Kong, her huge ape), “Booty” (her favourite teddy), “Rosy” (doll) … “house” …

I finally requested her, with all the patience at my command: “Baby, could you PLEASE be quiet for some time? Mamma has a BAD headache and needs to sleep”.

Immediately a look of concern spread over her little face, and abandoning her toys, she dragged my head onto her chubby little lap. Two soft, dimpled baby hands proceeded to pet me and soothe my brow … and the chatter started once more:

“You have a headache? … I should keep quiet? … I should not say even one word? … It will make your headache bad? … I should be completely quiet? … You have a BAD headache? … Should I make it better? … Should I be quiet? ………. Shouldn’t I say anything at all? …………”

To be or not to be

Sometime back a cousin visited Singapore on a work related tour. Having managed to throw in a weekend, he took along his wife and two children. This was just before the era of the ‘foreign travel boom’ in India. The couple came home highly amused because the husband’s Singaporean colleagues had assumed that the couple must be millionaires several times over since they could actually ‘afford’ two kids! It was, of course, unthinkable for them that anyone would ‘opt’ for parenthood unless thay had the wherewithal to provide their children with everything their society had to offer by way of living standards and everything they had to offer by way of personal inputs.

This was back then. Now contrast this with the plight of my dhobi (washerman) who has taken to drink after the birth of his fourth daughter, who can barely make ends meet even after working himself to the bone, and who is prepared to have yet another child for the sake of the elusive, ‘compulsory’ son! He touches the feet of all the old ladies in the colony, knowing that they are the ones who will ‘wish’ a son for him … and one  of the wishes just might come true!

And it’s not just the dhobi who keeps having kids in dogged pursuit of the son who will ensure the salvation of his soul in the next world. In our society, married people are ‘required’ to have kids, just like owning a television set–something you do in order not to be regarded as a freak by your family and friends–whether or not you have the time, space or inclination for it.

Result?

First: innumerable kids whose parents have no time for them and no inclination to spend any thought on raising them well or providing for any except their physical and material needs–witness the increasing numbers of messed up youngsters in the world.

Second: innumerable couples forced into parenthood that doesn’t come naturally to them–forced to make sacrifices they have no inclination to make, just for the sake of ‘duty towards their kids’, in turn resulting in an army of frustrated, escapist adults.

Third: needless population explosion on the planet–an ominous proportion of frustrated individuals in the world–witness the rapid pace of degradation of the human race, and indeed, the planet.

Fourth: the most tragic–the demeaning of parenthood, one of the purest, most exalted expressions of love in the world. This last, more than anything else, in my view, virtually amounts to sacrilege–a desecration of all that is best in the human race.

Speaking for myself, every time I hear someone dismissing the needs (other than physical) of their kids with a casual “oh! the kid will adjust: kids are very resilient”, or, “what’s the big deal about raising the kid? It has all the facilities it needs. Get on with ‘more important stuff'”, I see red!

When I see no one questioning male employees who wear out office furniture in gossip sessions over coffee and snacks while the work suffers, but everyone passing caustic comments about ‘equal pay, fewer hours’ and hounding working mothers who get through more than their fair share of work quickly because they need to leave on time to get back home to their waiting kids, I can’t help feeling that viciousness has finally scraped the bottom of the barrel.

When I see parents (not just moms) who are torn between their ambition to scale the heights in their profession through single-minded dedication and the emotional and psychological needs of their kids–or worse, those who have no doubt that their professional ambitions come first and that the rest should take care of itself–I feel pity for the emotional stunting of our future generations.

So, maybe I am a fanatic on parenthood and its responsibilities. I certainly don’t mean to imply that all moms should give up their careers and stay home to raise their kids. In fact, there do exist parents who manage to strike an excellent balance between their commitment to their careers and their commitment to their kids–probably because they are not ambivalent about their role as parents.

But when I read of day-and-night creches where children of working parents are fostered out at as young as four months, for months and years on end, usually to let their parents ‘get on with their lives’, I feel impotent rage at the pathetic state of our society.

And I wonder: is this the kind of thing that brought on the obsession with child welfare in the Western world–State control and stringent rules where children are encouraged to report parental infringements to the authorities? And given the present career-and-hip lifestyle-compulsive parent scenario, should Eastern societies follow suit?

That would be a matter for another debate, but I would say that, as a start, let us at least take parenthood out of the realm of social compulsion and leave it as a choice to those who really wish to do it and are willing to commit fully to it. Let everyone have the ‘social right’ to decide whether to be or not to be a parent!