Monday, November 28, 2011
The Survivors Speak
We are finally, thanks to the media, being forced to pay attention to the allegations of survivors of the sexual abuse that is rampant in our culture. It is being exposed in places we haven't wanted to admit it exists: the sports programs at Penn State and Syracuse for starters. No doubt it's happening in other similar institutions but just hasn't been exposed yet. Survivors are gaining courage to speak out which is helping us to have a long-overdue conversation as a nation. We must wake up to the fact that our children are being sexually abused by people we all believe we can trust (this includes scout leaders, high school coaches, ministers, teachers, bosses...) and it's being covered up and allowed to continue. This is a systemic form of abuse where power, fame and making a profit take precedence over the safety and healthy development of our children, our future leaders. This only perpetuates the aberrant behavior in our society that breeds not only further abuse but the inability to do what's right in many areas of our human scene. We need leaders who are healthy, moral, strong, secure and personally content people who can lead us in a time of great global, human need. We must stop letting our children be abused, used and neglected! If ever it "took a village", now is the time when we must all recognize our responsibility to participate in the healthy rearing of our children. So, let's keep the conversation going and turn our thoughts and energy toward ways to prevent this kind of abuse, to expose it when it happens, to heal from it and to hold accountable those who perpetrate these atrocities. The bottom line is: sexual abuse is not acceptable behavior and it must stop!
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It is easy to see the obvious boundary violation that sexual abuse is, and for that reason, it is the most obvious platform for beginning the discussion of boundaries. But it must not end there.
ReplyDeleteSexual abuse is by far the most egregious of boundary violations, because it is more than a physical violation -- it is a violation of the boundaries of both self and soul as well, boundaries which must be taught through good parenting, honored by those outside (including but not limited to parents) and "patrolled" by those "inside" the boundaries.
At the most basic of levels, sexually abused children do not acquire a sense of where the line between them and others actually is, and as a result, do not learn when it is appropriate to and how to protect themselves against boundary violations of all kinds.
When healthy boundaries exist, we're able to "bark" when they are intruded upon and control our own behavior so as not to intrude on others. Equally healthy, we are able to lower those walls and enter into trusting relationships with others who respect those boundaries. But only when that trust is based on experience with the other person involved.
It's time we took a close look at our institutional systems, from religion to athletics to corporations to governments and stop imbuing the heads of those organizations with the authority to violate boundaries on the basis of their rank or title. As the Penn State situation has demonstrated excruciatingly well, the degree to which we glorify people on the basis of external accomplishment or title without regard for character is the degree to which we allow the boundaries of our children to be violated. We must accept responsibility for our own complicity.
Teach your children that they deserve respect by respecting them. Teach them where their boundaries are by respecting their boundaries and requiring them to respect yours. And, if you recognize that you do not know where your own boundaries are, get help. We cannot teach what we do not know. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that can have no good end unless we start talking about it now.
I agree with Lydia and "Book Shrink" about both the condition and the need to change it. Teaching children is an important part of this change. I think it is not as important to "...glorify people on the basis of external accomplishment..." as it is to develope quality relationships. I suspect we also need to give less power to government regulating our education systems.
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