[lit-ideas] Child Abuse Finally Admitted in India

From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 13:25:11 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
Corroborating what I've been saying about how rampant child abuse is around the 
world:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6539027.stm

India is in no way unique, and I'd bet that the numbers are higher than the 
researchers are finding, since many children won't admit to themselves that 
it's happening.  The statistic I've come across is that one-third of abused 
children completely shut it out of consciousness.  In other words, if you ask 
them, they'll say, and believe, that the abuse never happened.  They bury it, 
but it's always alive as long as they're alive, tormenting them. So the actual 
reality is probably much worse.  Even here our civilized selves think it's 
necessary to hit children, a parent's obligation as well as right.  Big deal, 
right?  Except that it's the cause of all evil, all misery, all war, all greed, 
all hatred, all of what makes humans the way they are.  How instinctive is 
parenting if abuse is built into the system?  Passive abuse is one notch less 
bad than active abuse.  Parenting is learned behavior and it desperately needs 
to be taught by professionals. It's a no brainer that in war areas it's much 
worse.  

I was in the supermarket recently and they were playing Cher's song, lyrics 
below.  I kind of heard it for the first time in the sense that I heard in it a 
summary of humankind, the lack of connection in childhood that translates into 
lifetime's worth of longing, otherwise known as love, and its corollary, the 
collective rejecting and taunting of those less fortunate by society at large.  
We talk a good line about altruism and a thousand points of light and all the 
rest of it, but the reality is we bow down to money and trample on everybody 
else:

Baby don't go
Pretty baby, please don't go
 
I never had a mother
I hardly knew my dad
I been in town for 18 years
And you're the only boy I've had
I can't stay, maybe I'll be back someday
 
Baby don't go
Pretty baby, please don't go
I love you so
Pretty baby, please don't go
 
I never had no money
I bought at the second-hand store
The way this old town laughs at me
I just can't take it no more
I can't stay, I'm gonna be a lady someday
 
Baby don't go
Pretty baby, please don't go
I love you so
Pretty baby, please don't go
 
When I get to the city
My tears will all be dried
My eyes will look so pretty
No one's gonna know I cried
Yes, I'm goin' away, maybe I'll be back someday
 
Baby don't go
Baby, I'll be back someday
Baby don't go
Baby, I'll be back someday


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[lit-ideas] Child Abuse Finally Admitted in India

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