Good morning NLers.

I know this is an odd time to post a topic of this nature, but it was imperative I get this off my chest before life's activities push it to the back burner of my memory.

Today, I cried. I shed tears I was convinced i was incapable of shedding after my mother's death. I told myself many times that I had seen the worst losing my mum as a child and there was nothing else that could move me to tears. But I was wrong.

Today, I witnessed first hand the damaging effects of child abuse of the sexual nature on an adult. Not just the abuse in it's self, but the after effects. The after effects that concern getting one's parents to believe that their child was abused. The damage a child goes through knowing...thinking (s)he has been rejected by his/her own parents.

I witnessed an emotional break down, not just emotional, but a mental breakdown. I felt fear, I witnessed something better imagined in a book and coming from a close friend.

After my experience today, I have decided to speak to parents. I know I'm not one yet, but as a female, I've come close to being one a lot of times.

Mothers, fathers....if your child walks up to you and tells you they're being abused. They are. They aren't making it up, they aren't being naughty, they haven't been possessed by legion. It's real.

It's not just real, but that child NEEDS you. (S)he needs you to tell him/her that (s)he's loved. They need to hear it from you, they need you to believe them, to stand with them. They need to know they didn't bring it upon themselves. It's not them, it's the sick fellow who abused them that needs cleansing. They don't need your rejection.

Many parents erroneously think their child is seeking attention, even worse, some rebuke the child and make the child apologize to THEIR ABUSER.

It's bad enough a child is abused, but there is no worse feeling than the one gotten when your own parents don't believe you, when they force you to apologize to that person who took advantage of you when you barely knew a thing. If your own parents can't support you in your worst time, who will?

She kept scrubbing herself. She said she was dirty. He ruined her, he made her ugly. She was stained. God didn't want her because she was dirty. God had forsaken her. He made her dirty. Him.

This boy, this boy from her childhood. He ruined her. Everyone laughed at her because she was ruined. Nothing was going right in her life because of him....and her mother. She made her apologize, she won't believe her. She thinks she's depressed. She'll beat her. She hates her.

Words better imagined in an elaborate story of abuse, but spoken reality in the lives of many people, young and old. People who should be exploring their youth, meeting new people. Young, bright men and women with dreams and aspirations being held down by abuse.

Abuse by a friend, a neighbor, a relative, a guardian. Abuse and rejection, rejection from your own parents.


You never really know what sexual abuse can do to a child until you're staring into the hollow eyes of an adult.


Good Morning Parents

Brilliant writeup

On point!The way Nigeria parents handle abuse cases is pathetic.

Very true Safari......I have witnessed certain cases myself.
There's no way a little child will walk up to his/her parents and make up stories of sexual abuse.

If a child mentions such then it has to be real.... why would (s)he lie about such a thing??

Some parents are really annoying and act like we don't have shameless perverts in the world today. Perverts who will take every chance to abuse that little boy or girl.... Really preposterous.


I believe that parents should trust their kids a little more and stop using that stupid "What-do-you-know-at-your-age?" thought..... Such makes several parents not view the matter with keen eyes.


Parents, it's time to rise up..... Your kids need all the protection and Love and Trust they can get.... Enough is enough!!!!!!!

A well educated parent wouldn't ignore reports of abuse coming out from the mouth of his or her own child. Only an ignorant and uneducated fellow plays deaf with respect to issues as troubling as sexual abuse or harassment.

So at the end, it all burns down to illiteracy and chronic ignorance.

With the awareness on child abuse, I don't think any educated parent will ignore a child who complained of being abuse

GIYAZZ:
A well educated parent wouldn't ignore reports of abuse coming out from the mouth of his or her own child. Only an ignorant and uneducated fellow plays deaf with respect to issues as troubling as sexual abuse or harassment.

So at the end, it all burns down to illiteracy and chronic ignorance.

my dear, it's not just illiteracy.

Some parents are simply in denial. Accepting that they have failed in a duty, that maybe they didn't exercise more care, is hard for many. They want to walk around in the delusion that they did their best and the child turned out fine.

The person in question is not fine because even after over ten years, she still can't get the needed response. She won't be acknowledged. I wish I could call her mum and tell her what she needs to hear, but who am I? What do I know? Who I don born?

I mean, if your child has gone so far as to contemplate and almost attempt suicide, do you still need someone to tell you you've made an error?

safarigirl:
my dear, it's not just illiteracy.

Some parents are simply in denial. Accepting that they have failed in a duty, that maybe they didn't exercise more care, is hard for many. They want to walk around in the delusion that they did their best and the child turned out fine.

The person in question is not fine because even after over ten years, she still can't get the needed response. She won't be acknowledged. I wish I could call her mum and tell her what she needs to hear, but who am I? What do I know? Who I don born?

I mean, if your child has gone so far as to contemplate and almost attempt suicide, do you still need someone to tell you you've made an error?

True. And the bolded there is what i call Chronic ignorance.

African parents are easily identified with this attitude. But then, education, i mean, educating them on these things and it's effects could go a long way.

@safarigirl:

Beautiful thread

Thank you.

The things that are important in life are the unseen internal things. Many people won't understand this. The ignorance of parents in issues such as this is shocking. It is even abusive being misunderstood repeatedly, so for the child that makes it double abuse.

If as a parent, you don't understand things like this, you are not fit to be a parent because a person's destiny should not be in the hands of an inexperienced and ignorant fellow. But many people have substituted understanding for good intentions. Good intentions are bull shit if they lack understanding as this has been the cause of other forms of abuse and bad results only for abusers to hide under the excuse of good intentions.

You know what is worse? parents think they know it all until when it is too late but most times, they persist in their ignorance. It is high time emotional abusers face capital punishment. We should not wait for the murder and the likes that we can see before we support capital punishment. Emotional abuse murders the whole internal bliss and future of people even making them to commit suicide. Such a life is it worth living?