From his website…”My name is Matt Pipkin, I’m 26 years old, and I just started talking a couple years ago about the fact that I was molested when I was five. I kept it secret all that time because I thought it was my fault and was terrified and ashamed to tell anyone. I started counseling last year and that former fear and weight has become my driving force. I’m doing this for others who are walking in similar shoes – and I’m doing this for the five-year old me who went through this.”

So much of what we read and hear about child sexual abuse is horrifying. It’s easy to turn away. This, though, is tremendously inspiring and we can help spread a positive message. You can donate to his fund raising campaign and/or post  the campaign link to your Facebook page, tweet it, blog it, etc.,  and encourage others to do the same.

It seems we more often hear about women making great initiatives in this arena and it’s equally inspiring to see men taking the lead…1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before they’re 18. Our society offers up such intense stigma it can create even greater barriers for boys to come forward and seek help. Let’s make that change.

I have a son (who adores airplanes) and I have a healthy fear related to keeping his world free from abuse. However, if he were to be abused (and it hurts to even write that) I wish for him the courage and support to heal. I’d do everything possible to help him regain his personal power, to abolish shame−to help his spirit take flight. I wish for a society where stigma is banished and where survivors are embraced with warmth and understanding, compassion and love. I believe we can work toward creating that society.

What a gift to see this young man continue to take back his personal power and perhaps if we participate in helping his campaign gain viral momentum, we can also make a positive difference while helping someone’s dream soar.

You can also read more here and you can “Like” his Facebook page here

Thanks so much

Tricia

Every time I read about a story of child abuse involving a man as the perpetrator and the news report or court documents state the mother claims not to have known about the abuse, sometimes for years and years, I’m always undeniably skeptical. Right or wrong, forward-thinking or completely stuck in the dark ages, disbelief is my immediate reaction.

I do hold mothers to a higher standard. I expect a mother to be able to pick up on the nuances of her child in emotional pain and certainly to recognize physical injury. I don’t cut any slack to mothers who spout denial and unknowing and gasp in horror at a revelation only when confronted with it. How does a mother not know, for example, that her boyfriend broke her child’s bone, molested her son or daughter for years and years or routinely beats her 5-year old? The news is full of these kinds of stories. After all, we’re still a country that has to claim our statistics…4 children die every day of child abuse and neglect.

Of course when I get over my gut-level response, I can intellectually process that many mothers are also being abused and don’t have the personal power to stop and reclaim their own lives so it’s unreasonable to believe they have the power to reclaim the lives of their children. In my mind I can categorically go through what I know about the psychology of abuse, I can connect the dots and create logical arguments, yet in my heart I’m often unable to make that reconciliation. Do you do the same thing, or do you have a more forgiving heart than I do?

What if the mother isn’t being abused but still doesn’t recognize the symptoms her children are undoubtedly manifesting. Do you hold her to an even higher standard? I do…right or wrong, I do. And then there are mothers who are so powerless, so completely paralyzed by fear and life peril they don’t have the power to save their children even when their children are being abused right in front of them. Take this case for example…

DALLAS, TEXAS - Three Children Severely Emaciated and Abused.

Police said they learned about the case earlier this month when the children’s mother, Abnersis Santiago, called officers to the Budget Suites Motel on Stemmons Freeway. She told officers she was afraid of her husband and wanted the police there while she took the children and moved out. But after seeing three of the four children aged 5, 10 and 11 year old, officers said they called Child Protective Services instead. They said the children looked like they were being starved. Police described the case as one of the worst cases of child abuse they’ve seen. Court documents describe just how badly the children were abused.

A doctor reported they were horribly emaciated, underweight and malnourished. He described their nutritional status as life threatening. He also said there was a history of severe, ongoing physical, emotional and mental neglect, the documents state. All three were hospitalized for more than a week.

According to court documents, the children also told officers their stepfather, Alfredo Santiago, forced them to sit in the bathroom all day. Both Alfredo and Abnersis Santiago are now in jail.

Police said the mother did not commit the abuse, but she didn’t do anything to stop it. “It’s definitely her responsibility to see to the welfare of her children. She bears extreme responsibility, more so than anyone else,” said Sgt. Warren Mitchell. Police said the couple also had a baby together. That child was healthy.
All four children are now in foster care.

(Action Alert from Children Without A Voice)

What does your heart scream? Do you hold mothers to a higher standard, and should we? Does a higher standard perpetuate fear for mothers who want to come forward to save their children, but the wrath of society adds an additional layer of burden?

The media does a wonderful job of shocking us, repulsing us, and when we read about these types of atrocities, we ache. We also turn our heads in a different direction because the gut-level insanity is too much to wallow in for long; it affects our psyche and leaves us feeling helpless. The inundation of abuse stories in every publication and broadcast easily creates a sense of hopelessness where we don’t know where to turn, or how to help.

Reporting the stories, feeling the shock and horror is important, but so is our ability to collectively move toward helping create families free from abuse, and the media is not doing a good job in that regard. Simply gorging on the atrocities doesn’t provide any type of real-life solutions or empower us as a society of people who really do care.

It only takes a second, a tiny click inside the exhausted and frustrated mind of a parent to make the leap into child abuse. It may start with a parent yelling, trying desperately to demand compliance from a child who is simply hell bent on screaming, or throwing his food, or stomping her feet. As the frustration mounts and the struggle for control escalates, a parent without coping skills could all too easily lay violent hands and voice on the one person they’re duty-bound to protect and nurture.

If you’re a parent or caregiver, I feel pretty confident to assume you’ve been in these situations. You’re tired. You’re trying to keep it together. You’re stressed and anxious for a variety of reasons and your child has decided he or she is going to take your last ounce of sanity and throw it in your face. In that instant when you feel the rage and helplessness begin to grow, you make a choice. You choose to yell and scream. You choose to spank or slap or kick, or you choose something else, some way to cope that doesn’t include verbal or physical retribution toward a child so much smaller and weaker than you. It’s always a choice.

The stories of child abuse reported in our media are justifiably shocking and I understand all too well how much more comforting it is to turn the page or the channel and to think the statistics so overwhelming that there’s nothing I can do. It’s not true though. There is a lot I can do, and that you can do. We don’t have to imagine ourselves riding white horses into rings of fire. We can start simply, where roots begin to grow. Rather than feeling shocked and overwhelmed, we can reach out into our daily interactions and share a nugget of wisdom, a lesson learned hard.

What coping mechanisms do you use? When you feel like you’re about to slip over the edge, when you’re in that instant where you have to make a choice, what do you do? What tips can you share with other parents?

The hardest part of our work with these teens was trying to redefine their idea of normal, my friend explained. You can provide the education, the tools and resources, but we’re working to overcome a multi-generational value system and set of expectations.

For generations, my own family lived a rather warped version of normal and redefining ourselves and our legacy continues to be both glorious and harrowing. Some of us are further in our journey and some of us are still stagnating in a shallow pool of denial.

My grandmother, a victim of untold atrocities as a child, married a man who sexually abused eight children that we know of. Living with secrets, hers and her husband’s, defined a normal that served as a shroud for continued abuse and allowed it to weave its way through another two generations…my mother’s and mine.

There are so many organizations working to build awareness and stop the abuse that runs rampant through families. People that are diligently, tirelessly, striving to change our society’s normal, but every six hours a child in this country dies from abuse, and 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually assaulted before they reach 18. We still seem unable to redefine that normal.

I know reading and talking about child abuse and domestic violence isn’t how we’d all like to spend our time. The stories are ugly, the emotions volcanic, and it feels safer, easier, to turn our heads or look away. Perhaps if we can’t see it, it’ll never become our own normal. Yet we all know there is more strength in a line of people holding hands while facing a storm than there is when we try to stand alone. Redefining normal requires we all take part in the conversations.

One of my aunts believed all fathers molested their daughters. It wasn’t until she was 12-years-old and asked a friend if her father also molested his children that my aunt began to redefine her own normal.

It’s not only that we need to continue efforts to raise awareness, lobby our legislatures to impose harsher punishment for convicted abusers, but in addition to these important, vital initiatives, we need to create a comfort level where talking about abuse, eliminating cloaks of darkness where abusers thrive, is not an activity where voices collapse in whispers.

After a family blow out in which a sixth victim pointed her finger at my grandfather, he was forced to attend psychological counseling. His doctor eventually closed the file, labeled a pedophile cured and assured our family this would never happen again.

We still didn’t talk about it. My family’s not-so-unique ability to envelope ourselves in denial opened the door for at least two more children to be molested.  As insane as it sounds, we were unable to redefine our family’s normal until much later. Everyone was still seated at the table gorging on platefuls of shame and while we allowed denial to distend our souls like the bellies of Vikings feasting, he was free to satisfy his own hunger.

Conversations about what should and what should not be normal could have catapulted insanity from our lives. Developing a collective conscience requires the steady elimination of shame that surrounds each story of abuse and that requires talking, listening and more talking. We can help redefine normal for victims of domestic and sexual abuse by simply having conversations. If you have a story to tell, please do. Have the conversations at your dinner table, in your classrooms, with your friends and with your children. If you have minutes to spare, take the pledge at Violence UnSilenced.

My grandfather was not the only person who molested me when I was a child, but it was his betrayal that finally gave me a voice. Days before my grandfather decided it was time for my initiation I overheard my mother and her sister discussing something in soft voices. My aunt was upset, trembling and crying. I could feel her sadness and her rage and when I asked why, she sucked in enough air to balloon her bravery and she exhaled the words that my grandfather had molested all of his daughters while they were growing up. It was the first time she and my mom had mentioned their shared history to me or to each other. The conversation ended quickly. They weren’t ready to redefine their normal, but that exchange opened a door for me to walk through only a few days later when my grandfather decided I’d be the sixth little girl he’d enjoy. I knew I wasn’t alone and I knew my parents would believe me. I knew this didn’t have to be my normal.

He was bare-chested, appropriately clad in swimming trunks and easily preying in 5 feet of water. He was surrounded by three prepubescent girls. Maybe the one he was holding a little too closely was his daughter. I did hear Daddy ripple over the water. I have no way to know, no reason to judge how this man was playfully engaging with bikinis draped across newly-forming breasts and hips that had only begun to curve. There was nothing in his public display that should have set off alarms but as soon as our eyes met, I knew.

I’ve seen that look before and in the second it took for me to lose the aerobic routine’s rhythm, he felt my confusion and a little too promptly, a little too harshly, he released his playful, ticklish hold from under her arms and pushed the child away from his body. It was simply happenstance that our glances crossed, an inadvertent sway of my head as I moved my body to the instructor’s beat, but the immediate, defiant tilt of his chin and clandestine glint in his eye told a story, a narrative I know too well.

I’m not prone to hysteria or conclusions. I tend to seek explanations and champion the underdogs, but I’ve also learned with time and experience to trust my instincts. Last night my soul screamed and my gut whispered…he’s one of them. If you’ve been abused, if you’ve been witness to your own slaying, you know what I’m talking about. You know about the little voice you learn to hear; the whistle and hum that starts softly and resounds quickly to tighten the pace of your heart and tingle your spine.

My body’s response was so intense last night, my instincts screaming so loudly, I’d sit at the feet of mercy and put it all on the line if asked to testify and accuse.

Do you ever have that feeling…a gut check so extreme it haunts you for days?

Every place I’ve looked or ventured today I am stalked once again by the statistics—1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually assaulted before they turn 18.

I shouldn’t be surprised. With 800 homes in my subdivision, I’m sure there’s more than one pedophile at my pool, or at your pool, at my playground or at yours. They’re everywhere, aren’t they.

Child sexual abuse is top-of-mind for me as I work through and dissect material for the book I’m writing, and naturally that process is finding its way into the pages here. It feels right to me, for me, and so I’m making peace with the current reality of losing readership as a result. Really, I am. Kind of.

On a more macro level, I’ve become intensely curious about the social ill-at-ease and manifestations of shifting comfort zones regarding the conversations I want to have. I keep wondering if it’s so difficult a topic to discuss, to embrace, will there ever come a day when statistics aren’t as overwhelming as they are now—1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys? The numbers play chase and leapfrog through my mind, replaying their intensity every time I let my eyes wander over a playground.

Discussing sex in any forum is still taboo on so many levels of our society. Men are supposed to love for it, kill for it, cheat for it; women are supposed to tolerate it, act coy to it, make a gift of it.  We wrap nudity and curiosity into scruffy wool blankets where they don’t belong. We scoff at the idea of adult sexual play and assume mothers and fathers are so busy raising children they no longer intrigue themselves or their partners, yet the mini vans parked in front of adult toy stores tell a different story. We’re shut up, silently cuffed by a deep-seeded puritanical attitude that’s more cloak than dagger. We pretend ambivalence, deny desire, joke or pander to the idea of lust, and yet privately we write different stories. We struggle to talk with friends, we lament about having to discuss sex with our children and we continue to tell ourselves…You can do it, but you can’t talk about it.

And so I wonder and I worry. Is our attitude about sex and our need to keep private, even secret, that which is a natural human desire the root of our difficulty in discussing sexual abuse? Sexual abuse and human sexuality are not the same; in fact they are so far removed from each other they can’t even claim kindred spirits. Their entwining is often where victims lose themselves on a life path of difficult choices and confusion. It’s where abusers and their victims tango in horror and it’s where the innocent cling to shame.

I want to know what you think, what you believe. If you tell me, honestly, you can help me to have a more lasting impact in other forums and in the lives of children. If people don’t want to hear, we’ll never create change. I need to understand and I need your help because I’m too close to the fire.

The subject of child sexual abuse makes people itch and click because…why?

Multiple children in our little preschool have either already been or will one day be sexually abused, and who is it that will make prey of these precious little ones? Well, according to research, 90 percent will be abused by someone they know, either a family member or a trusted family friend will take it upon themselves to create secret, intimate moments with your child or my child.

The next time you’re at a ball game, a high school sporting event or a child’s birthday party, look around and wonder who is keeping secrets, and who should be headed to jail? This isn’t the stuff that happens to someone else. It’s not the bad dream of poverty or the shrug of the educated elite; it’s in your neighborhood and mine. It’s in your school and mine. It’s in your church and in my park. It’s in our playgroups and our peer groups. For God’s sake, it’s in our families and in our homes.

The statistics hurt:

• 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18.
• 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18.
• An estimated 39 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse exist in America today.

Thanks Danielle for sending me the link to the following information…

Darkness to Light is a non-profit organization whose mission is to reduce the incidence of child sexual abuse by shifting the responsibility of prevention from children to adults. The mission is accomplished through an award winning media campaign that raises public awareness and directs adults to educational tools. The tools teach adults how to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse and include the 7 Steps to Preventing Child Sexual Abuse and the consciousness training based Stewards of Children curriculum. For more information on how you can help prevent child sexual abuse, please visit www.darkness2light.org.

If you’re a blogger, won’t you consider joining me by adding this graphic and link to your sidebar?

There’s lots to gain and nothing to lose by increasing awareness, education and participating in the conversation. Can I count on you?

Here’s the code:

<A HREF=”http://www.darkness2light.org/default.asp?refer=web”>

<img border=0 src=”http://www.d2l.org/images/d2l_tm.gif”>

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Women and children who’ve endured men’s violence carry with them an internal shame that permeates their self definition and labels us needing. Make no mistake that incest is men’s violence against women and children, and labeling the abused as brave, or recovering, or in need of help continues the social dialogue of victims at fault or powerless. Have you ever considered, even for a moment, that the shame of the abused is not only because of the acts they’ve endured, but because as a society, when we hear another story, embrace another woman’s truth, often our first socially-mandated response is to begin the process of telling the abused she needs help.

Have you gone to therapy? Have you learned to forgive your abuser? How has the abuse affected your life and left you lacking? If these questions are the majority focus of our conversations with victims of men’s violence against women—if we’re constantly trying to fix victims—the loud and clear message we’re sending is that the abused person herself certainly does have something to be ashamed of—after all, why would she need fixing if there wasn’t something wrong with her?

Why is the first stop the therapist’s office instead of the police station?

Could the seedling of shame grow from our prescribed community response to the abused instead of the outrage and legal recourse we should have toward the male abuser?

Prompted by some recent preschool playground tomfoolery, I’ve been talking with Aaron about what it means to be a good friend and how important it is to stand up for ourselves and each other, not to be a follower when your instincts tell you to lead in a different direction and how it’s critical to help people who don’t have a voice.  Sometimes our actions can change people’s lives. These are all big concepts for a 5-year-old and the examples I try to pull out of my hat have to be simple and age appropriate.

When he’s older and our conversations can take on more depth, this is one of the stories I’ll tell him…

My mother and her three sisters never discussed that their father was molesting them. Mom believed she was the only one. Aunt K thought all fathers ran their hands over naked, prepubescent bodies. Their definition of normal was exactly what they knew.

In December when I started gathering material for the book, I was sitting with my mother and two of her sisters at a long, wooden kitchen table. Bantering my first round of questions, trying to initiate discussion, and although awkward at first and unsure how they were really going to respond to someone prodding memories from old caves, I was excited by their honesty and willingness to share with me.

Memories don’t shake dust in straight lines. They pop out unexpectedly, initiated by a word or glance and often they have their own chronological desires. Later memories are easier to call forward than the earliest series of betrayals and so we’ve spent much time dancing together through unhinged cobwebs.

While discussing story beginnings we jumped to the story’s middle when Aunt K told us about her 13-year-old self crossing the line. As her father tried taming her soul to satisfy his warped sexual desires, she felt her mind exploding. A childhood spent in fear, confusion and pain fueled her tiny body. The years of needing someone to see, to listen and to stand up for her when nobody would somehow gave her a resolve she’d never been empowered to have. She screamed. She yanked herself away. She threw her foot back and drop kicked him in the groin. As he fell to the floor clutching himself, she swore through clenched teeth and waving fists ready to batter a bigger parent, that if he ever touched her again, she’d kill him.

He never did.

Hearing her sister’s story, Aunt L’s chin quivered and her eyes cascaded. “If you were 13,” she quickly realized, “I was 15 and that’s when the abuse stopped for me too. It just all of a sudden stopped.” She reached kitty-corner across the table and pulled Aunt K’s hands into her own, “You saved me too.”

What would it take to identify monsters before they hurt a child instead of after the damage is done? Couldn’t we stop children from dying at the hands of their parents and caregivers if in fact we looked a little harder? Isn’t there a way to help people see that parenting is an honor and that children are jewels?

I told you it was a silly dream.