Child abuse scandals cry out for us all to truly care

TROXLER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published May 8, 2002

This current scandal over the state's mishandling of child abuse cases, the latest in a long series of scandals, tempts some of us toward simple answers.

The layer that we see on top, the layer that is getting the headlines, is incompetence in the state bureaucracy.

Without a doubt, it exists.

That tempts us into the first too-simple answer. We can fix this thing by pointing fingers, and holding investigations, and finding villains.

But underneath that layer, there has been a policy of impossible caseloads, set by the Legislature, whether placed on state employees or private contractors.

That tempts us into the second too-simple answer: We can fix it if we spend more money.

Then underneath that layer, there has been a looking away by the rest of us, not out of hardheartedness, but out of surrender.

We throw up our hands and get on with our own lives, and figure that the politicians and the state will do what they can.

This tempts us into the third too-simple answer: Society just needs to care more.

Underneath that layer, finally, is the syndrome of child abuse itself, which is too complicated to fathom.

This is where our supply of simple answers runs out.

Some (but not all) of the people that perpetrate this sickness in our society have no more business having children than I have piloting a 747. Poverty, low self-esteem, the self-repeating cycle of abuse -- then add to that a weird strain of pride in our culture at the act of producing children, as if there was some sort of trick to it.

Young people with little else going for them, no education, no responsibility, no future, play at being grown-ups by being able to use the words, "My baby." In a more innocent time we thought most out-of-wedlock, teenage pregnancies could be avoided with education. But what if the choice is deliberate?

(In no way do I imply that all young unmarried parents are bad parents -- I know some who are doing a better job than their married, more "mature" counterparts -- but the link between a person's coping skills in life and child abuse is undeniable. You rarely see a headline saying: 30-something, stable, employed married man shakes baby to death.)

Of course, this, too, is too simplistic and unfair an analysis. The cycle of abuse and neglect, and its underlying causes, also exist behind closed doors in Palma Ceia and Palm Harbor and the Old Northeast. It is endemic. We cannot throw enough people in prison to make it stop. We cannot "crack down" on it because we don't even know what to crack down on. We are fighting the most difficult enemy, the darkest part of our own human nature.

So none of the too-simple answers works by itself.

A combination of them might help.

Absolutely, let's look at the bureaucracy, and improve the system. But we can't stop there.

Absolutely, let's make the Legislature reduce caseloads and pay for better help. Social services are at the bottom of the ladder in Tallahassee. Even public education, which is so out of fashion, fares better.

But the extra thing is that all of us need to tell the Legislature that we care, even as we pursue our own selfish interests. I am as guilty of it as everybody else: I've spent far more energy this spring complaining about a $5-a-month increase in our telephone bill.

Later this year, your legislator might come to you and ask you for re-election. If you get the chance, you should tell him or her: "I care more about this than you think I do."

And what about beyond that?

Beyond blue-ribbon committees, and beyond money, down in the gut of our culture, we still need to do more.

What are the churches doing about it? What are the service clubs doing about it? What are the neighborhood associations doing about it?

And if you say, "What business is child abuse of my church or my service club or my neighborhood?" then reconsider how absolutely insane that answer sounds.

It is possible to do better. It has to be.

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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