Child Abuse, and abuse of adult children.

[MonkeySage]

Looking back on my life, I can only think about how much I lucked out. My mother and I have a fantastic relationship, and one that I think got even better after I came out as gay to her at the age of 19. I even get along well with my redneck stepfather(though him and I still have many disagreements). More and more I'm realizing how unfortunately rare this is in America.

Child abuse is rampant in this country, and often when it is addressed, the abusing parent will get defensive and order you not to tell them how to raise their child.

Even worse, for many people this abuse continues well into adulthood.

An economically dependent and psychologically broken adult may even find themselves trapped in under their parents roof, still every bit a prison as it was when they were younger; for many, even if they leave, they have no where to go. Many of my friends find themselves in this position, and I find myself unable to do anything to help them out of it. Some of them have even come to believe that this is normal and acceptable, and have stopped fighting it.

I want to discuss possible solutions to this problem, and maybe let this thread serve as a place where victims of child abuse(young and old) could come and share their experiences and find support among people with similar experiences.

[Grinner]

The way you've introduced this subject is so nebulous as to be useless. You've failed to identify what exactly you're identifying adult-child abuse as. All you've said is "There is a big problem, and we need to talk about it!".

[MonkeySage]

I don't think it would be very helpful for me, as an observer to identify specific forms of behavior that qualify as child abuse. I can only present my own observations: the people I've seen on the receiving end of abuse are often, but not always, physically assaulted by their care takers. They're almost always on the receiving end of some form of verbal abuse, made to feel as if they are unintelligent, made to feel worthless.

Children who are victims of abuse are often terrified of their caretaker.

One thing I observed while working fast food was that this child was hadn't gotten something that they wanted. Now, the parent could have handled it any number of different ways. Instead he used his superior stature and strength to intimidate the child. He threatened the kid.

[RandomNPC]

This could get political or religous real quick, seeing as law enforcement (potential politics) or moral belief (religion) could come up. I'll try to keep it both civil and within bounds.

Most of the abuses I've seen can no longer be addressed, mostly because the abusive parent has passed away, in two cases because a child has passed.

One instance, we'll call them the twins. Gym teacher called the twins out on bruises, and they start pouring out stories of how stepdad isn't allowed to beat them, only mom is, but sometimes he does it anyway. Law enforcement takes the twins from school, questions them, and then takes them home to mom and stepdad. The next day they pull a 180 and tell everyone they fight with each other, not mom and stepdad. I knew their older brother, and he frequently claimed he fought with his mom and stepdad specifically to keep them away from the twins, he didn't want that to go public because he didn't want to be removed and leave his brothers with them. The problem is the bit at the beginning of this paragraph, after telling a story about being beaten by both parents the police dropped the twins off with said parents, told them everything that was said, and drove off. I watched that happen to that family multiple times. Now one of the twins is in jail and the one everyone thought was the better of the two is dead from drug overdose.

Another instance, a girl I knew in school. She was adopted, and I have no idea how they managed to adopt her. Her dad smoked like a chimney and beat his wife and adopted daughter. Always showing up with new bruises, she started cutting herself because she thought it was better than telling someone what was going on. When she turned sixteen they signed the paperwork to have her married off to someone who would be responsible as legal guardian until she turned 18 (Yes this is a thing in the USA) She immediately got emancipated and divorced, and became a legal adult at 16. Then she married my best friend, they had two kids and split, she almost killed their son, and the courts told him the only reason they were giving custody to the dad was the medical records showed just how close to death he was. That's right, the judge told him abused and malnourished was fine, she still would have granted custody, if it wasn't for a few extra details. The mother (Adopted daughter at beginning of story) wound up couch surfing across the country and back, three years later, when she got back, she got into heavy drugs, wound up stealing from friends and family, and after someone came into town from elsewhere looking to collect on debts she owed she took herself out of the equation rather permanently. So yes, it does pass down the generations, the courts favor abusive women over men, and it didn't end well.


Basically in my experience, as much help as you can offer, it's really hard to get someone out of that kind of situation. I've offered friendship as often and as solidly as I could, because the system is not made to help these people.