Child Abuse: An Exposition EssayBy Dominic EbacherImagine for one moment that you are not yourself any longer.
Visualizeinstead that you are a young girl; old enough to know right from wrong yet stillyoung enough to be terrified by the dark shadows in your room. It is a coolautumn night and your parents have opted to attend a party which you are notallowed at. “It will be fine,” they say. Although you already know what is tocome.
Your uncle comes over to watch you for the evening, and your parents areso pleased by the fact that they do not have to find a sitter. As soon as hearrives, your mother kisses you on the cheek and scurries out the door to joinyour father already waiting in the car outside. The nightmare begins. Hisslimy hands casually slide an ebony cartridge into the VCR as he smiles at youseductively. You can feel his eyes worming their gaze through your clothesevery time that he looks at you. You feel dirty and violated every time youthink about what he does to you when you are alone.
He walks over to the couchand sits down next to you. His hand slithers it way onto your knee and youcringe in revulsion. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you,” he chides. Your mindfeels panicky as you feel his touch in more intimate places and you screaminvoluntarily. His grip tightens as he places his hand over your mouth.
“We’llhave to do this the hard way!” comes his intense whisper. You flail your armsat him, but it doesn’t help. His writhing massive body is on top of yours, andyou feel so powerless. Eventually, you sink into a sobbing heap and simply waitfor his passions to stop. You wait for the nightmare to end.
When he is done,you limp to the laundry room and try fruitlessly to get the blood stains out ofyour clothes. It is all your fault. . .
Abuse: The violation or defilement of;What you have just experienced is one type of abuse that occurs millionsof times every year across America. Estimates of abuse range wildly dependingon the source of ones information. From one to two million children per yearare victims of child abuse. (Dolan p. 3) All sources agree on the simple truththat not nearly all cases of child abuse are reported or even estimated. Mancases go unreported, less than 50% by current estimates.
(Dolan p. 3) Theamount of child abuse is staggering to think about, let alone deal with. By theage of eighteen one in three girls will have been sexually molested and one insix boys will have been molested in that same time frame. (WWW site). Although,throughout this paper we shall discuss not only the effects of sexual abuse butabuse in all its forms. These include Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, MentalAbuse and Neglect.
We will also Touch upon the basic question of this report,and that is, “How has child abuse changed over the last 100 years and whateffects has this had on the family?” This brings us to our first research area,change. It is clear that families are undergoing a number of importantstructural changes: families are smaller than in the past, with fewer childrenand sometimes with only one parent; parents have children at a later age; morecouples live together without the bonds of matrimony which was accepted as asacred bond so few years in human history. The source of this degradation ofsuch a basic unit of society is unknown throughout all areas of research which Icanvassed in my quest. It is a question that one person needs to answer forhimself and solve for himself. Something a young child is not capable of doing. Physical abuse has many forms.
It may involve the hitting or kicking ofa child with the fists or the feet, or with another object; such as belts,shovels, changes, ropes, electric cords, leather straps, canes, baseball bats,sticks, broom handles, or assorted large objects. Other forms of abuse includethe pouring of scalding water or coffee on a child’s body, holding a child’shead under the water of a toilet bowl, stuffed into running washing machines,throwing a child against a wall, shaking a child with extreme force or placingparts of a child’s anatomy on hot or burning objects to cause pain. .
