The History of Child Abuse (how do you think it effects us globaly now?)

The History of Child Abuse
by Lloyd deMause
The Journal of Psychohistory 25 (3) Winter 1998

www.psychohistory.com...

The following speech was given at the National Parenting Conference in Boulder, Colorado, on September 25, 1997.

During the past three decades, I have spent much of my scholarly life examining primary sources such as diaries, autobiographies, doctor's reports, ethnographic reports and other documents that document what it must have felt like to have been a child--yesterday and today, in the East and the West, in literate and preliterate cultures.

In several hundred studies published by myself and my associates in The Journal of Psychohistory, we have provided extensive evidence that the history of childhood has been a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes--and the further away from the West one gets--the more massive the neglect and cruelty one finds and the more likely children are to have been killed, rejected, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused by their caretakers.

Indeed, my conclusion from a lifetime of psychohistorical study of childhood and society is that the history of humanity is founded upon the abuse of children. Just as family therapists today find that child abuse often functions to hold families together as a way of solving their emotional problems, so, too, the routine assault of children has been society's most effective way of maintaining its collective emotional homeostasis. Most historical families once practiced infanticide, erotic beating and incest. Most states sacrificed and mutilated their children to relieve the guilt of adults. Even today, we continue to arrange the daily killing, maiming, molestation and starvation of children through our social, military and economic activities. I would like to summarize here some of the evidence I have found as to why child abuse has been humanity's most powerful and most successful ritual, why it has been the cause of war and social violence, and why the eradication of child abuse and neglect is the most important social task we face today.

please read entire speech, i believe that this topic has a huge impact on the formation of our global society today. before i had children i was a freudian psychotherapist and i read many books on paediology both from past and present. being most interested in mental health, psychopathology and criminology. when i was a student my teacher suggeted i read material such as mein kampf (sp?), and several books on well known killers... the boys whom killed jamie bulger, the wests, the cannible chap from uk etc. what i realised then was that it is very easy to 'make' damaged people and how that society turns a blind eye to the causes. (read 'for your own good' and 'the drama of being a child' for more every day neurotic people as apposed to psychotic). i know that this isnt new news but i believe that it is very applicable currant topic, one that shapes our society, we are all to some degree products of our child hood.
i have to go now little one needs me, mods please rearange post as needed.
m x


edits to do title
[edit on 20-5-2008 by morganathefey]

[edit on 20-5-2008 by morganathefey]

With all due respect Morgan. I believe we all have our demons to live with.

yes but look at it in a global context, is all very well saying we have our own demonds to live with but my point is that the abuse that happens globally will have an effect on a global level. how different societies bring up their children will have a knock on affect. there is many problems with the world today that with concious parenting could be avoided.
m x
ps may i ask if you read the whole artical?

[edit on 20-5-2008 by morganathefey]

Survival is survival. Even in the most direst of conditions.

reply to post by jpm1602


i'm sorry jpm but i'm not sure what you mean by that please explain, you see i read it as in order to survive abuse then its ok to continue the cycle, clearly this is not the way forward.
i'm talking about what happens to children across the globe imho has a direct link to how populations live......

THE TASK OF THE FUTURE
That all social violence--whether by war, revolution or economic exploitation--is ultimately a consequence of child abuse should not surprise us. The propensity to reinflict childhood traumas upon others in socially-approved violence is actually far more able to explain and predict the actual outbreak of wars than the usual economic motivations, and we are likely to continue to undergo our periodic sacrificial rituals of war if the infliction of childhood trauma continues. Clear evidence has been published in The Journal of Psychohistory that the more traumatic one's childhood, the more one is likely to be in favor of military solutions to social problems.

'http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/05_history.html'

m x

I have my reasons to say what I say. You are correct in your assertions. Don't want to go to places I'd rather forget. Daddy had a heavy hand when pissed off. Drop of the hat mostly.

cripes, a warning might be in order, the full articel is really, really disturbing, more so than i expected. sorry, i couldn't get through the whole thing but i think i got the jist.

if it is true, it would have a large impact but i'm not at all sure it is. it seems to be based on three books, from the bibliography, which is a very small sample of all the anthropology books available that referance the subject.

the surveys regarding the us, uk, canada and germany seem to have very high proportions of people to me. almost one in two people having experianced child abuse seems ludicrous.

india, china and japan as well as large swathes of the near east all having socitally endemic child abuse practices seems a little over blown to say the least.

i'm very suspicious, sounds like scare mongering.

Four years old. Threw a tantrum I could'nt have a popsicle after lunch. Mom working. Dad popped me across room. Big GM worker. Mom freaked when I wouldn't come near him when he left for second shift. Know all about getting wooped. Tried to ascend above in my lifetime. Do I blame him? No. He did the best he could. Spent every waking moment in my teens bulking up. Protein powder/eggs. He called me out to the street at 16 and I looked him in the eye and said lets dance while my mom was freaking. He backed down. Bully is is what bully does. Issues, you bet ya.

[edit on 5/20/2008 by jpm1602]

just to get some idea of how wide spread child abuse is ......... although i feel that it is a conservative estimate........

UN report uncovers global child abuse

By David Usborne in New York
Thursday, 12 October 2006

* According to the World Health Organisation, up to 53,000 children are murdered worldwide each year.

* Between 80 and 93 per cent of children suffer some form of physical punishment in their homes; a third are punished using implements.

* In 2002, the WHO estimated that 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 experienced some form of forced sexual intercourse or violence.

* 218 million children worldwide are labourers, 126 million of whom work in hazardous environments.

* 1.8 million are involved in prostitution or pornography and 1.2 million have been trafficked.

* Up to 275 million witness domestic abuse annually.

* Eight million worldwide are in residential care.

* There are 250,000 child soldiers in the world.

* According to Amnesty International, 40 per cent of soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are children. 11,000 have still yet to be disarmed.

* One billion children live in countries where it is legal to beat pupils.

* Save the Children says a million children worldwide have been imprisoned.

SOURCES: WHO, UN, AI and Save The Children

reply to post by jpm1602


i'm so sorry that you went though what you did, you are very brave to post painfull details about your life.
m x

reply to post by pieman


sorry pieman i dont know how to do warnings, i have after 4 years just worked out how to post articals from the web.
m x

reply to post by morganathefey


I'm sorry, but this article is the biggest load of bullocks I have EVER read!

To sum it up for those that don't want read it:

East = Bad
West = Good

That being said I do not in any way refute the fact that through out histroy and in fact today children are often the victims of abuse. It is clear that throughout history children have been victims over and over again.

reply to post by Merigold


may i ask if you have actualy done any research on this topic? i would be very interested in hearing how you have drawn your conclusions. the gentalman whom wrote the artical is well thought of in his field of learning. did you look at the un report?
m x

reply to post by morganathefey


saying it is disturbing would be enough i'ld imagine, although it goes without saying in this subject i guess, i was a little shocked at how un-sanitised it was. wasn't meant as a critisim.

there are a few things i'ld like to question from your secound quote block, perhaps just for the sake of discussion. the subject interests me but i'm not sure the reality has been reflected so far.

if there are 250,000 child soldiers in the world, then 53,000 murders doesn't shock me. also, how is the term child soldier designated, soldiers under 18, 16, 12 or what age. in most cultures a boy becomes a man at 13/14, should he then be listed as a child soldier? if we say a person is responcible for their actions at this age, ie. they can be prosicuted for crimes, can we critise other countries for allowing them to soldier?

"some form of physical punishment" is a wishy washy term, are we talking beatings or a slap on the back of the legs during a tantrum?

who estimates for forced sexual intercourse is about 3.5% of the population of earth, this is greatly at odds with the oridginal piece.

again, with the child labourers and prisoner figure, how do they define child in these terms?

again, i feel that perhaps the figures have been massaged to suit interest groups.


EDIT: oh, and the UN report isn't linked.

[edit on 20-5-2008 by pieman]

reply to post by morganathefey


I'm sorry, Morgan but he isn't well thought of and his branch of study isn't either.

Psychohistory isn't studied at ANY institute of higher learning and is generally thought of as a psuedoscience

DeMause believes that his detractors are not largely moved by any evidence, but rather are unconsciously motivated to attack those who would challenge the idea of "good parenting" throughout the many of cultures

This is the argument that is used often here on ATS - " I'm right and the only reason you disagree is because you've been brainwashed"

reply to post by pieman


www.independent.co.uk...
i found it here
i believe that WHO define children as under 18, but i'll have to check that.
i know that WHO's estimate of child sexual abuse is different to the op, i will try to find some stats and post later, when i did my training it was estimated that 1 in 5 children in uk will be exposed to sexual abuse (children up to age 18) and at least 1 in 3 other typs of abuse....however i suppose it depends on ones definition of abuse, some will say eg nspcc that smacking is. i will find some research to post but will wait till my children are in bed
m x

reply to post by Merigold


i dont think that you have been brain washed but if you ever get a hold of any alice miller books they are definatly well worth reading. 150 years ago in uk it was concidered to be good parenting if you beat your child for its misbehaviour for at least the first 5 years of its life, after that age the child isnt likely to repress the memories of the beatings it had, if you get my gist
m x

reply to post by morganathefey

i look forward to it, i know i'm kind of going off on a tangent but i feel it's important to get a realistic picture of the situation before it's possible to understand the worldwide ramifications.

sorry to hound this, but when you say 1 in 5 children in the UK under 18 experiance sexual abuse, does that also include a figure of 2 for every couple under 16 having consentual relations, as they would both be included as victims under law.

these types of statistics are everywhere, they seem to be put out mostly by interested parties, they don't seem to bear true in most peoples lives and so i feel strongly that they can be classed in most part as misinformation or disinformation, depending on the primary source. but maybe thats a thread on its own.

Honestly I'd believe the East is way worse on parenting in general and child abuse in particular. Look at how they treat animals. Then do a magical thing called extrapolate, and you have a pretty good idea of how they treat children. Anybody have any idea how many child prostitutes are in Thailand? By extension, how many children are abused and just generally treated like crap in that country? Honestly anyone trying to downplay child abuse is a twat. Think about it this way, what greater percentage of all **** ups have been abused as children? I'd wager it makes a major difference. Show me the society with the least child abuse, and I'll have seen the society with the least social problems, period.

reply to post by Merle8


How do they treat animals? Is it simliar to how we treat them? Battery farms? Factory farming?

Thailand and other deprived, economically depressed countries often produce social horrors like child prostitution. Then again, economically blessed nations often produce child killers.

Enough with the generalizations. Child abuse is wrong, immoral, disgusting.

Saying that the east is inherently more abusive towards children is a lie.

Humankind is guilty. In the distant and not so distant past all societies have been guilty of it. In the present ALL people, no matter the genetic make up have cases of abuse and neglect.