“You Can Be Their Hero”: A Troubling Tag Line
The television advertising is not new. The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services is running video commercials encouraging people who suspect child abuse to contact the state hotline to report it. It features sad children whose faces lighten as the narrator describes how your call can change their world. It concludes with the statement “You can be their hero.” This is the ad: If you think a child is experiencing abuse or neglect, report it to ChildLine. You can be their hero. | Pennsylvania Department of Human Services | Facebook
As I have seen this ad repeated my thoughts run toward what people on the inside of the child abuse world think of it. No serious person fails to condemn physical and emotion harm inflicted on kids. But figuring it out is among the most daunting tasks law enforcement ever faces.
I spent my morning at a local private school graduation ceremony for 8th graders. It was all any teacher or parent could want. As I listened to their hopes and dreams my mind wandered to Thursday morning’s local news. A 16-year-old child in Norristown, Pa. shot and killed a 15-year-old neighbor in a gang related fight. Those kids are the same age as the kids I watched graduate. They live 18 miles apart geographically but thousands of miles apart culturally. But, kids in eighth grade don’t really grasp “abuse” and they don’t really grasp the permanence of death. It’s true no matter what world a kid grows up in. Neurologists inform us that teens are undergoing a transformation of how their brain thinks. This can cause confusion in terms of assessing what is and isn’t dangerous.
Early in my career, I was appointed guardian of a 14 year old whose father had sexually abused her. He admitted the crime and was about to get the lengthy jail sentence we would all expect. When I met this young woman, I was only 12 years her senior. But I could see she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She didn’t fully grasp what had happened to her except to understand that what her father did was morally reprehensible. What she did understand was that what she reported was sending her father to prison for a very long time. She was confused about what her father had done. Once it came to light, the condemnation was universal. But like all of us she grew up in a world where you are expected to love and honor your parents. They are “family” and “family” is everything. Now, that family was utterly and completely shattered. All that was left was guilt and hatred. As outsiders, our job is easy. Condemn the criminal for his despicable conduct. But where does that leave the fourteen-year-old? When she asked me whether she would see her father again, my head exploded. She didn’t say she wanted to see him again. She understood that the man she knew as “dad” was now a pariah. Yet, she had no context to evaluate just what that meant. If you read Virginia Giuffre’s book about her time in Jeffery Epstein’s world, you will understand that she was 16-17 when she entered that orbit. Like any high school age person, she was overwhelmed by an adult world where she perceived she was “accepted” and “valued”, albeit for reasons that would eventually cause her a lifetime of pain and lead to her suicide.
Predators are everywhere and they don’t always fit our stereotypes. Epstein was an immensely influential investment manager. Ghislane Maxwell is the daughter of British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell and an Oxford graduate. More than 500 women have claimed to be victims of Dr. Larry Nasser and others in the gymnastics community. We could devote a paragraph to those religious community leaders convicted of exploiting children. The one part is clear. Kids don’t grasp sexual abuse in the way adults do. The murky part is that they have been taught from early childhood that they must trust their parent, their coach, their doctor, teacher or minister. Detaching from that trust is a profoundly troubling event and one for which kids get almost no help. The Giuffre book explains that it took her years to effectively process what she had done and the harm it inflicted.
This is not intended to discourage anyone witnessing apparent abuse from calling Childline to report what they see. But, while your anonymity is protected, you need to understand that for those involved in the incident you are reporting, the call can be life-changing. To understand this, we offer a video clip of a seven year old’s testimony that could put his mother in prison for decades. The lawyer examining the child is trying to get it right, but second graders are not typically reliable in analyzing whether adult behavior is criminal. The 7-year-old who sent his own mother to prison | Watch . Imagine that you were the parent-defendant in this case and the outcome of your son’s recollections could mean loss of your child and a life in prison.
The call to Childline is the spark that lights a fuse. The matter is referred to county based child welfare authorities who conduct an investigation. That may or may not quickly involve law enforcement to effect search or seizure of evidence. The county agencies are populated with a diverse set of investigators. Some are highly competent and well-seasoned. But, because counties aren’t known to pay well, you will often see investigations conducted by social workers fresh out of college. They are tasked with assessing whether abuse is “indicated” and if it is, courts will intervene to protect the child and prosecute any conduct that is criminal. Suffice to say, arrival of a social worker to the home of a parent, a coach or teacher, a minister or a physician is an event that will linger for decades.
Our country seems to have locked its attention on who abused children in the worlds of Epstein and his ilk. Respectfully, the attention needs to be focused on how to stop it. We don’t know how to undo the damage inflicted by predators who abuse kids. That makes it all the more important we focus on preventing it. But, one thing is clear. You may be doing the right thing when you phone with an abuse claim. You will not be a hero in the eyes of the victims. They will be focused on figuring out how all of this came about.