A valuable article about childhood sexual abuse

Posted on Friday, January 23, 2015 by Rebecca

How do sexual abusers gain the trust of their young victims and why do parents “let” them? How do they get by with it? Why don’t the child victims say anything? How can a mother insist she had no idea what was going on? These are questions that trouble people whenever the subject of childhood sexual abuse comes up.

I found an article online that offers a concise explanation of the “grooming” process. It is all valuable information, but I wanted to highlight this:

Mother blaming tactics

The myths around child sexual abuse often describe the reasons the offender sexually abused the child as being the mother’s fault. Some of these reasons could be that the mother was sick, worked long hours, or was frightened of the perpetrator. As a mother, you are not to blame for the sexual abuse. The sexual abuse of children is just one part of a system of trickery and abuse created to maintain secrecy, isolation and the offender’s absolute power over the child and all others in the child’s life. The offender sets up a web-like structure of traps, lies and distortions to isolate the victim and recreate the child as problematic in the eyes of siblings, the mother, friends, family and neighbours. In particular, offenders admit that their prime target is to destroy the child’s relationship of trust with the mother (Morris, 2003).

The relationship problems between mother and child that are commonly seen after the abuse is disclosed are more likely to be the result of a campaign of disinformation orchestrated by the offender. The offender’s actions create a context in which the mother and child are blind to his role in creating the difficulties in their relationship (Laing and Kamsler, 1990). In fact, one of the most common tactics by the offender is creating a division between the mother and child. The mother blaming shifts the focus from the offender to the mother, in search for someone to blame.

Research shows that the vast majority of mothers do not know that sexual abuse was occurring, and this is part of the offender’s campaign to keep the abuse secret. Offenders work hard to be seen as the idea father, uncle, grandfather, brother or a trusted family friend who is wonderful with children.

Read more here: Sex offender tactics and grooming

Responding to a disturbing article about home birth

Posted on Monday, January 19, 2015 by Rebecca

This article has been bothering me ever since I read it this morning: Worshiping home births. It referenced another article: My True Feelings Regarding my Home Birth Experience

Articles like this demand a response. The following is a somewhat edited and expanded version of what I posted on Facebook about both of them.

I was quite active in the “birthing community” back in my day, up until about 15 years ago. During that time, I read a lot of birth-related books, magazines, publications, and websites. I was a La Leche League Leader and an officer in the Los Angeles chapter of the Cesarean Prevention Movement, which later became the International Cesarean Awareness Network. I even edited their newsletter for awhile. I knew more than a few doctors, midwives, doulas, childbirth educators, advocates, and birthing moms. As part of all that, I met some outspoken proponents of home birth (including two ob/gyn’s and at least one pediatrician) and even some advocates of unassisted birthing. But I can’t recall meeting anyone who “worshiped” home birth. Nor have I ever met a pregnant woman who seemed so woefully ignorant of childbirth as the woman who wrote the article about her own home birth. (Spoiler alert: she actually expected childbirth to be “glamorous”! I’m not kidding! She wrote, “I went into my home birth wanting that picture perfect birth — just like all the other home birth photos showed. I wanted to be that pretty momma — laughing during labor — sitting in the pool looking glamorous and happy.”)

I have met women who gushed a bit embarrassingly — and I thought excessively — over their male obstetricians and women who practically sang the praises of their epidurals, but I would hardly accuse them of idolatry.

Out of my six births, five were planned home births. Three were actually born at home. One of those births resulted in an emergency transport. I was told by the doctors who treated our son that he arrived in better shape than if he had been born in the hospital available to us had we not chosen a home birth. His condition would not have been prevented by a different birth location.

At the time, our midwife had delivered about 500 babies at home and a little more than that in the hospital. She had not lost one baby. Another midwife in the same area had delivered over 500 babies at home and the only one that died was due to a father refusing an ambulance transport and insisting on taking a long, out of the way route to the hospital because — as the midwife learned later — he didn’t really want his child to survive. I have been told — by doctors — that even ob/gyn’s with low risk practices do not have such a good record of outcomes.

I chose home birth because, after doing extensive research, I concluded it was the safest option at the time. When that proved no longer the case, we changed our plans. We chose our birth attendants with great care, and got to know the midwives and assistants quite well, something not usually possible with doctors. They also got to know us well.

I’m not sure why the midwife in the referenced birth account did not succeed in talking sense into this mother and giving her a more realistic concept of birth. Was everyone involved in the birth as incompetent as this mother paints them? Anyone who has such a ridiculous fairy-tale (she actually used that word!) notion of birth either has serious mental issues or simply refuses to listen to anyone. I feel sorry for her. I’m sure she would have been equally, if not more, traumatized by a hospital birth because nothing could possibly live up to her unrealistic expectations. (Spoiler alert: she seemed overly concerned with getting beautiful pictures and expected to be happy and smiling the entire time: “It was not a pretty birth. It was not glamorous….I wanted a fairy tale — picture perfect birth. I invested thousands of dollars into it — along with hundreds and hundreds of dollars into a photographer — and I walked away feeling like a failure.” Did she take childbirth classes? Watch unedited birth videos? Carefully screen her birth attendants? Learn about the process of birth? Or was she more concerned about the photographs?)

My heart goes out to this woman whose priorities caused her to be so ill-prepared for birth, and who chose a home birth for all the wrong reasons. A traumatic birth can be devastating, no matter the reason. At the same time, here are some lessons I hope this mother learns from her cold, painful dash of reality:

• Birth will never be perfect, because life is not perfect.

• Life is not a fairy tale. Neither is birth.

• Mothers need to behave like responsible adults and prepare themselves as fully as possible for the very real difficulties of a very real life.

• There is a reason we use the word “labor” to describe the process. In my experience, labor and childbirth has been hard, physical work. When we do anything difficult and strenuous, we shouldn’t expect to look all glamorous and pretty, or to be laughing and smiling, nor should we expect all to go perfectly.

• Babies are far more important than pictures.

I could trot out lots of hospital birth horror stories, and accuse women who birth in that setting of worshiping hospital births. But I think it’s time we stopped trying to demonize other people’s choices, as well as time we took full responsibility for our own.

Happy birthday, little brother!

Posted on Friday, August 15, 2014 by Rebecca

This is an updated version of a post I wrote on my former blog a few years back.

I was 11 years old when he was born, and our family was changed forever. He was the cutest baby I’d ever encountered — until my own were born years later — and he grew into a hilarious, wonderful toddler and young child. His mission in life seemed to be making sure that things never got boring in our household. Stories about his various escapades are legendary in our extended family. (One cousin, when she and my younger brother were children, ended almost every Steph story with, “And we were so embarrassed!” Well, everyone but Steph, apparently!)

Steph seemed so different from our older brother and me. We were shy, awkward and nerdy, while our younger brother charmed the little old ladies in the church, traded kisses for dimes and quarters, purposefully got lost in stores just for the drama of having us all paged, and turned the kindergarten portion of the school Christmas program into “Stephan and his back-up choir”.

We were too shy to ask for directions and information, while Stephan thrived on talking to everyone everywhere.

I’ve never met a child like my younger brother. He was, in some ways, a bundle of contradictions as a little guy. He could be an annoying pest and prankster at times, and yet he could also be a classy little charmer. Most three year old boys, for example, make a mess of eating an ice cream cone and couldn’t be trusted drinking out of expensive, fragile stem-wear. Not Steph — his table manners were extraordinary, and he could be such a delightful little gentleman.

Stephan brought an exciting new vitality to our family when he was born. I’ll never forget “kidnapping” him out of his crib and trying to hide him in my bed. (His giggles always gave him away when my mother would come searching for him.) He taught me not to take myself so dreadfully seriously during my teenage years. He put up with my awful experimental cooking and pretended that he actually enjoyed the meals I forced upon him. (That, of course, prompted my theory that children don’t have taste buds.) He was deluded enough to think that I was beautiful, even during my most awkward adolescent moments. Steph loved my silliest stories, inspired me to create ridiculous games, made me laugh, and alternated between amusing and horrifying me with his creative ability to turn mundane events into fascinating tall tales that he would then spread far and wide. (No, I never threw up on the Thanksgiving turkey, contrary to what Steph told his entire school.)

As Steph grew older, I discovered how much he added to the adventures I had been enjoying for years. Ah, what I wouldn’t give to turn back the clock, just for a day or two, and relive some of the weekends spent together…

But it wasn’t just in his childhood and teens that Steph proved himself to be the best little brother in the world. His crowning achievement is that he has given me some of the most adorable, wonderful, beautiful, delightful nieces and nephews in the world — and he has made sure there are lots of them!

Steph has so many traits that I admire (and lack). He is generously hospitable; I’m convinced that I could drop in unannounced with my entire family in tow, and Steph would joyously feed us all and put us up, without the slightest hint that we might be inconveniencing him. I am so proud of his people skills, and of how he uses his talents and abilities to work diligently in providing for his family. But what touches my heart the most, and fills it with a mixture of joy and sisterly pride, is that Stephan has become a student of my father and of the Word, and that he and my father are now sharing the pulpit at the church my father pastors. I enjoy his unique, fresh perspective and his commitment to remain true to the Biblical text. Impossible as it would have been for me to believe when we were younger, not once has anything he has preached made me want to cringe, hide my face, or throw something at him. Proof that even little brothers eventually grow up!

My baby brother has grown into a loving husband, a devoted father, a wonderful man. But, as a big sister, I’ll never forget the excitement I felt 45 years ago today, when he made his way into our lives and hearts, and how cute he looked when I first got to see him. I was full of dreams then for what we would all do together, but I had no idea how wonderful that little baby would turn out to be.