Re: childhood beatings

You know, it's strange that you wrote this post because I was talking to my grand daughter yesterday about an experience I had years ago while teaching elementary school.

During lunchroom duty, one of my students, a second grader, was eating by himself and I walked over and sat by him. As I sat down, I hugged him. (Back then, you were allowed to touch the student.) As I put my arms around him, he flinched and told me his back hurt. I said little about it, but later on in the afternoon, I talked to him about his back. On his own, he raised his shirt and I have never seen anything like the marks on this child left by a belt. You could see where the buckle of the belt had broken his skin and there were these huge welps all over his back. I asked him who did that to him and he told me his Daddy did it. He said sometimes his Daddy would come home and just "be mad" and start hitting him as hard as he could. He said if his Mommy tried to stop him, he would beat her, too.

It's been 35 years ago and, to this day, I still dream about this little boy. Back then, there was nothing that anyone could do.....no one to report it or laws to protect this child. Sure, I went to the administrative board about it, but nothing ever happened.

I will say this.....One thing I have learned over the years is there is such a fine line between disciplining a child and child abuse. Because I raised two children, I know how hard it is to not cross that fine line. There is not one parent who has been so pushed to the limit that they have to pull themselves away from the situation and calm down. But, one question that has always bothered me is.....Why are some people able to stop themselves and others can't and cross that line?

Yesterday my grand daughter and I were running errands and she was playing with the stations on the radio and this country station began playing a song about an abused little child who would lie to her classmates about her bruises and then one day she didn't come to school and the song goes on to say that she doesn't have to lie anymore about her bruises because she wasn't going to be coming back to school.....Now she would be "lying with Jesus." That song says a powerful message about child abuse.

I am so sorry your childhood was impacted by an abusive parent. I wish I could take it away.

Paulette Tweet