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CHILDHOOD, PARENTING, AND ABUSE
They Should Have Noticed
From rocking to self-harm — and all the signs the adults missed
We are, we are told, better at noticing and acting upon abuse and neglect in this century. This, despite the stories that hit the press pretty much every week about social services or teachers or the police missing some behaviour or other that has put children at risk. My generation grew up surrounded by teachers, adults and professionals who missed so much that ought to have been evident to them that serious questions have to be asked about their training and the support they clearly did not receive in dealing with things “beyond their remit.”
I won’t provide links to the news stories, past and present, here. My intention is not to trigger. Neither is it to compare my own childhood — for that is where we are going again — to some of the awful stories out there. It is for the reader to come to an understanding about this piece. It is not for me to tell you how to feel.
But, dear God, the rocking should have given something away.
All five of the children in my family rocked (that’s my mother’s children — my father produced many more sprogs with other women, and it would be interesting to know if they rocked…although I am unlikely ever to know…
