Who Is To Blame?

Today was a day off, but instead of spending it doing fun things and chores the day was intended for, we worked. We had to check up on, and make another visit to some very distraught parents who had a terrible shock the day before. These parents experienced the emotions that run wild when one child in the family sexually perpetrates upon another child in the family. The older child, a boy of 13, was caught just in time before penetration took place. The victim? His six-year-old sister.

In between, waiting with the parents in the emergency room, trying to comfort them, and giving information to the police, I searched the faces around me. The perpetrator was not here, but would be quickly apprehended and on his way to a locked facility. A nurse who provided a couple of TV's and many games was entertaining the other children. They looked puzzled about why they were even there at the hospital. But even though bewildered, they adjusted like most kids do. The only difference, they were a bit more quiet and subdued.

The victim was her usual cheerful self, which scared us even more since to her the event seemed like no big deal. The questions flooded our minds. Had this happened before and she thinks it normal? The parents assured me they had on their own showed the kids a video, which helped kids, understand the dangers in our world. It explicitly dealt with some version of Good Touch/ Bad Touch. This information had also been taught at school. So how could this have happened? Was this child threatened into compliance?

Then there were the parents. A couple by most standards, two people joined by love if not yet marriage. Each of them was the birth parent of one of the kids involved. The father of the victim and the mother of the perpetrator were both horrified and almost inconsolable. The tears could not be stopped. The anger and disbelief on their faces was painfully obvious. The grief was too much for them to bear. I felt their sanity and health were in danger at that moment. I saw so much raw emotion that it sickened me.

I could not decide which person I pitied most. There was the victim; she was safe and basically unharmed physically. But will all the family love and support be enough to keep this nightmare from returning to haunt her as she reaches adolescence. Will this horror cause her confusion about her own sexuality and will meaningful relationships be impossible for this child when grown.

There are the parents filled with pain and guilt about what has happened and what was seen. They blame themselves for not seeing 'the signs', but in this case, I believe there were none.

The other kids seem fine, but how will the young perpetrator's absence from the home affect them. Will further investigation by the abuse team find they were also involved as victims or perpetrators?

And then there is the young man, whose life will now be changed forever. He is probably filled with shame if not remorse. He will carry the unkind labels of child molester, abuser, and sexual perpetrator for the rest of his life. People have nothing left of compassion for folks, regardless of age, who cross this line. Even his own parents cannot bear to look at him right now. But even this child of God needs support and the Christian love all human beings deserve. We will most likely find that he is also a victim.

Whether confinement or treatment will ever rehabilitate this boy is questionable. We only can pray. All I know is that this unfortunate choice on his part has damaged all involved and will be a horrible end to any life he may have had along with his innocence, and childhood.

So here I am on my day off trying to get a bite to eat and make sense of all this. I'm feeling overwhelming pain and sadness. I'm questioning my husband and myself about the world we live in that creates such a problem. Out loud I wonder how we can protect kids and raise children who have no wish to do these things. How can this happen in a home like this where there was love, caring, and watching? I want badly to blame something or someone, but who? Who is the creator of this problem?

Suddenly, from another table full of mature senior citizen men comes an invitation to another older male to remember the bar's party and don't forget, "There's gonna be a wet t-shirt contest?"

Credits: Jo Ann Wentzel