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Law and the Abuse of Children
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17734 |
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MODERN THOUGHT
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6 / 1990 |
6,505 Words |
| Author
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Donald Bross
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The complexity of carrying out the law and the intricacy of child rearing have kept these activities largely separated throughout history. Law was developed in response to many adult purposes, including resolution of conflict, predictability in business affairs, and protection of individuals from unwarranted application of government or private power. The inherently social nature of personal conflict, business, and political power struggles is self-evident. Child rearing has always been a private matter and will continue to be personal and largely private. Less recognized prior to James Garbarino's comments is that child rearing is also inherently social. The social implications of child rearing - including delinquency, divorce, and child abuse - have gradually induced legal responses.
Another reason for increased interaction between the legal system and issues of child rearing is that there is now available more study and commentary by those involved in learning about children as a group. The newly recognized, systematically gathered and written observation and scientific and medical knowledge have added to the insights handed down over generations by parents, grandparents, and others. Among the phenomena revealed are the remarkable qualities of infants and the extreme harm occurring to some children at the hands of some caregivers.
After centuries of virtually no connection with the lives of ordinary children (even those children most in need of legal recognition) the law is now being applied more and more to resolve conflicts involving children, to bring some predictability to the "business" of families and child-care professionals and agencies, and to reduce the unwarranted application of power against adults or by adults against children.
It is not difficult to be polemical about these matters - to write as if parents struggling with child rearing do not care about doing it right or to impute to professionals crass motives for choosing the work they do. It is relatively easy to take either extreme of the spectrum of child protection cases, focusing on overreactions or failures to protect. It is still rare, however, to hear "the rest of the story," especially in sensational or difficult cases. The reasons include confidentiality applied both appropriately and inappropriately, because some issues are still unclear, and because people are not always forthcoming even when they can be.
It is also hard to obtain a global understanding of the success and failures in child protection. What caring individuals must be able to do is to take the time to read, study, and yet reserve judgment on those cases for which the data are incomplete. Of course, we must form judgments based on partial knowledge in many areas of life, but patience and persistence are especially important in a new "baby subject," such as the study of child abuse. What follows is an effort to make concerned readers better consumers in a field for which there is no Consumer Reports. The first step is a brief review of the history of children's rights.
CHILDREN'S LEGAL RIGHTS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
While the record for early rights of children is not blank, it is not abundant. The humane allocation of land or profits for orphans in Justinian's Code is offset by indications that the whip and education were synonymous in Sumeria, that fatherly authority
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