President Trump recently announced that April will now be named national Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), which will spark much-needed conversations and education on sexual assault and what we as a society can do to prevent it. Honestly, it’s about time.
News headlines over the past few years have been filled with accusations of sexual misconduct allegations being made against big named celebrities and the CEO’s of million dollar companies. Public reactions generally go from shock to disgust or denial before it’s all forgotten when the next news story hits. Americans find it so hard to believe that their fave (insert occupation) could ever be anything but wholesome.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the allegations have shocked me too but it’s not really all that surprising when you look at the facts. According to the Rape, Abuse, & incest national network (RAINN), every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted.
I hear these stories as a woman who was a victim of attempted sexual assault, but also as a mother, to a young girl. One of the positive results that can come from SAAM is changing the way we parent and teach our children so that they will make better decisions in the future.
Protecting our children
It goes without saying that as parents our main job is to protect our children from anything and anyone that may hurt them. Though we may try it is impossible for us to be with them every single second of their lives. In our modern society, most of the time both parents work outside of the home which means we have to trust schools, daycares, family and friends with our children for up to 40 hours a week or more.
Usually, after a sexual assault or inappropriate behaviors happen we as parents aren’t told but it is up to us to vet those who we trust with our children. In the case that the wrong person slips through the cracks we know the warning signs of abuse. At this time we need to get into action by removing them from the situation, and contacting authorities. We need to show them that they matter and we will do everything in our power to make the situation right.
Follow up counseling and private conversations are also very important to help your child emotionally process what they’ve experienced and help to ensure that a loss of self-esteem and security are restored. From what I have seen, a parent’s mismanagement during the aftermath of abuse can be just as damaging as the actual abuse. Love and Hip Hop star, Hazel E, was recently a guest on Iyanla Vanzant’s television show Iyanla Fix my life. While on the show she confides in the show’s host, telling her about her sexual assault experience as a child.
Outside of the horrible thing she experienced, the worst part was seeing her mother’s reaction. She told her child to be quiet and never speak of it and when confronted by the show’s host she acted oblivious to the fact that the abuse happened at all. Obviously, this lead to Hazel E acting out later as an adult and feeling unwanted, insignificant, and angry. Hazel’s mother could not have taken the pain of abuse away from her child but she could have eased her pain and not added to it by acting differently.
The Flipside – Prevention
I think we’ve all had conversations and read enough cautionary tales about protecting our children from predators or sketchy situations, so most of what I’ve said isn’t new. What isn’t as prevalent is conversations aboutpreventing predatory behavior in our children.
As we teach our children about those that may hurt them we have to also teach our children about boundaries and inappropriate actions so they don’t go on to hurt others. Abusers were once children, after all, and typically they suffer from a childhood full of abuse and neglect.
According to Science Direct, compared to rapists, child sexual abusers reported more frequent experiences of child sexual abuse and exposure to pornography. Alternatively, in contrast to child sexual abusers, rapists reported more frequent experiences of physical abuse, parental violence, and emotional abuse. As you can see, a child’s negative interaction with parents as well as childhood experiences greatly affects their development later in life.
I think most will agree when I say that we should go out of our way to not physically or verbally abuse our child but I think we also need to get rid of the ‘boys will be boys’ attitude as well. This alone may not send your son down the path of becoming a serial rapist, but this type of entitlement and acceptance of overpowering their female counterparts can show up later in life as groping an unwilling coworker or forcing yourself on a drunken coed at a college party.
Being a parent is a tough job and quite honestly it’s the most important job any of us will have. We are raising the future inhabitants world; There is a ton of weight on our shoulders! One of the many jobs we have is to make sure we protect our children from being abused and also from becoming abusers.
During Sexual Assault Awareness month, and throughout the year, us parents should use this time to learn about the signs of sexual abuse in children, as well as have conversations with our children to educate them on sexual assault and form a bond of trust with them. We also need to consider our own actions and make sure that the home environment we have created for our children is free of toxic energy and experiences. If there is any hope that the horrific tales plaguing the headlines of today become a thing of the past we must take all of these things into consideration. The lives of our children and the society of the future depend on it.
Brittany Wright, B.A in Creative writing and English – University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, is an aspiring writer and creator of the She’s Wright blog. This black, millennial mom loves everything beauty, motherhood, and marriage related!
Sources
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213408000586
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume 32, Issue 5, May 2008, Pages 549-560
Developmental experiences of child sexual abusers and rapists
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11720655/Sex-offender-Why-I-became-one-and-started-raping-women.html Why I became a sex offender and started raping women 2015
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