Child abuse isn’t always physical — or obvious

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303

By John Hatcher
Contributing Writer

Children are in a bad sort of way. In my estimate, many of their living conditions could qualify as abusive. Not talking about fathers and mothers beating their children so as to produce welts. Not talking about nutritional or educational deprivation. Not talking about emotional abuse or physical threat.

Let me share a situation I consider child abuse. Ever seen a grocery store scene where a kid is screaming, yelling, arms swinging, and all the time crying his eyes and heart away? Many times we think to ourselves that the kid needs a good whipping. Pity swells up in our heart for the parent.

What really is happening is this: the kid has been led to believe that he should get his way in every circumstance of life. He found out earlier in his young life that if something didn’t go his way, all he had to do was put up a little fuss and his parents would capitulate. Now, while he and Mom are grocery shopping together, he has run into resistance in relation to something he wants — a situation which is totally out of his real and learned world. For some reason, this time Mom does not surrender but stands firm. The kid cries out in torment. He is being abused according to his way of having learned life.

Who is the real abuser? Of course, the parents. They have allowed their child to grow up in an unreal world in which he is king of kings. A world in which his wish is their responsibility. A world which should cater to his every whim. They have not taught or disciplined their child to understand the concepts of limits, authority, and the very real notion that he is not the center of the universe. So, when he cries out in utter emotional pain, he represents abuse. Of course, the law has not caught up with my definition of abuse and so parents are not going to jail for misleading (or should we say lying to) their children.

If parents properly discipline their children, beginning early in life, trips to the grocery store could be a pleasure rather than a stopover in hell.

There’s another abusive behavior directly and adversely affecting our children. That’s when the children live with a monster in the home. What good parents would allow their precious children to stay for one second in a house with a monster (whatever shape the monster took)? And yet children face a monster every day of their existence: it’s called the two-headed monster. Both Mom and Dad are the heads of this monster and the monster breeds confusion and turmoil.

Every family needs a head. One head. Every family needs to have one final authority, someone to whom the whole family can turn for a definitive decision. Increasingly, the monster fosters indecision. For those of the Judeo-Christian faith, the Bible is extremely clear that the husband is the head of the wife and the spiritual, physical, and emotional leader of the family. However, the women’s liberation movement has done a number on our culture and particularly on us ministers. We of the cloth have been intimidated so much by culture and its family-destroying message that we have backed off from teaching, “Wives, submit to your husbands in everything.”

Those of you who regularly read me know full well that I am not a male chauvinist. I also believe that husbands have significant responsibilities to their wives including loving her as Christ loved the church and that’s with a sacrificial love.

But, I write now about the children. A father owes it to his children to serve as the leader of the family unit. Certainly the mother is next in the authority order. Children, in too many families, see mother countermand father. Children see mothers make fun of the old man. Children grow up not knowing a model for their own family when that happens. The chaos is perpetuated from one generation to another.

When will we stop the abuse? Not even church-going folks are getting it right. The latest surveys reveal the divorce rate inside the circle of church-going folks is no less than that of people who don’t go to church.

My brief take is this: the Bible is still reliable; it’s just that too many of us soft-pedal its truth. Time to get back to truth and its application in the family. It may hurt for a while. But the promise is that afterwards we will experience sweet peace and joy in the home.

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303