Letters

...Cohn made no attempt to back away from such implications when I interviewed her...

...Where does Wexler suggest we put these children...

...Sterner Remple Pueblo, Colorado Please take a look at what you do to us...

...Then, when all of that is mixed up in our heads and belittled as media hype, we suddenly leap between paragraphs from "sexual abuse" to "abduction...

...The articles have some good underlying points that could have been distilled to two sentences: First, that as a society we abuse and neglect our children and then turn around and blame individual parents, particularly poor parents, for doing that which, as a society, we condone through our social policy and social values...

...Abuse—sexual, physical, and emotional—exists in families of all economic, social, and ethnic backgrounds...

...poverty line for a family the size of mine (one child, whose birth was planned...

...He should know that public awareness studies, including one conducted by my own organization in 1982, have shown that the public understands that child abuse includes physical battering, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional maltreatment...

...We have our own nightmares, all of us...

...we don't need to see someone else's...

...More important, Professor Charles Aber of Columbia and other experts believe that for every instance in which a guilty abuser goes undiscovered, there are at least as many cases where innocent families are wrongly "indicated" as being abusive or neglectful...

...The truth is hard enough to bear, but it is much preferable to your artists' contributions...

...Albert J. Solnit, M.D...

...And he should recognize that when professionals discuss the "classless-ness" of abuse and neglect, they are saying that "child abuse occurs in all income groups," not that it is occurring equally in all groups...

...Karen Kisslinger Ancramdale, New York Every paragraph of the two articles about child savers hit home with me...

...H Studies showing that judges and social workers apply their own values and prejudices in deciding how to deal with a case...

...I do not believe I am "collecting unearned money...

...People like Carol Twopines, a fifteen-year recipient of welfare who reports no earned income, are very rare...

...I wish I could have found The Progressive not buying into the myth that the problem is within the delivery system...

...He says that sixty of every 100 reports of abuse "turn out to be totally false...

...Besharov further contends that many children are victims of "defensive social work...

...Occasionally, you include excellent photographic journalism...

...Sex, violence, and scandal are staples of the news media, and lurid tales of child abuse offer all three at once...

...One especially disturbing aspect of Twopines's article is that since she appears capable of earning high wages, her welfare dependence seems terribly deliberate...

...A sensationalist "expose" of grim scenarios really doesn't help much...

...It is so much easier for the press to focus on unsubstantiated cases than to acknowledge that problems are just the tip of the iceberg...

...He says that while only one in 100 reports of abuse are instances of physical abuse, the public generally thinks of all abuse as physical abuse...

...Jim Giddings Greenville, New Hampshire Jean Bethke Elshtain brings welcome common sense to the problem of child abuse, but she neglects to state clearly one obvious reason why this has become "a media fad and political issue...

...I have one semester to complete for a B.A...

...Well, what Wexler needs to know and apparently is unable to hear—perhaps because he failed to talk to front-line workers who know—is that they truly are aberrations...

...He says "all fifty states have passed laws of breathtaking scope" in "an atmosphere of hysteria...

...People I know had been going through episodes of persecution and bureaucratic nightmares, thinking their situations were unique and that the law was trying its best to deal with a real rash of child molestations and kidnappings...

...I'm thinking of the work of Michael Kienitz, for one...

...Research by Richard Coe, using data from a University of Michigan study of 5,000 families, shows that although 25.2 per cent of U.S...

...Remaining on welfare is not a deliberate choice on my part...

...I occasionally sell artwork and buy art supplies with the money...

...In September, he introduced Federal legislation that would amend the guaranteed student loan rules and give pregnant students the same rights as disabled students...

...Even though the subject of the article is the system of responding to abuse rather than the abuse itself, the attitudes implied show little compassion for children generally and for their plight in a society that gives them little priority, value, or support...

...In one sentence we are talking about abduction, in the next we are talking about neglect, in the next "abuse...

...Conclusions based on data from state employment departments, welfare agencies, and census records are particularly suspect...

...Representative Robert Kastenmeier's office has not let the matter die...

...Richard Wexler Rochester, New York Rarely have magazine articles so grossly confused issues as the two essays on "child savers" in the September issue...

...As a member of Audubon for the past twenty years who long ago quit marking the birds I've seen in my Peterson's Guide, I deplore competitive bird-watching...

...Joanne Shuman Nazareth, Pennsylvania The author replies: For six years, beginning six months after my child was born, I worked a forty-hour week...

...Your articles did a disservice to children, and to the people struggling to work with a problem that won't go away...

...Funding for prevention efforts has been designed to tap into funding sources other than those used for children's protective services...

...I'm flattered that some readers think I am capable of earning high wages...

...A child with a runny nose, an underweight child, a little girl with only four dresses to wear to school—these are victims, all right, but only of poverty, not of abuse...

...The ready availability of replacements decreases their job security and reduces the possibility that they will demand higher wages...

...I don't see too many cases being prosecuted where there is no abuse...

...Elizabeth Vorenberg Assistant Commissioner Executive Office of Human Services Commonwealth of Massachusetts Boston, Massachusetts The Crime of Welfare Carol Twopines's "My Life in Crime" (The Last Word, August issue) gives a misleading and negative picture of welfare recipients...

...Besides attending classes full-time, I take care of my pre-teen child and do most of the household chores...

...That means that a student who attends one of the many schools that do not grant leaves of absence will be required to start paying back the loan...

...My illegal winter job pays about a third of my average monthly $105 utility bill...

...If anywhere near 60 per cent of reports are false, it defies common sense to believe that all intrusions on the innocent are "aberrations...

...How much of her own labor has helped replenish welfare funds...

...families received welfare at some time between 1969 and 1978, only 4.4 per cent of families remained on welfare for eight or more of those years...

...You report the assaults of the world on us, and that is a great deal for us to bear...

...Her hysteria and that of the staff is making the school a place where no child or volunteer wants to be...

...Second, that as a society we have created pathetically ineffective means of dealing with child abuse...

...For example, in Illinois, citizens have an opportunity to check off a box on their income tax refund form which would result in a $10 contribution to the state's child-abuse prevention program...

...In my "spare time," I do some sculpting and writing...

...I simply subscribe to support it...

...It may not be art, but if it's capable of bringing joy, it's priceless...

...degree in environmental science...

...Who has Wexler been listening to...

...I would trade privacy for protection of our children...

...If a teacher or aide raises her voice or asks a child to blow his nose or tie his shoe, she is being "verbally abusive" and "impairing self-esteem...

...It is good to know that when the need arises, the vast majority of people use welfare programs only as much and as long as necessary...

...Carol Twopines Fan Mail Cheers for Matthew Rothschild's "Taking Wing" (The Last Word, September issue...

...As it is, I am outraged at her assumption that the Government owes her a comfortable living...

...Most were short-term or intermediate-term recipients-people who need welfare for a few years following the loss of a job or spouse or the birth of a child, and who later become self-supporting again...

...It also ignores the evidence from Illinois where, as I noted in my article, state officials admit they routinely strip-search children, clearly an abusive act in itself...

...I can't bear to look at it...

...The child savers may go a little overboard sometimes, but better slightly overboard in the direction of safety than in the direction of neglect...

...If a child is absent for longer than two days, a teacher speculates that the child may be recovering from bruises inflicted by her single mother, who is working two jobs...

...My coworkers and I are attempting, despite great public denial and resistance, to work with these families...

...If she spent as much energy job-hunting and working as she does trying to get others to support her, I might feel a little more sympathetic...

...I think it is Wexler who has been superficial, and quick to agree only with those few so-called experts who state beliefs which support his own...

...Hundreds of thousands of families are not being jerked around unfairly by protective service workers each year...

...So I am doing my job holding down wages and, some economists might say, curbing inflation...

...Mary Lu Tosi San Jose, Costa Rica Clarification In reference to "Women Win One" (Datelines, October issue), please clarify this important point: While Federal education officials eventually agreed to grant leaves of absence to pregnant students with student loans, they did not agree to automatic deferring of loan payments...

...It took The Progressive to make me feel all right about saying that maybe not enough children were getting saved to make all this hysteria worth it...

...In six years of full-time employment, I never earned enough money to make it above the official U.S...

...Lisa Fortes New York, New York Ireally appreciated your articles on the child savers...

...My figures on physical abuse come from the annual Highlights of Official Child Neglect and Abuse Reporting, published by the American Humane Association (AHA)—a source suggested to me by Anne Cohn...

...Wexler presents a few case studies of families dealt with atrociously by protective service agencies and then cons his readers into believing they represent hundreds of thousands of innocent families who are likewise reported to the authorities each year for child abuse...

...Dorothy S. Rosenwald Kansas City, Missouri Iam one of the "child savers," and have seen enough violence against children and the effects of such violence on children that I am convinced the articles in your September issue were written by uninformed, ivory-tower academics who, instead of presenting the facts and drawing conclusions, began with a conclusion and wrapped the facts around it (quite selectively, I might add...

...Actually, long-term dependence on welfare is rare...

...Granted that it isn't always easy to find a job at decent pay, but surely an educated, intelligent person like Twopines could be self-supporting by now...

...If a case is "unfounded," that's the equivalent of a verdict of innocent...

...Cohn also includes a category called "unspecified physical abuse," and then further inflates the figures by combining the true reports of physical abuse with the false reports in order to obtain the 27 per cent total...

...Although there may be much false reporting, the "totally false" reports will include many of the kind described here...

...I get up at 4:30 a.m...

...Women with low potential wages (because of lack of education, poor health, or young age), as well as those with demanding child-care responsibilities (because of the number and age of the children and lack of other adults in the household) are likely to depend on welfare...

...Then we are told that of 1,080 children missing in Massachusetts, 75 per cent are runaways and most of the rest are abducted by a parent...

...I agree with Elshtain's conclusions that we can create more nurturing families and institutions that will ease the pressures which explode into abuse, but I do feel that her own perspective could profit from less defen-siveness and more recognition of how little it takes to abuse the body and spirit of a child...

...Certainly the parents of these children will claim false reporting, because there is no "proof...

...Paul, Minnesota What a horrifying article by Richard Wexler...

...U Estimates by Besharov and other experts that half the children in foster care could safely have been left at home...

...Workers know they will be in big trouble if they leave a family intact and there is subsequent abuse, Besharov notes, but workers will always be safe if they "indicate" a case or even seek to remove children from their homes unnecessarily...

...She appears to derive her inflated figure of 27 per cent by taking cases of what the AHA calls "major physical abuse" and adding in a larger category called "minor physical abuse," which includes such actions as "shaking a child, as by the shoulders, that does not result in any injury, such as sprains or fractures...

...Ellen A. Moore Madison, Wisconsin Some readers may not approve of your illustrations, but the sketch of the skull with eyeliner on it (No Comment, April issue) made me laugh off and on for a whole day or more...

...Anyone who doesn't know about these issues would get a hysterical and distorted view of the whole field from these two articles...

...Perhaps Twopines owes society something for supporting her indolence all these years...

...I hope The Progressive will take the time in the future to see that its articles serve progressive goals and LETTERS to the Editor ideals in more constructive ways...

...This sort of reporting could be truly destructive of professional , and volunteer programs that are making some headway in addressing these problems...

...It has not grown out of, nor is it connected to, children's protective service systems...

...I don't feel indolent...

...Women with high potential wages and those with older children or other adults in the household to help with child care are likely to hold jobs and to receive no welfare or only supplemental benefits...

...I see too much abuse and too little being done...

...According to Coe, only one-quarter of short-term and less than one-half of long-term recipients depend on welfare for more than half their income...

...Any article that belittles the problem of abuse, even unintentionally, while criticizing our inept social means of dealing with the problems, does a disservice to all children and to all who are trying, in whatever way they can, to make life better for all families and all children...

...I was one of the majority of welfare recipients who supplement their earnings with welfare...

...Barbara Berndt Palo Alto, California Carol Twopines seems to feel she is being treated shabbily by the welfare system...

...I work daily with families where sexual abuse has been substantiated...

...Welfare regulations are full of Catch-22 provisions that keep people from working or force them to lie to keep on working...

...Erin Sorenson Chicago, Ilinois Richard Wexler's piece in The Progressive on child abuse was terrific—probably the best short article I've seen...

...They are seen (or usually missed) at school because their parents forced them to kneel on plates of rice for hours and their knees are lacerated...

...Jennifer Maher should be more skeptical of studies of welfare recipients by non-recipients...

...And he implies that when professionals in the field talk about the "class-lessness" of abuse and neglect, they mean the incidence is equally spread across classes...

...We take off their diapers to check their temperature and see the green discharge of gonorrhea...

...K Another study in which doctors given identical case records were nearly twice as likely to suspect abuse if told that the family in question was black...

...Then you add the assaults of the "art" in your journal...

...Conn's willingness to throw together a shaking of the shoulders with a broken limb or torture, and true reports with those that are false, contributes to the very hysteria she now seems ready to deplore...

...Children come in with mysterious burns their parents cannot explain...

...My fifteen-year, twenty-family study shows that official bodies are constantly given false information by welfare recipients—especially regarding money, gifts, and absent parents...

...It is in no way based on notions of control of parents...

...In addition, it ignores the fact that a child who suffered bruising from being dragged by the ear or welts from being hit with a strap may not have those physical signs of abuse by the time a child-protection agency gets around to investigating...

...Finally, concerning preventive programs: It's not the source of the money that counts, it's the amount...

...Indeed, she contended that poverty was involved in only "a minority" of neglect cases...

...Cohn's reference to "courtroom standards" in this context is irrelevant...

...If Wexler is correct, and I believe that he is, that the whole field of child protective services needs to be restyled and rethought, why doesn't he devote his article to a cogent analysis and suggestions for alternative methods...

...The statement "Child abuse crosses class lines" has been used for more than a decade to justify ignoring poverty as a cause of neglect and to imply exactly what Cohn now denies implying— that it occurs equally in all income groups...

...Most welfare recipients are not completely dependent on welfare, either, but use welfare legally to supplement their earnings...

...Sexual abuse is next door, across the road, anywhere, in greater numbers than we can or want to accept...

...Jai Chandrasekhar New Haven, Connecticut Congratulations on performing what I believe is a most important contribution to the well-being of our children through Richard Wexler's article about the child savers...

...That's a lot of "aberrations...

...Ramona Whitaker Lubbock, Texas Iam a child-protection social worker...

...Jeanan Yasiri Madison, Wisconsin The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...

...Wexler accuses press coverage of child abuse of being "compliant and superficial...

...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...

...I am doing my student teaching in a church-run preschool, and the "protective" measures instigated by staff, parents, and outsiders are among the most ludicrous and vindictive I have ever seen...

...If I thought the milk-carton crusades were a little ridiculous, I kept it to myself...

...Cohn's letter also ignores: H The statement by one of the many "front-line workers" interviewed for my article that 25 per cent of the anonymous reports he gets are in some way ill-motivated...

...Sterling Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry Yale University New Haven, Connecticut Iwas surprised at your general one-sidedness on child abuse and neglect...

...Social workers have the power to "indicate" a case entirely on their own, with no court involvement...

...As another "so-called expert" has stated: "We spend $2 billion after the fact, and only a couple of hundred million on prevention...

...Art supply retailers and utility companies pay taxes (or should), so my labor does go to help replenish welfare coffers...

...I found Jean Bethke Elsh-tain's article to be a masterpiece of spiteful, sarcastic distortion and confusion...

...The director is rabid about reporting every incident or person who does not seem "average...

...That "expert" was Anne Cohn...

...He should open his mind long enough to learn that most child abuse reports are "unfounded" or "unsubstantiated" because workers do not have enough evidence to present a case in court (courtroom standards are quite demanding and it is often quite difficult to gather evidence about a crime which is committed in secret), or they do not have services to offer the family, or their caseload sizes are too high to take on another investigation...

...Anne H. Cohn National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse Chicago, Illinois The author replies: Anne H. Cohn has an unnerving habit of forgetting that in America people are innocent until proven guilty...

...First, he should know that all fifty states passed their child-abuse reporting laws in the late 1960s and early 1970s, not in the last year or two when hysteria about sexual abuse has, indeed, prevailed...

...Contemplation of one beauty is more fun...

...We see the same little girl several times in one year, five years old, sexually molested by her father...

...All of this evidence shows that the stereotype of chronic welfare dependence is false...

...And he should admit that 27 per cent (not 1 per cent) of all reports are instances of physical abuse...

...Prevention programs have been based largely in hospitals, community centers, schools, YMCAs, YWCAs, and the like...

...Jennifer Maher Charlestown, Massachusetts Has Carol Twopines tried working...

...Jacqueline Lathrop DeLong St...

...Wexler presents other statements as truths...

...Everyone who knows anything about child abuse and child neglect knows that our system for dealing with these problems is abysmal...

...Clearly, Wexler has never worked in an inner-city emergency room...

...As Carol Stack writes in All Our Kin (Harper & Row, 1974), "having a large pool of unemployed readily available to be absorbed into the work force in times of rapid economic expansion...

...This would have been a perfect place for a discussion of the fact that many runaways are abused, but Elshtain instead implies that because they are runaways, we don't have to worry about them...

...Because of these assaults, I rarely open your magazine...

...puts pressure on those employed in the lower income brackets and on most of the unskilled positions within the labor force...

...Has she considered that she has been collecting unearned money for at least fifteen years from the system she condemns...

...For thirty-six months of that time, I held jobs under the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA...

...He has supposedly left the household—then she comes back without her eye (he knocked it out...

...Among the "so-called experts" who consider the 60 per cent figure accurate is Douglas Besharov, founding director of the Federal Government's National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect...

...It is common to find oneself in need of help...

...And then, to cover himself, he says child savers will respond to critics by saying that these atrocious cases are only aberrations...

...Perhaps the most insulting aspect of Wexler's article is his complete misunderstanding of the child-abuse prevention movement in this country...

...Her article backs up the old stereotype that welfare causes people to remain dependent throughout their lives and to lose any desire to work...

...Again, research shows this is uncharacteristic of welfare recipients...

...It does happen, but only in a minority of cases...

...The most practical thing I learned on those jobs was always to get salary agreements in writing...

...to go to school, and I get home at 5:30 p.m...

...There is also little that is perfect, or for that matter accurate or even on target, in Richard Wexler's "Invasion of the Child Savers" (September issue), which attempts to criticize the existing systems...

...It is grotesque, ludicrous, frightening, and totally unnecessary...