Headlines like this are supposed to grab our attention and induce the appropriate groaning that will – hopefully – plunge an army of advocates into action. Last week’s BBC investigation, America’s Child Death Shame, revealed that the U.S. “has the highest child abuse record in the industrialized world.” If you take the time to read the statistics and watch the clips it will deliver a swift punch to your gut.
Unfortunately, this “major epidemic” as the report terms it, gets too little attention. Last year my hometown paper covered the death of three-year-old Prhaze (pronounced Praise) who died at the hands of her father and stepmother. The community activated almost immediately, gathering for prayer vigils and protests outside of the courthouse, holding signs stating, “There is no excuse for child abuse” and “Don’t let Prhaze be another statistic.”
As I read the reports about Prhaze’s short life and saw the pictures of her young parents, I realized that they could have been any one of the families that I had worked with just a few years earlier in that same community. For two years I visited homes and helped young parents who had open cases with Child Protective Services or Foster Care. Most of them were isolated from family and many were reliving the generational cycle of abuse or neglect that was modeled to them as a child.
When we hear reports like this we often ask questions like, “how could someone do that to a child?” But sometimes, the closer we get to those involved in child abuse and neglect cases, the vision of a monster morphs into a real, but sad person who all too often grew up very differently than perhaps you or I. In our anger over such heinous acts, we often forget the grace that has so generously been extended to us. Where did we learn emotional resilience? Who do we call when we are overwhelmed?
If you are a parent, I am sure there have been times when you have seen your own ugliness bubble to the surface only to be subsided by God’s grace directly, or his grace extended to you through the support of another. For those of us who believe the hope found in the gospel, we would do well if we looked for ways to extend grace to the young parents near us who perhaps need us to model healthy parenting skills or offer a supportive presence.
There are preventative measures, like the visiting nurse program highlighted in the BBC report, that provide the teaching and support that is often missing for these young parents. But you and I are the best preventative measures, if we will have the eyes to see our neighbor and the fortitude to consistently breathe grace into their lives. May we each have such an opportunity in the next five hours.