If you have spent any time in the last few weeks watching the news, one of the biggest headlines that may have caught your eye is the recent issue involving Penn State and their former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of rape and sexual abuse of eight boys during his fifteen year career at Penn State. The question most of us ask ourselves is how a respected man of the community, who is married and has children of his own, could suddenly come out as having sexually molested 8 different children.
How can parents protect their children from this growing invisible threat? The amount that sexual abuse affects our country is enormous. Even those who are not abused are affected by this problem. No matter how hard we try, each of us has been affected by it in some way or another.
In her recent article CNN writer Roxanne Jones (2011) talked about some of the victims who have shared their terrible experiences after the situation of Penn State arose. The victims all spoke of the guilt and shame they all feel. One thing that I observed while reading was that most of these victims were almost all over the age of thirty. According to statistics found on RAINN.com (2005) 60% most victims never report what happened to them. In the case of these particular victims they didn’t tell anyone until years later. This means that most of these people have spent most of their lives hiding the problem. Either they were afraid to tell or they thought no one would believe them. This is exactly where we find our problem.
Across America, we have developed an all too easy way of dealing with the problem. Ignore it. I have heard and read about too many parents who almost always refuse to deal with the problem when told. Many parents either pretend that they were never told or even worse, the child is told that they are lying. The crime ends up getting buried by the exact people who should be exposing and dealing with it. This is not to say that victims of sexual crime necessarily always need a judicial victory to recover from what happened. Children need someone who they can trust to listen to listen to them. All too often the parent abandons the child because the adult has no idea how to deal with it themselves.
So how can we help to solve and prevent this problem? The answer is simple. Be prepared. If your child where to tell you that something happened, what would be your reaction? Would you cover it up because it embarrasses you? Or would you find some way to deal with it? If you talk with your children and warn them against sexual abuse they will be far more likely to tell you or the authorities if anything ever where to happen. Each of us is responsible to have a plan for on how to deal with this if it ever where to happen. It’s our children, our community, are future.
In the case of Penn. State, they will be remembered for what they did do not what they didn’t do. Finally someone has the nerve to stand for what’s right. They made a stand for all the people across the nation who has been hurt by sexual abuse. We have a job and a responsibility. To stand for those who have been injured.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke
