Reply to Did anyone on this forum have a nice childhood, and currently have nice elderly parents?

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[quote=Anonymous]I worked for decades in victim advocacy, legal aid, public defense and prosecution. I saw a lot of very damaged people, and having grown up in a toxic abusive family I know firsthand that abused kids can also wear the mask of very successful professional with strong community ties.

I'm very happy that there are happy families, as without them abused kids wouldn't have dreams to console them in their reality.

One observation I have from decades of working in the trenches with broken people and in the systems that serve and process broken people, is that trying to advocate for policy changes and getting community on board with investments in people often comes up against the resistance of people who had happy childhoods and just cannot fathom the challenges faced by people who didn't.

Many people from happy childhoods are empathetic and concerned with the experiences of their not so lucky peers, but some happy family people seem incapable of grasping just what unhappy and abusive and dysfunctional looks like and what it really does to the developing brain to grow up in a toxic stew. Those folks tend to be the ones who lack empathy for the ways broken people can go astray in navigating life's challenges without the self esteem and emotional reserves that well-loved children develop in a happy childhood.

I will never understand the people who argue against investing in early childhood enrichment programs, when we all ultimately pay the price in one way or another for the fallout from letting so many children grow up psychologically and physically abused. Quite frankly it would make more sense to ditch some of the current academic curriculum and develop life skills courses that lead to mental health preservation, healthy relationships and understanding of child development/psychology so we are all equipped with the basics of how not to hurt kids.

Obviously there will always be perpetrators, but a great deal of the abuse that kids grow up in could be alleviated by addressing psychological needs of parents decades before they become parents, not just when they're in the thick of it - most parents will never take a parenting course until they are involved with a divorce proceeding in the courts or forced to by child protective services. [/quote]

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