Abused kids can’t really sue their parents
by Jennifer Kesler
I recently searched online for the question of how an adult abuse survivor might go about suing his or her abusive parent. The results I got astounded me, but they shouldn’t have. I know my country wants parents abusing its kids. It makes this clear so many ways. This is just one more.
First, the cultural. Most of the search results lead to other people asking my question. The responses they get range from “You’d be much better off just getting therapy” (yes, because clearly all adult abused kids are well-to-do and can afford the extensive therapy required to get over the abuse) to “now you sit right down, you ungrateful shit, and list all the GOOD things your parent did for you, since obviously, having donated part of your zygote, this person loved you and you are an asshole” to things like this trip to the little shop of horrors, in which someone asks Yahoo: “Can i sue my parents because they hit me?”
Consider first what you did to contribute to the situation.
There is never a reason to strike another person, but, you could have very well pushed them to their limit.
Underlying all of this is the myth that every child who complains of having experienced poor parenting is obviously a spoiled shit who in fact had everything too easy and isn’t grateful for the massive self-sacrifices her zygote donor obviously made. Also underlying it is the assumption that such a suit would be revenge rather than justice. To which the abuse survivors explain that, no, they want to see the parent held accountable in some fashion. Publicly.
Another reason I can think of for suing would be to send a message to other abusive parents: you might get away with this while I’m under your control, but after that? Oh, yes, there could indeed be consequences.
The doublethink required here is extraordinary. I mean, you just know these people answering these question are all the same people who read about horrid abuse cases in the paper and think “hanging’s not good enough for those parents.” But when someone puts a face on it, when someone says “I was abused”, they go into denial. Why? Why do they automatically, unthinkingly assume the parent is the one being wronged?
It’s a bit like assuming every alleged rape is really just a case of some vicious bitch lying. Why not? We’re big on victim blaming.
Then I found some forum posters who claimed that in most states, you have until the age of 20 or 21 to sue an abusive parent. As far as I can tell, that’s generally true in the case of physical, non-sexual abuse, so if you were beaten as a child, you have until you’re a junior in college or your third year working at Burger King to hire that pricey attorney! Otherwise, the US is A-OK with what happened to you. Interestingly, sexual abuse often has a much longer statute – in some states, it’s up to the lifetime of the victim. Apparently emotionally abused kids can just go fuck themselves, since it’s very hard to document emotional abuse the way you can document wounds a doctor has seen. I realize there are other issues, like the problem of evidence, but for the law to blatantly suggest that sexual abuse is somehow worse than physical and emotional abuse is sending a very wrong message: all abuse is equally wrong in a moral sense.
Eventually, I found this forum, in which yet another person was asking the same question, but the respondents appear to be fellow abuse survivors. The questioner is 23 and can’t really function in life – agoraphobic (from the sound of it), unable to hold down a job, etc. All of this could easily be attributed to the abuse the person describes enduring. Here is my favorite response:
I have been doing a lot of research on the same topic for the past few day’s it seems to me that it is quite feasible although I would speculate that a lot of lawyers would not want to dirty their hands with such a case, there are as the other person who commented said; who see the sanctity of family as untouchable. As the threes of us, along with many others know; there is no sanctity in abuse.
Here, in a nutshell, is America’s concept of family values: we need babies, because babies become consumers who buy crap. We mustn’t allow anything to discourage people from making babies. It doesn’t matter if the babies are born addicted to something and grow up in a slum with no education, or they’re born to wealth and made to pay for it with sexual favors from an early age. It’s all good, because as long as they are eating and wearing clothes, businesses can make money off of these kids. That’s what America values.
And heaven forbid anyone check in with the adult children of the people making and supporting these laws.
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Posted in Abuse, Ageism, Discussion on January 23, 2010 
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January 23rd, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I looked into this a long time ago. I think there were a few cases where people successfully sued for sexual abuse and the reparations were paid out of the home owner’s liability insurance. Then we got the “false memory” backlash, because now that money was involved, people started taking these victims seriously (so had to discount them).
The thing that has always gotten me is that I’m on the dole, and my parents have a lot of money, compared to most, but the government shows no interest in going after their money themselves (to repay supporting me). I do know, however, that my parents can’t disinherit me. It makes no sense.
Actually, now that I think about it, there was a case in
Calgary awhile back of an offspring suing the parent for serious emotional/physical abuse and succeeding. It was a token success, though, because the mother didn’t have any real money. But still, it would have been validating. I wanted to hire that lawyer so bad.
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:24 pm
I wonder if those successful sexual abuse cases were kids against abusive parents, or kids against priests and other non-familial adults? I do remember some cases being brought against priests, but can’t remember how they turned out.
I wasn’t too shocked to discover these lawsuits don’t happen/succeed much – I learned last year as a tenant whose rights were being clearly violated that unless you can afford a lawyer, your rights may as well not exist. What really disheartens me in all this was how vigorous people were in assuring these people, “Aw, a lawsuit would only cause you pain! Just let it go! You’ll feel better!” And those were the kindest responses.
I really think, deep down, we must hate kids. I can’t rationalize it any other way. I think making sure kids grow up reasonably happy and healthy is important for all of society, even those of us who don’t raise kids ourselves – because abused kids so often grow up to hurt others. To me, it seems so obvious that this is important, but when you try to talk about it frankly, people react as if you’re trying to destroy society rather than trying to, you know, cure it of cancer.
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:40 pm
I think it was parents/stepparents. What I’ve seen of cases against priests is that you get class action suits and settlements, with the male victims getting bigger payouts than the female ones. :p
Alice Miller talks about how people seem afraid to challenge parental authority. It would undermine everything they believe in.
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:18 pm
It would undermine everything they believe in.
I’m not familiar with Alice Miller, but someone was telling me recently about an author who says most Americans have what he calls an authoritarian personality – meaning, they want an authority figure to boss them around their entire lives. That’s why they like politicians who want to legislate what we can do in our personal lives and so on. I speculate that the only reason an adult could crave this is because they’re terrified of being responsible for their own choices – they want Daddy Government or Daddy Religion or any faux daddy they can find to make all their decisions and take all the blame.
For people who can’t stand responsibility, giving up freedom to the point of losing autonomy is a small price to pay.
January 24th, 2010 at 9:17 am
http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php
I think what she’s saying is that admitting that child abuse is bad would be the same as admitting their own parents were cruel to them, and most people can’t go there. Some of us, of course, have nothing to lose.
January 24th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
I see. That makes sense – people who have bought into the abuse cycle as normal human behavior don’t want the wake-up call that informs them they were abused. Or that they are abusing someone else.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:30 am
There was this tabloid article from years ago that’s always stuck with me. It was about how Rhiannah (the singer) has nothing to do with her father, who is, they would have it, wasting away in poverty while his ungrateful daughter refuses to give him a penny.
The first thing I thought of was that, well, maybe he was abusive and she has every right to let him rot in poverty. (And knowing what we do now, she certainly wouldn’t be the first woman from an abusive home to get involved with abusive men as an adult.) Hell, maybe she IS just an ungrateful brat. We don’t know – but the ‘ungaretful brat’ scenario seems to be the default logic, not just with Rhiannah, but EVERYONE when it come sto their parents.
February 6th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Yep, Scarlett. I can also recall a few celebs openly stating they’re out of contact with a parent, and fans weep and handwring and hope they will be reunited. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to explain to them: there are people in this world who are completely without compassion and empathy. Being in contact with folks like that is not healthy just because you share genes with them. Would you urge a child of a serial killer to keep in touch with the killer? Well, Jesus, never mind – I bet some people would. I recommend they do that themselves instead, lord have mercy.
February 8th, 2010 at 4:28 am
Yeah, I remember hearing about Sarah McLachlan, who’s adopted, had requested her adoption records be closed because she didn’t want contact with her biological parents, and reading comments along the lines of ‘but how she could be so heartles?’ and thinking, well, who really knows the details other than McLachlan herself so who is anyone to judge?
Reminds me of a friend of mine who was adopted who had no interest in meeting her biological parents. She didn’t have any ‘you abandoned me, I hate you’ issues, she just saw her adoptive parents *as* her parents and her biological parents as strangers that she had no interest in meeting. Made perfect sense to me, but apparantly she had gotten a lot of crap over the years for not having this deep curiosity about her biological parents, like that made her disloyal or something.
February 8th, 2010 at 4:31 am
Sorry, a bit OT. Just to do with this hung-up that so many people have that we owe somuch loyalty, support, time and effort to our parents just because we share DNA.
February 11th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
My parents divorced. My dad was quick to apologize for his role in causing the divorce and offered his time, money and assistance whenever I needed it. My mom however, began “brainwashing” my brothers and I by creating viscious slander about my dad and force feeding it on a daily basis. Also she would bring her alcholic boyfriend over to exact his will on us while she smoked her cigarette. Between the screaming, swearing and threats, I was blessed with chronic depression and severe anxiety among other emotional disorders. I WILL find a way to recover damages from her if it takes me 10 years. I’m already screwed up so I have nothing to lose.
February 16th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Some of the abuse children suffer is directly connected to the fact of their oppression by adult culture. I wanted to respond to this article because I think that learning about youth rights is an important part of facing the issue of child abuse, and thinking of ways to counter it. Youth rights is a huge topic and so I can’t be detailed here, especially since I’m not an expert. I just care about the subject and have done some reading about youth rights in an attempt to understand the abuses I faced in my own youth, and still tend to face when I’m mistaken for a youth at my present age.
Children aren’t considered to be ordinary human beings (with privileges and rights) until they are adults. Not only do they not have the same rights or privileges, but they are often judged and subjected to laws based solely on adult fears. This magic age when someone becomes an adult is always shifting based on the adult culture’s preference or perception. For example, I’ve read that some children (oppressed human beings) don’t become “real” adults until they are over 26 years of age. The arbitrariness of this magic age makes the oppression more profound since there is no agreement as to when you will be emancipated from it. Apparently all of us experience this oppression because all of us experience childhood.
It’s the responsibility of each adult when they become an adult to not treat other young people in the same oppressed way that they were treated. I encourage everyone to seek out youth rights resources, especially if you have been hurt by oppression/abuse in your youth. It’s empowering to learn about different ways of interacting with people in order to help prevent the spread of abusive behavior. It’s worthwhile to research the subject and try to think of ways to help or change so that more young people don’t grow up thinking that this is the way the world should work.
I think a lot of adults abuse children because they are feeling and acting on this adult privilege. I think it’s important to learn better ways of interacting with people of all ages so that no one has to feel like they are less than human. Unfortunately prevalent culture likes to enforce the hate. I still experience youth oppression everywhere in the USA, and most people consider it normal. Many adults fear prejudice from youth. My experience is that the prejudice definitely goes both ways, but tends to originate from the adults and their desire to uphold their positions of privilege.