posted on April 26, 2005 06:42:05 PM new
WASHINGTON, April 25, 2005 — Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are abused and neglected in the United States. Child welfare specialists say it's an epidemic caused by mental illness, drug addiction and poverty. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=701293&page=1
It seems like every time I turn on the news or read a newspaper... there it is...another gut wrenching case of child abuse and neglect. As the statistics show, there is such an increase of child abuse in the US, that it has now reached National Epidemic proportions.
Three reasons listed for the rise in numbers are : mental illness, drug addiction and poverty.
I am sure all play an significant part in this unspeakable act...and child abuse has always been a part of our society..so why such a high increase over the past decade?
It seems to me that although we can easily see that ,Mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction and poverty can all be contributing factors to this unspeakable, inexcusable act...there is something deeper some basic instinct missing in those who abuse helpless children....and in my opinion, that missing element is Compassion.....
I don't know if this is a basic instinct really, or a learned behavior... but what ever it is, I'm seeing this lack of compassion more and more......if it is a learned behavior.. then it isn't being taught and in my opinion contributes to the cycle of abuse.
For example I live in the country where kids and pets still roam freely and it never ceases to amaze me to see how the children treat their pets or strays... with cruelty beyond belief and no sense of remorse...
I caught two 9-10 year old boys pelting a young dog with stones not to long ago, the dog was yelping with pain... I tore after them and stopped them...and asked them what the hell they thought they were doing! They looked shocked at my outrage and told me it was their dog and they could do what they wanted to it...which shocked me even more to know that they were abusing their own pet... total lack of compassion or caring....
Another time there was an old one eyed dog that would follow the kids around... one day I heard one child bragging about how his dad had kicked the dog in the eye when it was a puppy and that's why it only has one eye...and the rest found this very humorous!
These kids have obviously never been taught compassion and so the cycle of abuse continues...
I don't know what the solution is or how we can stop this cycle of abuse...any thoughts?
[ edited by maggiemuggins on Apr 26, 2005 06:43 PM ]
posted on April 26, 2005 07:02:57 PM new
yea..have your tubes tied and stop having kids.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Baseball season has started,but they have it all wrong.3 strikes and you're out,4 balls you walk.I can tell you right now a man with 4 balls could not possibly walk
posted on April 26, 2005 07:29:13 PM new
Maggie,
Compassion seems to be a moral value some Americans are running away from these days. Less and less compassion is being shown to Humans,animals and the environment. All in the name of the all mighty dollar by the my way or no way crowd.
