Child sexual abuse: On the folly of age

On the telly last night, a teacher posed a question about what the tale of Romeo and Juliet was really about. His students hazarded several guesses.

"It is a comedy. That old woman and that old man? They were fools!" one student wise-cracked. The class roared with laughter.

"Yes, yes," the teacher encouraged. "The nun and the friar. Why were they fools?"

"Because they were old!" Another ventured wryly. The teacher nodded.

"It is about the purity of their love, untainted by the folly of age," the teacher finally said, his arms raised. For emphasis.

***

My nephew looked at me quizzically. "Are you Papa's child?" He hasn't quite grasped the concept of kinship yet. He was only four.

"No, I said, patiently. "I am your Papa's sister. So I am your aunty."

"Yes, you are Aunty," he said brightly. "I love you," he added.

This conversation reminded me of when I was six. I had to do a class assignment which inter alia, required me to give some attributes to my parents and to name my favourite teacher. So I wrote that my mother was beautiful and my father was handsome, and that after I had seemingly exhausted a list of names of who this person was, and who that person was in my life, I came across the last question: who was your favourite teacher? His was the only name left in my mind, my having used every other name, and so I wrote his name down: Noah. I did like him, but it was not the most logical approach and I still remember now my thought process: but it was how I thought at the time.

So "Noah" it was. My favourite teacher.

As I grew older, I often thought about him. The seemingly arbitrary manner in which he had won that title of my favourite teacher, and how, over time, one becomes purportedly more discerning. Better able to judge people, better able to give labels.

I talked to another survivor recently, Lily. She had been abused by her father and was sent to a children's home at the age of nine. I was ten when mine began. What horrors we went through as children!

How my world changed at the age of ten when I felt that I could no longer trust the adults around me.

I told Lily that as part of my therapy as an adult, I had to stop blaming myself. That I had to understand that a 10-year-old could not have been capable of seducing an adult. And that it was the responsibility of the adult to protect the child, all the time.

The teacher in yesterday's TV serial had said that adults made mistakes. They tried their best, from experience. But whatever they did was no match for the innocence and purity of the young.

How true.

Read part 19 here.

Read part 18 here.

Read part 17 here.

Read part 16 here.

Read part 15 here.

Read part 14 here.

Read part 13 here.

Read part 12 here.

Read part 11 here.

Read part ten here.

Read part nine here.

Read part eight here.

Read part seven here.

Read part six here.

Read part five here.

Read part four here.

Read part three here.

Read part two here.

Read part one here.