There s a school of thought that says it s not the damage that s done when a child is hurt that causes problems later in life; it s the failure to repair it. Mistakes are made by parents all the time; after all, they are only human. Children, bless their cotton socks, will pick up an atmosphere and all too readily assume it s their fault. They will hear a row and blame themselves, will feel ashamed when they are snapped at by an exhausted parent.
Good parenting is about being willing to make amends; to acknowledge that their charge s feelings have been hurt, to explain that Mummy s headache or Daddy s temper is not because little Patricia or Sean have been bad. Unlike with adults, when love is supposed to be about never having to say you re sorry, with children some attempt needs to be made to explain. When it is, then a child can learn that it s alright to make mistakes; that it s human.
Apologies are not only effective with young children; new experiments in dealing with juvenile offenders are proving quite successfully that if a teenager is confronted with the pensioner they mugged or the householder they robbed, they are less likely to offend. In a face-to-face encounter, the perpetrator is presented with the consequences of their actions, and, most importantly, witnesses the distress that they have caused. They are encouraged to respond, in kind, with an emotional reaction of their own, leading to a genuine expression of remorse, except in the toughest of kids. It is this emotional exchange that is effective; a healthy process of listening, and responding, leading possibly to forgiving and moving on.
I don t know how on earth children who were abused by the Christian Brothers can come to terms with it now. As fulsome as the apology is, and backed up with free counselling service as it is, there is something deeply shameful about the delay; for the damage was done over decades, and generations of Irish men have experienced the torment of institutionalised abuse as children without the healing recognition at the time that they didn t deserve it.
EMOTIONAL
SCAB-PICKING
The patterns have been set. It is very hard to break them; and it is a very painful process. Such excavations of our emotional natures often bring a realisation that some aspects of our lives have been built upon rotten foundations; that choices we made were based on damaged self-esteem, low expectations, and bruised and battered attitudes to our feelings and sexuality. I feel sorry for those men, especially the older ones, who read that statement from the Brothers and were forced to examine, possibly for the first time, what an effect their childhood had on them.
It also makes me wonder about how their wives and partners will be able to cope with the changes that such a process involves; previously private and guarded men embarking on a process of emotional scab-picking, bringing up uncomfortable questions about choices they made both in love and in their careers, and how they, in turn, treated their sons and daughters.
As I write, a little five-year-old boy has just passed my window. His name is Aaron, and he has a deaf- aid strapped to his chest. I find it impossible to understand what he says, although the kids next door seem to have no problem. I often see him wandering on his own down the street to visit my neighbours. He s a lonely child, the kids on my block don t quite know what to say to him. He is becoming wilfully more obnoxious as he gets older. I don t blame him. His mother constantly shouts abuse at him, that he s bad, that he s stupid, that he s more trouble than he s worth. More than once I have heard him run off, and his mother, shouting hysterical abuse, has stormed after him and slapped him. It breaks my heart. I can of course have nothing to do with it; it is not my place to interfere. The fact that the scolding takes place outside my window, at least once a week, is incidental; the fact that it s extra loud because of his deafness simply makes it unavoidable. His mother has the look of a streetwise punk
In her twenties, with part- bleached hair and grungy clothes. She s mad as hell at the world, and most especially her son; it is not too difficult to conclude that she s simply continuing her parenting pattern, that that was the way she was treated as a child. She knows no different. I want to tell Aaron that he s not bad, that it s his mother that has the problem. But that can t be done. I m sorry, Aaron.
RECENT APOLOGY
Politicians are discovering the value of apologising. The Swiss have apologised to the Jews; Clinton has apologised to Africans. It is quite likely, given the mood currently in Britain, that Blair will apologise to Derry for Bloody Sunday, when the official report has been presented to him.
The Catholic Church, however, is political in a different sense. Sticking stubbornly to the ridiculous concept of Papal Infallibility, Rome s recent apology to Jews for the Church s inaction over their persecution during the War fell far short of fulsome, and has offended many. The institution is patently rotten at the top.
But nearer the grass roots, on a local level in Ireland, there is some sign that individual Catholics with conscience are winning the argument for decency and honour in their political structures. They should be respected for attempting to heal, for going against legal (and, presumably, Roman) advice by doing the brave and decent thing.
But it is ironic that, as this century draws to a close, with vocations dwindling to a trickle, the Brothers reveal in their statement how their power as healers and spiritual guides has been eclipsed by another group of people, with a different calling.
Counsellors are waiting for your call at the end of that freephone number. They have become the new confessors. n