Australia celebrates Father’s Day on the first Sunday in September. That makes it this Sunday. Because the world’s countries celebrate Father’s day on different dates we are provided with multiple opportunities to be reminded of how special Dads are. How wonderful for those Dads that may have dual citizenship. They get to have multiple days where their protection of, and love and concern for, their children are openly celebrated.
At a Protective Play Party yesterday, many of the Mums and children were talking about what they had planned as a surprise for Daddy on Sunday. Some other Mums and children were quiet. They had no Dad to celebrate. Their experiences of a Dad were unhappy and they were not keen to help anyone celebrate Dad specialness.
In a previous blog on protective behaviors, I mentioned that the prevalence statistic for sexual abuse is one in three. Eighty five percent of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by somebody well known to the child. Frequently it is a family member and far too often, it is a father. Even though the rates of sexual assault are high, we must all remember that not all Dads, or men, sexually abuse our children. There are many wonderful Dads’ that deserve special days.
Children harmed by their fathers do still often love their Dads. They just want the hurt to stop. Unable to tell anyone about what is happening, the children endure ongoing harms that no person, adult or child, should ever have to put up with. The grooming process the perpetrator uses to make him look like a street angel further robs the child of their voice. The child begins to internalize that nobody will believe them because everyone loves the perpetrator. School reinforces the child’s internalization by encouraging the child to make a card to give to Daddy – “Thank you for looking after me Daddy. You are the best Daddy in the world.” In the process of celebrating Father’s Day, the child’s physical and emotional safety is overlooked. The child responds by squashing their emotional turmoil and throws itself into the celebration. They become further caught in the grooming and entangled in the love/hate feelings toward their Dad.
Although we cannot ethically and morally allow our children to be harmed by anyone, we also cannot treat every Dad as a potential child abuser and hold back on celebrating them, just in case they are a rotten apple. Everyone has the potential to be a rotten apple, even women.
One of the Mums (a survivor of child sexual abuse herself) at yesterday’s Protective Play party shared with the group how she manages the balance between encouraging her children to love, respect and trust their Dad/Granddad/Uncles but still keep the lines of communication open so that the kids know it’s okay to tell if anyone ever hurts them. On special days, everyone in their family says two or more wonderful things about the person being celebrated and at least one thing that they don’t like. For example, “You are a good friend because you listen to me and thanks for taking me to the beach on the weekends. I don’t like that you snore when I’m watching T.V.”
The other Mum’s present thought it was a wonderful idea. I’m going to test it with other families that I work with and will report back with how it is accepted as a protection tool.
In the mean time, an awareness of the dynamics of child sexual abuse is a good thing. Paranoia though is damaging to family life. Remember that not everyone sexually abuses kids. Just as being a Mum is difficult, how hard must it be to be a Dad when there’s so much research saying that it is male family members and close friends that mostly perpetrate child sexual abuse?
To those Granddads, Dads, Uncles, step fathers, older brothers and friends of the family that care for and protect our collective children, thank you and happy father’s day from me in Australia.