Can't You See the Tears?

What does it take to be a good parent? How bad can parents be when their child runs away and denounces them to the Civil Guard as abusers? The child complained that the mother continuously controlled her child, not trusting it away from her except when at school. The child's phone was taken away and communication with its friends denied outside school. The child was given another phone and number by a friend as a present. The child saved the little lunch money to have money in the phone. The discovery of that phone prompted a slap and verbal abuse. After years of threats and virtual imprisonments and psychological demeaning, the child decided to run away and denounce the situation. The child refused to go back home, claiming the parents would kill it. The law gives the parent the right to control the child's movements and communications. Yet when does that right become an abuse? A parent has the right to punish the child accordingly with what the child has done wrong. What if the child merely wanted a little freedom in accordance with its age? What if the child is emotionally mature enough to understand right from wrong and act accordingly? Has the child no say then in matters that affect it within the family framework?

There is too fine a line between love and hate. Or love and control. When does a parent's love become excessive control? It can be seen when the child is an adult, but when the child is a teenager excessive control can be confused with worry over the child's welfare. A parent worries his child is getting into trouble and he will follow the child and try to control the child's communications. But what if the child is simply trying to be a normal teenager and has no intention of commiting a crime, even petty crimes like vandalism? Or if the child comprehends perfectly what drugs are and would never consume, buy or sell? I just know I wouldn't want to be a family court judge. I would be too worried I would make the wrong mistake and that the wrong party would suffer. It has been difficult enough being a parent trying to make the right decisions according to my child's psychological and physical age. It would be impossible deciding a case before me without concrete knowledge about the parents and the child. And one of the abuses most difficult to prove is psychological abuse.

When a parent calls a child "stupid," "good-for-nothing," and other insults linking it to sexual promiscuity when there is none, or wishing the child had never been born, or threatening to kill it, scars are formed in that child forever. The child will always feel less self-worth than others. It will automatically separate itself from most of its friends and assume that others also have that same opinion expressed by the parents, who happen to be respected adults. There will appear a self-esteem so low the child will even consider suicide as a way to escape. A child that has encountered those words needs much love and time to overcome them. 

I just wish that child will encounter helpful people within the system to help it overcome the fear and bewilderment caused by controlling parents who don't know words can hurt more than knife wounds.