The Price of Family Shame

This is probably the hardest post I will ever write. The problem is ingrained in almost every culture.

Even though statistics show our streets are as safe as they were back in the 1970s, we still keep our children close and don't them run about town because of "stranger danger."

I reject "stranger danger."

Why? Because they aren't a stranger to someone. Every person out there who has less than healthy designs on children and other people are KNOWN to someone. But we wait for human predators to mature and get caught instead of doing anything to stop them before they hurt someone.

There will never be an absence of predators out there. That is the way of things. Yet, overall, life is a whole lot less dangerous than it used to be. But we still keep our kids close and often to their detriment. Better overweight from lack of exercise than the remote possibility they will be kidnapped by a stranger while riding their bike.

I maintain that for every bully, sociopath, psychopath, molester, gynophile, pedophile, rapist, hater - for every predator - there is someone who knows, someone who knew, but chooses/chose not to tell. That choice 'not to tell' is the crux.

We aren't doing our kids a favor by keeping them close. Most children are molested by someone they know. More often than not a family member. The odds are EXTREMELY high it will not be a stranger. Same with being raped. Yet we focus on "stranger danger" over all else in spite of the evidence to the contrary. Evidence that is not new. This is the way it has always been.

I've been studying this for over 25 years. I have my own family nightmare that I wish I could talk about openly. I'm being a full on hypocrite, actually, by not talking about it. And why don't I talk about it openly? Why don't I name names? Because it will hurt a lot of people. It's not that I didn't tell people several times back when it was happening to me, I did. No, the blame for not stopping it early on does not fall on my shoulders at least (I was eight). But I am part of the problem none the less for keeping the secret well into my adulthood.

So why didn't the adults I told back when I was eight stop it? First off, they did try. But the biggest reason it wasn't taken to someone, a professional, outside of the family is because of "family shame".

I'm 44 now and, like I mentioned, I've been studying this for a very long time. I've been in group therapy sessions, talked with friends, read books, researched online and studied psychology and sociology in college. I took every psych and related class my university had to offer. I even did independent studies on pedophilia and recidivism, as well as childhood personality development. Because of my "side" obsession, I ended up going to school for over six years before I graduated.

Look at it this way, the adult predator in question who we all love to hate started out as someone's child, someone's sibling, someone's nephew/niece, someone's cousin. If you found out today that your little brother or older sister was a predator, what would you do? Would you really? What if they were 10? That's how old my abuser was when it started. I was five. I told my mother three years later.

Don't envision me as your five your old daughter, envision the 10 year old abuser as your child. What do you do? It's so much easier when the abuser is someone else's child isn't it? Easier to call social services on them. Call the police. Hate them.

What happens to this child you love if people find out they are an abuser? 

Now think of your reputation. Your spouse's reputation. What will people think of your other children? And if you do get the child help, many states require therapists report such things to social services regardless of doctor/patient confidentiality. What will your neighbors think? The people in  your children's school? The parents of your children's friends? Your fellow church goers? Your employer and fellow employees? Can you imagine such a family stigma?

Can you blame these families for burying such secrets?

As a mother myself now... well... I understand it, at least. But, yes, they are to blame.

Why? Because most predators are made, not born. I only found out recently that my abuser was molested in a public bathroom as a young child. If the adults I had told had gotten my abuser outside help, therapy, right away, things could have been so different. BOTH an abuser and a victim would have been saved. As well as any other current/potential victims. Not to mention the next generation of victims and so on. THINK of all those who would never have been victims if the molester who abused my abuser had gotten help early on.

Do you see! Don't you think that is worth any stigma?

No? Well, I understand, I do. But you must also know that keeping such secrets not only doesn't make it stop or go away, but puts a heavy burden on the victim, right? NOW think of me, the five year old victim as your child, too. Do you think getting outside help would make things worse for her? Unlikely. She already lives with a constant dread of accidentally being left alone with her abuser. Or the abuser finding her alone. Her outgoing personality has already changed to one of quiet submissiveness and fear. She blames herself. She hates her parents. The feelings of helplessness will linger long into her adulthood. Sex will be scary. And she will go through life always feeling as though she is tainted. People will judge her on a personality, emotions, reactions, character, that don't seem like her own, but were forced upon her by circumstance. And how does her history of being a victim at such a young age effect her as a mother?

So now is the stigma worth it?

To me, even after airing my own experience in this, it is still, really, all about the abuser. Those young boys and girls who start abusing other young people. Getting them help is the important thing. We have so many tools today to deal with abusers. And the younger they are when they get help, the better. SAVE THEM!

Saving them will be what really changes the future for many would be victims. And by changing the future for them, we change the future for us all.

My main intent here is to get people to realize that there is a remedy, a bitter pill certainly, but a remedy for those we consider human predators. And the whole stranger danger thing is more harmful than good. Now I'm not saying every weird uncle, overly friendly grandma or ham fisted cousin is a predator, but if you were warned as a child to stay away from them, then they probably were.

So please, stop over protecting your children from every stranger they see. Some day they may find themselves in a situation where a stranger will be needed to help them, or possibly even save them. Teach them to simply be observant and smart. And teach them to realize that every kid they see on the brink of violence is probably just trying to survive. Encourage them to speak up and speak out. Regardless of a bully's past, the bullying still needs to stop. For everyone that speaks up and speaks out, whether about a peer or a family member, many will be saved. I truly believe there are many more good people in the world than bad. For every one predator there are 100s more who are caring. All some of them need is a nudge in the right direction.

As for me and my skeleton, well, it still lives with me; although, it barely bothers me anymore except to remind me that it is still in the basement. I would love to bring it out and give it a proper burial (and pronoun), but, then, that would be telling now wouldn't it?

Jack of all Trades

When I went to college way back in 1986, I went in thinking I should take every class related to my major and then some. Because I was going into commercial art (that is what graphic design was called back then) and it was a given that anyone with a commercial art degree was hired on at an advertising agency, I decided to learn everything I could about Advertising. I acquired a minor in Psychology, and took most of the Sociology classes as well. I took creative writing, theater, every fine art class they offered, marketing, advertising (I, II & III), broadcasting, photography, journalism, and communications. 18 more months and I would have had three more degrees (BS degrees in Fine Art, Psychology/Sociology double major, and Industrial Technology with an emphasis in Secondary Education [I kinda wanted to be a high school shop teacher, too]). As it was I decided not to go that extra year and a half, and got out with my Bachelor's in Communication Arts with a Graphics emphasis, Associates in Commercial Art and a minor in Psychology with an emphasis in Personality Theory. It only took six years! :P

Then reality hit and I realized an Advertising Agency was not going to hire me. Two reasons: looks and family. There are very few Advertising Agencies in my home state to begin with, and basically the only way to get in is be a model yourself or be related to someone in upper management. So I got a job at a local newspaper instead. Now while in college, I also worked as a graphic designer for the University, tutored and ran the Mac lab, and did graphic design for college groups, clubs and organizations. With that experience and the degrees, I landed a pretty good job, really. Newspapers in my state also double as copy/print shops with in-house graphic designers. In this case just myself, but it was a big step from entry level.

My position included all graphic design for independent projects outside of the newspaper itself, all design jobs for the offset press, one big yearly magazine for the rally, a quarterly gambling magazine for Deadwood, the snowmobiling tab that ran weekly over the winter, and the weekly Sunday giant shopping inserts. I learned so much at that newspaper. Their system was so dated when I got there! I was used to working on Macs, but they had nothing but an old Compugraphic system they had invested heavily in just one year before Macs took over the industry. Compugraphics are like working without a monitor. You have to think in points, do everything in your head and hope it printed right. They were barely a step up from typewriters and line tape. Graphics were clipped out of huge clip art books and waxed into place. The dark room was the heart of the business. Invaluable experience, believe me.

Eventually the family that owned the paper sold it to a big corporation and they updated everything to the latest Macs. My job was expanded to include ads and I was then able to learn QuarkXpress and scanning (which was new).

After that job I worked for a while as an in-house designer for a print shop. While I worked there I taught myself PhotoShop, specifically, photo manipulation. Now you have to understand that when I was in college, Aldus reigned supreme: PageMaker, FreeHand and SuperPaint. Quark and PhotoShop didn't start to hit big until just after I graduated. Then I got stuck in the time warp at the newspaper. But I was young and caught right up.

Eventually I landed a job with a screen shop that did decals and stickers. I had drafting experience from high school and my Industrial Technology classes. Who would have thought those would help me land a job? Again, the company was still pretty much old school. They had just bought their first two Macs, but most everything was still done by hand. First an illustrator drew the design; the line art was then made into a positive on clear film; with rubylith and an exacto knife process/spot colors were cut out; half tone screens were used for shades and gradations; the rubylith separations were then shot and made into positives; color separations were then ganged on large sheets; cut lines and registration marks were added by hand and eye; the large sheets of positives were sent to be burned onto screens as negatives; and, finally, inserted in presses. Some presses were hand run and some were giant machines. All positives and negatives were done in a dark room with a giant stat camera (which caught on fire sometimes). We also ran die cutters, sheet cutters, stampers, sorters and packaging machines. Again, a wealth of knowledge to be soaked up. Eventually color separating and stripping was slowly relegated to the new machines. FreeHand was the main software we used. From that job I became a FreeHand Guru. We also used PhotoShop and Illustrator. I excelled at that job.

From there I went from the boonies to the big city. Fairly quickly I landed a job as a graphic design instructor at The Art Institute. SCORE! It only lasted the one semester, but that was a blast! I totally want to do that again. :) While teaching my one class, I also got a job working for a screen printing/embroidery company that did clothing and merchandise. Again, FreeHand reigned supreme, but I learned to design for different types of screen printing, pad printing and embroidery.

I eventually left that job to take a position with an electronics buying group. I was back using QuarkXpress and PhotoShop, but it was there that I learned how to use PowerPoint. I bolstered my basic graphic design skills and learned to design logos, faxing campaigns, conference building, presentations, catalogs, technical writing, and took a stab at management.

From that point I worked with a lot of start ups sprinkled with some established mega companies (PricewaterhouseCoopers and Houston Chronicle). All those positions drilled branding into my head. I branded companies from the bottom up and was the company brand watch dog at PricewaterhouseCoopers. At the Houston Chronicle it was back to learning about black & white. So many mistakes are made there. Printing black & white is a whole different animal to printing full color. I also learned web design. I can't and have no wish to develop a website, but I can design one with all the right colors, images, text and navigation. Making it run/work I leave up to the experts.

What's my point? Well over the last several years I've been getting a lot of flack from the design community and potential hires that I need to pick a specialty. Why? I personally feel my experience makes me a better designer and better employee. No one is perfect, but I can nip many problems in the bud before they go into production. Why should I limit myself to "Logo Designer" when I can do so much more than just that? Some people are afraid to call me a production artist, as though that may offend me. It does not. I am a damn good production artist. I'm also a good designer as well. Again, why can't I say I do all of that? When did knowing the ins and outs of your chosen profession become a liability?

Now I know I will never be a Design God. I'm good, but not a God. I've met some Gods. I think, however, that, with my experience, I can help mold future Design Gods. I mean where do you go from here? I'm getting tired. My eyes aren't what they used to be (too much staring into bright lights over the years). The tendons in my hands are creaky. I'm into middle age and feeling it (if not showing it). I believe it is time I went back to school and got my Masters in Fine Art so I can mentor/teach the Design Gods of the future.