Tammi's World

Someone Needs A Good Bitch Slappin'

This. Is a Rant. To be more precise - this is MY rant. It is based on my feelings, experience and observations. It might not flow. It might not be poetic. And it damned well won't be "fair and balanced" or even pretty. I'm just warnin' you ahead of time. I am pissed beyond all belief at this point and cannot promise to be very lady like.

I saw THIS headline last night. Soldiers deploy, child abuse increases Study

First off it was written by the Canadian Press. Whatever But I knew, as I clicked over to read the article, it was gonna piss me off. I just knew it.

Boy oh boy was I right.

Here are a few of the "key points" that just killed me.....along with my response.

"Incidents of child abuse and neglect among U.S. army families rise significantly when a parent is deployed to a combat zone and the problem is greatest when women are left behind to keep the home fires burning, a study has found.

"And over all these families we did find a 42 per cent increase in the rate of child abuse and neglect during times of deployment compared to non-deployment," said co-author Sandra Martin, a professor of maternal and child health at the University of North Carolina.

"But what we found when we looked at that is really it seemed that the deployment had the greatest effect on the civilian wives that were left behind when their husbands went off to war," Martin said Tuesday from Chapel Hill, N.C.

"For that particular group, when we analyzed the data, we found that the rate of child neglect increased almost four times amongst these women, and the rate of physical child abuse almost doubled."

Neglect was defined as not providing adequate care for a child.

"It could be that you're not at home when the child is at home – if they're a young child – that you're not sending your child to school, that you're not taking them for health care when they need it," she said.

When it came to child abuse, Martin said the incidents included physical, emotional and sexual mistreatment. While physical abuse rose noticeably with a spouse's deployment, sexual and emotional abuse levels stayed the same.

"We know that military combat deployments are very stressful for families and most families really deal with this very well," she said. "But for some families the stress is just too much and it translates into inappropriate parenting.""

WTF?!?!?! Here are a few thoughts that pop into MY mind!!

Where are the figures for ALL single parent households? Huh. Cause let me tell you, when you deal with a sudden loss, and all of a sudden you are a single parent, doin it all, things get a little tense. And YES the children have to pick up a bit of the slack. Household chores, other responsibilities. Hell - when I was growin' up we called that doin' chores! Having a child help out around the house does NOT constitute CHILD ABUSE or NEGLECT! For cryin' out loud. It's teaching responsibility.

Oh, and lets talk about discipline for just a moment, shall we?!?! My Mama had two girls to worry about. As well as the house, the money, food, clothes, utilities. And, lets face it, we girls were kinda in shock after losing our father and having, suddenly, just one parent. IOW - we weren't the easiest of children to have around. So she cracked the whip. We got one warning. One. We got spankings. Every action had a reaction. We knew what the reaction would be if we screwed up. Wasn't hard to figure out. Some folks, especially now-a-days, would like to say we were abused. I'll say it publically - I never got a spankin' I didn't deserve, and in all honesty I should have gotten a lot more than I did. But in today's day - that's considered abuse. Un.Believe.Able.

And being a single parent is just about the HARDEST THING a person will ever do. Period. End of sentence. Whether it's a military spouse or My Mama, it's a tough row to hoe.

But their definition of Neglect just kicks my ass. Talk about coddlin'. Talk about Nanny State. Shit. Latch Key Kids were the norm in my generation. Hell, we wrote the damned book. You come home, get yourself an after school snack, do your chores and your homework. And you better be sure everything is "high and tight" by the time Mama got home or there were questions to be answered. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

Now I ain't sayin' leave your 4 year old home alone. I'm sayin' that I'm willing to bet the study was a "tad bit biased". (gee, did my sarcasm come through there?) They are tryin' to paint the Military Spouses in a bad light, and well - I'm willing to bet there are those uninformed folks out there that are going to fall for that hook line and sinker.

Just flippin' great. Not only do our Military have to contend with all the other SHIT going on right now, they get to fight this demon as well.

Don't just look at the Military Spouses. Look at the Welfare families, the single parent families, society overall. I don't have the time or the patience to google all that shit - but I'd be willing to bet that if you look at the figures for Society overall - the increase they are working so hard to draw attention to is as high if not higher.

The military is made up of men and women. Good and bad. Just like any other organization. Your Church, the Scouts, EVERYWHERE. So - don't be publishin' your bullshit, targeted "studies" and think that we're lettin' it flow. Cause I'm throwing the Bull Shit Flag on this one.

Now you're messin' with the folks I love. Now. You pissed me off.

Posted by Tammi at August 1, 2007 05:46 AM | TrackBack