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A Lost Story About Protection of Children and Creatures

Posted by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Deputy Managing Editor, Columnist in At TMV.
Feb 24th, 2009 | Comments

Earlier tonight, Jill Miller Zimon, our coblogger at The Moderate Voice, replied in comments to an article I’d written about how some persons intimidate and force young children to hysteria… children who have done nothing to provoke such, in order to instill fear into the child… and how others sometimes dont see such as intimidation and abuse… as long as the child is not slapped around.

Zimon’s comment was so poignant, I wanted to give it its own venue here:

“I always work to call up my strength to go up to strangers when I see things such as you witnessed…”

Zimon added this poignant historical set of facts that are long forgotten by many:

“I suspect you know this too, but just in case people aren’t aware, the ASPCA [American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] came into existence before… child-protection organizations and laws did…

[AND] “the man responsible for creating the ASPCA [also] helped create the first juvenile agency as well…”

You can read about Henry Bergh, ‘friend of the animals,’ and a progenitor of ‘the child-saving movement’ here.

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Jillmz

This is an extremely high compliment, dr. e and I'm very appreciative. I spent many years in child protection and mental health services while getting my law and social work degrees and then in an agency for eight years. It continues to be an area of great concern and interest for me. And like many of the things in life we take for granted or find hard to think about, it continues to fall into those categories too, unless and until something tabloid worthy comes along - which, by then, it's of course too late.

I'm really not sure how we change this - but seeing as how the movement is more than 100 years old, maybe we're ready to take it to the next step. Part of the problem is that when people themselves are hurting - on a number of levels - children (and animals/pets) are often the last ones cared for.

Anyway - I once held out working at the Childrens Defense Fund as the end all be all - I think the world of Marian Wright Edelman. I still feel that way about CDF. Never say never. :)

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