by MCB52
"Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty."

-- The Communist Manifesto

In this article MIM examines the oppression of children in the patriarchal family. In studying the reasons that adults abuse children, and the consequences of that abuse for children throughout their lives, we again come face to face with Freudian psychology. And as always, communists must confront the bourgeois pseudo-science of psychology with materialist analysis. The psychological literature generally discusses child abuse in ahistorical terms such as Freud's theories of "penis envy" and "oedipal desire." Materialists, on the other hand, look to the real world and to the society in which children are raised. We analyze the structures that oppress children in patriarchal capitalist society, weigh the options or lack thereof that they face, and disavow individual psyche or personality as causal factors.

Looking internationally and across time, it becomes obvious that chronological age does not explain childhood. Ten-year-olds may be entirely dependent in some contexts, or may be independent brave revolutionaries in others. So we define children in the current context by the structures that bind them, principally enforced by the patriarchal family. We ask questions like, does the person have any access to means of survival without his or her parents? On the level of the state, which enforces the family: Can the person be taken away from or forced to stay with his or her parents? Can the person be tried as an adult in court?

These questions take us out of the narrow definitions of age and into the materialist category of social location. In the same way that biological sex does not determine gender oppression or privilege, neither does age determine childhood and adulthood. Using these social definitions, we underscore that children as a group do not have independent power and are subjected to patriarchal/parental power in particular. This oppression is not isolated from the fundamental social order and does not reflect individual bad parenting, but rather the low social value of children under capitalist patriarchy.

The bourgeois press, and the psychologists and police from whom it gets its information, most often present child abuse as "ritual abuse" or other dramatic stories far removed from ordinary relations. The more unusual the case, the more their emphasis masks the fundamental property relation that underlies the patriarchal family and hence the oppression of all children (to varying degrees). The standard by which the dramatic case is evaluated is "good" care of children under conditions of social, political and economic inequality within the family.

Like pseudo-feminists who want to make clear distinctions between "sex" (rape they like) and "rape" (rape they don't), so-called child advocates want to make clear distinctions between "normal care" and "child abuse" in a way that makes the fundamental unequal relationship between all parents and children under capitalist patriarchy legitimate. Communists, on the other hand, do not fight for women to be raped more enjoyably, or for children to be abused less grossly, but rather for rape and the oppression of children to end completely. Toward this goal, we are building public opinion and independent power to wage revolution to end the oppression of people over people.

In imperialist society, children cannot opt out of the patriarchal family. If they are removed from one family, the state will place them in another or an orphanage. They are completely physically subordinated in relation to their parents and do not have access to weapons to overcome this discrepancy. In fact, the higher levels of reporting of child abuse among older children (ages 12 to 17) may suggest that as this physical discrepancy decreases and/or access to weapons increases, children are challenging their caretakers' physical superiority and turning outside the family.(1)

Children almost completely lack the means of supporting themselves independently of adults. Their choices are essentially: 1: living in the given situation, 2: turning to the state which they may not understand or trust, 3: living on the streets. Even if we accepted that the latter two are real options, children are largely ignorant even of these. Toddlers for instance do not know how to access the state, and older children understand that foster care provided by the state may be different, but may not be better than what they've got at home. Toddlers and young children cannot live on the streets, and older children are capable of assessing the great risks involved and their "choice" not to turn to the streets is similar to their "choice" not to kill themselves, that is, not a terribly meaningful one. In cases of physical or sexual abuse, there is strong sanction (such as threat of death) to ensure secrecy, which isolates abused children and cuts off their communication with outside members of the society.

In many ways, MIM's analysis of gender and the gender aristocracy is applicable to the situation of children, but the question of complicity is different. The majority of women in Amerika have concrete choices, even if those choices are sometimes horrible ones. Battered women can usually leave the relationship and still survive. MIM would contend that women do not have choices in only very few situations.

How abuse is evaluated

The standard legal definition of child abuse is "infliction of physical harm by the caretaker," and it is determined and enforced locally according to "community standards." According to the New York Times, about 600 women kill their children every year in the United States. This is likely an underestimate (and does not even include murders by fathers); the threat to children is pervasive. Homicide is the third leading cause of death for children ages five to fourteen,(2) and the leading cause, "accidents," probably includes more cases.

But physical violence (that can be detected by teachers, doctors, police, etc.) is only one form of abuse that children suffer. Parents can also withhold necessities such as food or medical care. Other, nonphysical domination, is always enforceable by the implied threat of violence. If particular cases in which physical abuse reaches a life-threatening level, MIM cries out the urgency of those cases. There is little that MIM can offer at this time for children in such situations, but as we build there may be a way to create havens for such children as we develop independent power.

According to pig-generated statistics, oppressed nation children face more abuse -- by the standard definition of physical injury -- than their oppressor nation counterparts.(3) One explanation for these figures is that they are skewed by the fact that oppressed nation children are closer to the pigs; social workers are scrutinizing them for any evidence of abuse (even if it means taking the child away from a mother who is guilty of only a light slap) -- while Amerikans are not watched as scrupulously. Teachers are biased to look more carefully at the poor and oppressed nations, private doctors are less likely to report a family they know than are those who give care to the oppressed with the government looking over their shoulder, and the list goes on.

But there is also a second point of contention with these statistics: MIM recognizes that the whole lives of oppressed nation peoples are full of brutality, whether in the form of malnutrition, exploitation, lack of health care, or pig violence. It smacks of Judeo-Christian moralism to say "look at those people beating each other up," as pious whites say about gang violence. No society can have peaceful oppressed people. If it is true that the stresses of poverty may indeed lead to abuse (though MIM is not prepared to grant this case), then we should attack the parasitic state and its constituents that feed off poverty, not moralize its victims.(4) As the Amerikan nation keeps beating the oppressed nations down, its accusations against them for their (lesser) violence is grotesque.

Engels described child neglect among proletarians in this way:

"[T]he social order makes family life almost impossible for the worker. In a comfortless, filthy house, hardly good enough for mere nightly shelter, ill-furnished, often neither rain-tight nor warm, a foul atmosphere filling the rooms over-crowded with human beings, no domestic comfort is possible. The husband works the whole day through, perhaps the wife also and the elder children, all in different places; they meet night and morning only, all under perpetual temptation to drink; what family life is possible under these conditions? Yet the working man cannot escape the family, and the consequence is a perpetual succession of family troubles, domestic quarrels, most demoralizing for parents and children alike. Neglect of all domestic duties, neglect of the children, especially, is only too common among English working people, and too vigorously fostered by the existing institutions of society. And children growing up in this savage way, amidst these demoralizing influences, are expected to turn out goody-goody and moral in the end! Verily the requirements are naive which the self-satisfied bourgeois makes upon the working man!"(5)

Bourgeois society still expects from oppressed people quite unreasonable conformity to bourgeois norms -- which the bourgeoisie only hypocritically upholds! MIM does not excuse violence against children by proletarian and oppressed nation adults, but we more harshly condemn the hypocritical, bourgeois "Save the Children" reformists who use their so-called child advocacy to increase the police repression of oppressed nations. Such "advocates" just want the children to grow safely into adults who will then be exploited as such. MIM condemns all violence against oppressed nation people, children or adults, and it recognizes that the key to alleviating it is not moralizing with people but by working for their self- determination. We are not saying "children first," but rather "children, too."

Oppressor nation children

The property relation between parent and child is mitigated by class and nation, which is to say that a sort of child aristocracy exists in which children, while still objectified and subordinated, gain materially from the patriarchal imperialist system in which they join their parents as parasites.

But if children cannot opt out of the patriarchal family, then we cannot consider oppressor family children as enemies in the same way that we do their parents. However, we can learn from the children during the revolution in China who were able to understand and criticize their oppressor status. Even in a society in which filial piety had been a principal focus of morality for centuries, children took responsibility and denounced their parents. And so while we can make generalizations about which side the oppressor children as a group will likely take in revolution as they grow up, we also realize that children are more receptive to struggle and put great hope in winning many of them over to the side of revolution.

Non-accountability and eroticization allow abuse

Since the social reforms in imperialist countries near the beginning of the 20th century, oppressor nation children have been excluded from productive labor. Children's uselessness to the larger society feeds the failure to respect the intrinsic value of their lives. (MIM does not uphold or advocate child labor in an exploitative mode of production; rather that under socialism, children will be able to contribute to production.) Children who are physically abused are made more aware of their devalued status. But whether or not children are aware of it, the fact that they do not have important roles in the larger society prevents the larger society from being held accountable for children's well-being. And as long as the society is not held accountable, it will not be capable of preventing abuse. (More on accountability below in the description of children under Maoism.)

In a pornographic society that eroticizes powerlessness, and one that keeps children most powerless, children are the targets for domination. In pornography, images of women have gotten both more violent and younger. Women are shaved and dressed like children, or actual children are used. Going beyond Hustler, the image pervades advertising. The waif as super-model is upping the stakes in the eroticization of children's subordination in mainstream representations.

Victims and survivors

Child abuse in all its manifestations has a profound impact on children. Analysis of what the ubiquitous form (objectification and subordination without fear for life) does is difficult because isolating it from other factors of personalities in Amerika is impossible. There are also risks of being ahistorical because specialists in psychobabble will point to any behavior and attribute it to child abuse. Some psychologists hold that discreet outcomes are entirely determinable by discreet causes; they present child abuse and certain behaviors as "if p then q." This is not dialectical.

So-called psychological problems do not have one particular cause, as Freud suggested, but rather are the product of geographic, economic and historical environments. Crucially, these problems are not caused or cured by altering processes of thought, but by changing the environment on a social scale. Materialists do not scan only the first five years of life -- poking around for an event or invented desire to blame neuroses on -- but rather look at the social environment of children and adults to gain an understanding of all behavior, whether it is defined by pseudo-scientists as "normal" or "abnormal."

Other psychological models include the "bio-psycho-social" model which combines an analysis of genetic components, "psychological" ones seen as individual to the patient, and social components.(6) However, even these less dogmatic practitioners do not understand that the "psychological" traits are socially created, not biologically inherited.(7) "Every individual is a product of material circumstances."(8) Even the more materialist-sounding psychiatrists will never adequately explain the causes and effects of child abuse or any other social phenomenon until they abandon individualism and psyche-driven explanations -- in other words, until they abandon psychology altogether.

We can generalize that the behavior of children is shaped by their social position. If hyperactivity and aggressiveness among children are particular to capitalist society, then we can conclude that something in this society causes these behavior patterns. Further, we can speculate that the competition and individualism foisted upon children brings these behavior patterns about. Similarly, survivors of life-threatening physical or sexual abuse face certain problems characteristic to this abuse. For example, the secrecy that usually shrouds such abuse leads to isolation of its victims and thus their alienation from the community around them.

All children are taught to be helpless. More viciously abused children may have profound feelings of helplessness that can lead to more general feelings of inefficacy and hinder them later in life. While in fact children who survive physical or sexually abused are no less capable than anyone else, more struggle may be needed to counter incorrect ideas pounded in with deep emotional impact. This is similar to combating gendered female socialization which leads female revolutionaries to doubt their worth to the movement. Certainly we do not face the problems posed by this socialization to the same degree in all women, but recognizing that it does in fact exist helps to address it. And so harmful or problematic behavior patterns characteristic to survivors of child abuse are challenged as political line, just as those characteristic of gendered-female socialization are.

Survivors of severe abuse are also made more aware of their mortality than other children are, and may have good reason to believe that death is better than their options living trapped as a child. Mao's analysis of Miss Chiao's suicide was that she did not want to die, but to live, and chose death only because the former option was not open to her.(9) Similarly, "life" for severely abused children is not usually a choice, and so suicidal tendencies are well-founded. While still children they usually lack access to weapons or other such means, the death is made a real option early in life. This does not mean that survivors are going to kill themselves first chance they get. We cannot say that child abuse "causes" suicide in a linear way, because that would deny the dialectic, but we can say that it is a forming influence because it affects their consciousness.(10)

Here MIM is quite distinct from "survivor support groups," because we do not agree that these (or other) mistaken beliefs have to be changed before engaging in political struggle. Anyone is capable of contributing to the revolutionary struggle.

When MIM posted an article about the political ramifications of child abuse on an Internet newsgroup that exists to provide survivors "support," the response we received was hostile, asking how we could expect the readers of the group to focus on political issues when they have healing to do. The fact is, if individuals are old enough and aware enough to be discussing their experiences on the Internet, then the resource can be used as a tool of political struggle for those who really do want to end children's oppression. Since we are not welcome on that group, we must build our own dialogue and improve our line through our own media. As Mao admonished of Chinese women, MIM calls on survivors of child abuse to denounce the oppression of capitalist, imperialist patriarchal society so that the trap of "individual recovery" can be forsaken for good in a society that treats children justly.

Children of the revolution

Children are by definition dependent, and while we aspire to create a society in which children become independent earlier, some dependence on adults for a certain amount of time seems inevitable.

Unlike gender oppression among adults, relevance of the difference between children and adults is not only a manifestation of dominance (11), but to some extent exists prior. Children will never be economically independent in the way that women will be under socialism. And so we ask ourselves the question: can we create a society in which children are not oppressed?

We turn to the experience of socialist China for guidance. The first thing to tackle is providing communal child care both to liberate women from their burdens under patriarchy and give children an environment in which they can flourish. Groups of adults supervise groups of children, which helps caregivers to give up old behaviors. For example, while the first impulse of a frustrated caregiver might be to slap a child, with others present they are pressured to behave correctly. They are not isolated and without help, but part of a "multiple parenting" (we adapt the term from the Chinese one, "multiple mothering") team that keeps frustration to a minimum.(12)

Multiple parenting must not be confused with serial parenting, which is a reality for many children in Amerika today whose mothers do not care for them full-time and rely on various sitters and day cares. Children do benefit from building bonds with adults and their peers. Socialists in power would not immediately sever children from their biological parents, but rather make the current unrealized ideal of a more egalitarian and less pressured parent-child relationship possible.

Children must be made aware that it is their responsibility to ensure that their care-givers act appropriately and children must be given the opportunities to make criticism. As children are older, such as in the elementary school years, learning to criticize their teachers is a good way for them to learn the way that larger society is structured.

Accountability cannot end with the care-giving group. Even within this controlled arrangement, adults may abuse their power over children. Children must have access to the party in power in case their voices are not heard in their own schools or other environments. One anecdote published by Amerikan observers in revolutionary China told of an elementary school child who was punished for criticizing her teacher and wrote to the People's Daily explaining the situation. The newspaper came to the conclusion that she had been wronged and so held up the teacher for criticism by the whole society.(13) Small stories like this can serve as a model of how to empower children.

Subsumed within this framework is a dedication to providing all children with their material needs. Ending the violence of poverty will curb the violence of child abuse as a whole. Here materialists must maintain the conviction that all children are capable of (and worthy of) being useful members of society. There is no room for IQ testing and tracking of children in a society that does not accept as valid the notion of innate and immutable personality traits. If some children are better at some things, then let them help the slower ones. Finally, therapy is not the answer for child abuse. Revolutions is. Historical experience reveals there is nothing better for oppressed children. All those serious about ending child abuse should get out of the psychobabble trap, struggle with MIM and work for communist revolution.

Notes:
1. Joseph Cappelleri, John Eckenrose, and Jane L. Powers, American Journal of Public Health, November 1993, p. 1622.

2. 1994 Statistical Abstract No. 127.

3. The rate of child abuse and neglect for whites was 4.32 per thousand, while the rate for Blacks was 7.68 per thousand. American Journal of Public Health, p. 1622.

4. Poverty is very significant in the pig stats. Those making under $15,000 per year had an incident rate of 8.73 per thousand, while those with incomes over $15,000 had a rate of 2.13 per thousand. Ibid., p. 1623.

5. Conditions of the Working Class in England, 1844. The Woman Question: Selected from the Writings of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V.I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, New York: International Publishers, p. 33.

6. George L. Engel has been the most prominent proponent of the biopsychosocial model of disease. See for example his article "The Clinical Application of the Biopsychosocial Model", in The American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 137:5, May 1980, pp. 535-544.

7. See Lewontin, et al, Not in Our Genes, and MIM's articles debunking IQ and The Bell Curve, in this issue of MIM Theory.

8. "Abolish Psychology," MT2/3, p. 39.

9. Stuart Schram, ed., The Political Thought of Mao Tse Tung, Praeger Publishers, 1969, pp. 134-7.

10. The correlation between sexual abuse and suicidal desires is strong. One study found that 13% of non-sexually active 8-10th grade women reported plans of suicide, 21% of sexually active but not abused reported them, and 34% of sexually abused reported them. Journal of the American Medical Association, June 7, 1995, p. 1658.

11. Catharine MacKinnon, "Difference and Dominance" in Feminism Unmodified. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 32-45.

12. See Ruth Sidel, Women and Child Care in China. New York: Penguin, 1972 for a description of the practice.

13. William Kessen, ed., Childhood in China. South Braintree, MA: Alpine Press, pp. 140-1.