I tend to think the mental stuff is the worst. Maybe it's just a matter of perspective. I was the youngest of 6 kids of an Irish mailman. I was used to rough physical treatment. Not beatings or anything, but a good many red bellies and being trapped in small places or tickled till I peed. My brother found this sort of thing very entertaining till I started to grasp the mighty awsome power of his irrational fear of dogs (even little lap dogs) :rofl:
My dad came up litterally in a dirt floor shack, or actually a series of them. So while we were fed and properly housed and clothed, our baseline for comfort was just a lot lower than for some ppl. It wasn't punative or anything. It was just our lifestyle. So I was used to austerity, too.
We played rough, but we
were playing! There was absolutely nothing playful about the social interaction in the Program. It was cut throat and high stakes. You didn't even dare tell yourself what you really thought. And, after awhile, you'd forget.
I think that's what the parents just can't understand. It's an intensely personal and brutal sort of violation of your very autonomy. I don't think mind rape is too strong a word.
And the worst part, at least to me, is that you know
damned well the parents and a lot of other people in each kid's life know, on some level, just what's going on. And they tacitly or vocally approve of it.
Why? Well, because! The term "out of control teenager" is almost precisely synonymous w/ "uppity nigger" in our brave new lexicon.
The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's no good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
--Carl Sagan
