Time Magazine "Cover Girl"

My hat is off to Time Magazine and the Afghan girl who posed for the portrait of her face after Taliban elders permitted her husband and brother-in-law to cut off her nose (and ears) for running from a beating. The photo filled me with a special form of rage, because of the extent to which my life has brought me into contact with this issue.

For years I and my wife babysat the little Vietnamese girl, Nhu, who lived next to us with both of her parents, Thanh and Trang. We loved all of them, but especially the little girl. That little one was a "southpaw," like me. In fact, she was the most left left-handed kid I ever met. She was left-eyed and left-footed, not just left-handed. I bonded so well with that little one that she could almost read my mind. She was the daughter I never had.

One day, I spied a yellow fiberglass rod in the corner of their living room. To the wife I said, "Trang, what is that for?" The wife answered, "Peter, Thanh and I will be using that to punish Nhu." I said, "What??? For what, Trang??? Nhu is the gentlest, most obedient little kid I ever met!!! You are planning to whip her???" Trang answered, "We only have to do it once. She will never forget!" I skeptically thought, "Sur-r-r-r-r-re they'll only do it 'once'!"

That night, I was called over to help little Nhu with her math homework. Her parents' marriage had been 'rocky,' and they wife had gone south to Florida with Nhu for a few weeks' separation. During that time, Nhu had missed a lot of schooling. Now that her parents were together again, trying to repair things, Nhu was in "catch-up" mode in school, and needed help.

When I entered their house, I saw Thanh, the husband, in a flowered apron doing dishes -- a startling sight, in a Vietnamese household. Trang, the wife, was cleaning house. The mood was somber. I glanced over to the corner of the living room. The rod was still there.

I set to work on the 25 math problems with Nhu, who was 8 years of age. She was a quick study. She banged through the problems lickety-split. But, 25 problems are 25 problems. They take time.

We got to Problem #25 at 9:55 p.m. It was the hardest problem with the most novel components. Just as I said, "Okay, now let's do what will look to you like the hardest problem of all," Thanh in the kitchen held out the dish towel, and said, "Nhu!," and then he gave her an order in Vietnamese. Clearly, he was telling her to finish drying the dishes.

Nhu answered in a mix of English and Vietnamese. The English portion made it clear that she said something like, "Dad, we're about to do the last math problem. I need Mr. Peter's help to do it. We are almost done. It is 5 minutes before 10. If I do the dishes first, it will be that much later that Mr. Peter will get home to Rise`. Please let me finish." She said it calmly and rationally, without begging.

Thanh exploded, and began to run toward the fiberglass rod. Trang was quiet. I jumped up and I whispered, "Thanh, she's trying to be a good person! Don't punish her for that!" Thanh growled, "This is none of your business, Peter!"

I ran to Trang and whispered, "Trang, you can't punish her for balancing things to try to be a good person!" Trang sternly said, "Go home, Peter."

After the door closed behind me, out on the front porch I heard Nhu scream.

Two days later was babysitting day. Little Nhu knew that I tried to save her. In her innocent kid way she said, "Mr. Peter, look!" She pulled the waist of her pants down and her shirt up (consistent with decency) just enough to let me see part of the deep red gash running up from her buttocks to her back. I thought, "Those bastards! They whipped a little girl with a fiberglass rod on her bare skin for being good!"

About a year and a half later, when we were still allowed to babysit Nhu, she said to me, "Mr. Peter, can I ask you a question?" I said, "Sure, kid!" She said, "Mr. Peter, do you remember the day my dad whipped me with the yellow stick?" I said, "Yes." Nhu asked, "Why was I whipped?" I answered, "You were whipped because, instead of simply obeying dad immediately, you asked to finish your homework first, before doing dishes, so that I could go home to Rise` sooner." Nhu looked at me with astonishment. "WHAT???!!! BUT THAT MEANS THAT DAD WHIPPED ME FOR TRYING TO BE GOOD!"

I quietly said, "I know, Nhu."

She added, "What did mom whisper to you? Was she in favor of me being whipped?"

I lied. I said that she wasn't.

Afterwards, I felt so dirty for telling that lie.

Nhu added, "Mr. Peter, did you know that my dad whipped me several times after that, with the stick, hangers and a belt?"

I thought, "I wonder if Trang puts up with that for the support money? Is Nhu helping to buy Trang's condo with the skin on her back?"

Soon after that, we were never allowed to see little Nhu again.

I want to take the cover of Time Magazine, and rub Thanh and Trang's faces in it.

How I Began to Engage in Non-Sexual Child Abuse Years Ago

Years ago, when our son Reid was 3 or 4, he was always picking, picking, picking the skin on his arms. He picked himself bloody. I wondered, "Why?"

I really pushed myself, then. And, I fell into the habit of pushing my family, too. I yelled at my sons Josh and Reid, to make them cooperate. Do this. Do that. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Reid's habit of picking his bloodied arms continued. It made me cranky.

One day, I began yelling at Reid, for some minor thing.

Immediately he began picking his arms.

And I realized with a shock that I was the reason why he was picking himself bloody.

Immediately I felt a deep shame. After that morning's appointments, I went to one of our local Catholic churches, and asked for a priest and confessed my sin -- in essence, years of damaging my child's personality with my great big, loud mouth.

I then went home and sat Reid down and told him what I had realized -- that I was his problem -- and apologized to him and promised that I would make it up.

I don't think that I ever yelled at him again, or needed to.

The Mississippi Abuse Case

About 10 years ago, a client consulted me about her apartment with roaches. As I walked in (late at night -- the "roaching hour"!) I saw that there were indeed roaches big enough to put saddles on crawling up the walls. She invited me to look in her bedroom, and what she had predicted to me turned out to be horribly true -- it was raining roachers, there, onto her bed. I saw one of the roaches fall from the ceiling onto her bed.

When I consulted our pest control expert, he said, "Pete, it's simple. The place must have had a booming mouse or rat population for years. The walls are full of mouse or rat feces, feeding the roaches. When it gets that bad, the only real solution is demolition. They have to demolish the building."

The case made a big impression on me. Our neighborhood in Magnolia, New Jersey has both mice and rats. So, I kill them with alacrity, and I always taught our children the importance of killing, killing, killing mice and rats.


And then there's Chris the Crab and Larry the Lobster. It happens every time. If you go fishing for crabs or purchase live lobsters from the tank at the supermarket, one of the kids will fall in love with the animal and give it a name, and then be quite shocked at how they are cooked at dinner time.

Some scientists insist, "No brain, no pain." But if you watch them, they thrash violently when it's time to take the "hot bath." So, some scientists say, "Come on, let's admit it -- they suffer."


Those things being said, we need to talk about Lynn Geter of Mississippi.

Lynn's son, 12, begged for a pet hamster. He promised that he would keep his grades up if he were allowed to get one. He got the fluuffy, wuffy little hamster with the love-filled eyes. His grades plummeted. Lynn lost it. She ordered her son to get and hammer and and ... yup. He had to do it himself. It wasn't pretty.

The son mentioned the incident to his teacher, who, shocked, went to police, who, shocked, arrested Lynn for animal cruelty, child cruelty and battery. Lynn went to jail. Her three children were yanked and placed in state custody.

You can't find a sympathetic opinion of Lynn on the web. Recommendations run from Hell to jail to time in a mental institution.

I have to tell you that we had pet hamsters when we were kids. My son Josh had rats as pets when he was a teenager. There's no doubt about it -- rats are much more like people, no joke. They clearly love their human owners. Personality-wise, hamsters are kind of "not there" for people.

Nonetheless, we kill rats with joie de vie, while we treasure hamsters and that trail of little poops they leave everywhere they go.

So, what do you think? What would the signers of our Constitution have thought of Lynn's case, after shooting thousands of British for freedom from the crown?

Suppose Lynn's son had grown a huge family of roaches in a tank, and that is what Lynn had had him squash with a hammer?

More on Child Abuse: Pecking-Order Abuse

When I first moved out of my parents' home 30 years ago, I moved to an apartment of my own on the first floor of a residence at the intersection of Penn and Overington Streets in the Frankford section of Philadelphia.

A husband, a wife, and a little girl, about six years of age, lived in the apartment above. Every few nights it was the same routine. The husband would scream at and hit the wife, and then he would go to work. After the husband's departure for work, the wife would then engage in pecking-order abuse, screaming at and hitting the little girl.

I heard the slapping through the floor.

The little girl would show up with black eyes and black and blue marks. When the wife screamed at the little girl, she screamed like a banshee. It was unearthly, in its quality. I could believe that the screaming did more damage to the little girl's personality than the slapping and punching.

Back then, I was stupid. I believed in minding my own business. It did not even occur to me to be afraid of retribution if I called the authorities. I just wasn't interested in calling the authorities.

In the course of the events described in the previous article on child abuse, it occurred to me, later, that when the wife, Trang, agreed in advance to Thanh's use of a fiberglass rod to whip their daughter, it was pecking-order abuse. It was worse than what I used to hear coming from the apartment above my head on Penn Street. This time, it didn't just happen for no reason at all. The little girl was whipped with a fiberglass rod for being good !!!

It also had some bad, evil structure to it, in another way.

Once Trang called from her cell phone for help. We ran over to the house, and found her on the floor, curled-up in the fetal position, wild-eyed, shaking, shaking, shaking. Thanh was walking back and forth in the hall, like a robot, head tilted to one side, smiling oddly, eyes open but not seeing. To this day I don't think that he understood that I was there. I picked Trang up, carried her out, and handed her over to my wife, to be brought to our house, where she and their daughter stayed for about a week.

When Trang recovered, she told me how Thanh had grabbed her by her hair and held her down in front of the bedroom mirror and screamed at her, for 5 or 6 hours, total, "until I smiled like a good Vietnamese wife should smile."

Last year, after their separation, Thanh had visitation with their daughter, one day, over at his sister's house.

I went over to the house to discuss something with the sister, unaware that Thanh and Trang's daughter was there. Outside the front door, I heard moaning. I thought, "The sister is punishing her child." I knocked with my "shave-and-a-haircut" knock. Inside the moaning voice said, "Come in, Mr. Peter." I thought, "WHAT! IT'S THANH'S DAUGHTER!" I went in, and there she was, all alone in the house, kneeling straight-up-and-down on the wood floor, crying from the pain of kneeling a long time on wood. I said, "What are you doing??? This is crazy!!!"

She answered, through her tears, "Mr. Peter, my dad says that I can't get up off this wood floor to stop the pain until I start smiling like a good Vietnamese daughter should! If I get caught getting up before I am smiling in front of my dad, my aunt or my grandmom, I will be punished even worse!"

I thought, "He is doing the same thing, now, to his daughter!"

But it wasn't just the dad, Thanh, who engaged in the abuse. Once, when I called the daughter or she called me -- I forget which -- last year, after her mother's separation and divorce, I heard a very, very odd sound in the background, in her house.

I thought, "What the Helll???..." So, I said to the little girl, "What is that strange sound I hear on your end???"

The little girl answered happily, "Oh, it's okay, Mr. Peter. My mom does that all of the time. That's what my mom sounds like as she is screaming, screaming, screaming at me. She is careful to never let you hear that screaming. She just doesn't know that I am on the phone, right now, so you get to hear it!"

Just then, I remembered the unearthly screaming of the mother, screaming, screaming, screaming at her little daughter, who lived in the apartment above me, 3 decades ago.

It was the same.

Parents, stop destroying your little ones.

Just love them!

Please!

Child Abusers: Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child, Right?

Wrong.

There are probably some fundamentalistically-oriented who are upset at my rejection of the proverb, but Scripture isn't meant to always be taken literally. Sometimes, it teaches spiritual truth through stories of human error and through proverbs that are wrong.

The spiritual meaning of the Biblical verse underlying the proverb...

He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Proverbs 13:24

....is not "whip your kids with a stick if they are bad."

The Hebrew term translated "rod" generally means "branch" of a tree, or "stick" -- a piece of wood.

And tree or part of a tree, in Bible typology, refers to the cross of Christ.

"Son," here -- ben in Hebrew -- refers to a male child, where children in Bible typology generally refer to converts, and maleness refers to being God-empowered, or godly.

So, the verse, at the spiritual level, is saying, "Apply Christ's cross to them, to preserve their faith" -- teach them about Christ, love them as Christ would.

Not "beat them with a stick."

The worst example of such beating of children I ever saw was in the house of my Asian neighbors, a few years ago.

Many Asians come to this country with what amounts to 1950s American values -- including the bad ones, having to do with hitting and whipping children.

My Vietnamese neighbors were in the thick of their native culture's values.

At one point, the wife was sick of being abused by her financially-responsible but brutal husband. She left him, flying herself and their daughter to the home of her own mother in Florida.

A few weeks later, feeling unwelcomed by her mother in her mother's home, she returned to the house next door, and after cleaning-up the mess left by her husband when he ransacked the house to express his anger at her departure, she resolved to give her marriage one more try.

She entered into an agreement where in return for concessions by him, she would allow his values connected to discipline of their little girl to reign supreme in the house.

Now this wasn't a bad little girl. Their daughter, 8 years old at the time, was an angel.

Despite her good character, their home suddenly became a House of Terror.

While the husband was at work one day, I went to the house to talk to the wife about a real estate settlement I was managing for her real estate business, as her lawyer.

As we walked through the cleaned-up living room, I saw a yellow fiberglass rod leaning in the corner.

I said, "What's that for, Trang?"

"That's for our daughter, Peter."

"What???!!!," I exclaimed with shock. "Trang, your daughter is wonderful!!! She loves both of you. She obeys. She's good in school. Her grades are good. Why in Heaven's Holy Name would you prepare to punish her with a special weapon???!!!"

"Peter," she answered, "We only have to do it once. Then, she'll never forget it!"

"Trang," I said frostily, "She's beginning to enter the age where it is 'respect time,' not 'whipping time.' You are so wrong! And Thanh won't stop at doing it once!"

That night, at around 9:00 p.m., Trang called me over to their house to help their daughter with special math homework -- 25 time-consuming math problems of a variety which neither Trang nor her husband Thanh understood.

When I knocked on the door with "a-shave-and-a-haircut" rhythm, their daughter, recognizing my knock, ran to the door and threw it open and held out her arms. "MR. PETER!" she declared, with a broad smile, knowing that her happiness gave me such joy!

Inside, I immediately "smelled" something "sober" about the situation. Thanh was in the kitchen, for the first time doing doing household chores -- the dinner dishes -- but in silence. I wanted to tease him about the frilly apron he was wearing, but I kept my mouth shut for the sake of peace. Trang was in the living room, sweeping the floor. Their daughter was her usual happy, funny, hardworking self. We began the math problems. The daughter paid close attention, while the parents worked with mysterious silence. I looked up and saw the fiberglass rod still in its corner in the living room. We worked hard, over the next hour. Because the daughter had missed so much school during her parents' separation, I had to teach her a variety of math completely foreign to her. I apologized to Trang and Thanh for taking so much time, but they said, "It's okay, Peter." At 9:55 p.m., we were on math problem #25 -- the last one, and also the most difficult. From the kitchen, Thanh spoke to his daughter in Vietnamese...

"Dah di dah di dah di dah di dah di dah," and he held out the dish towel, obviously asking her to dry the rest of the dishes. I realized that he had been listening, and was testing his daughter just to see if she would blindly obey a difficult order.

Their daughter answered in a mix of Vietnamese and English, in a pleading voice, pointing at the clock on the wall...

"Dah di dah di dah di dah Mr. Peter, dah di dah di dah di dah go home, dah di dah di dah di dah last math problem, dah di dah di dah 5 more minutes. Please, Dad, otherwise I can't finish this last problem. It is the hardest problem."

"THAT DOES IT!," Thanh growled. He dropped the towel to the floor, and ran toward the fiberglass rod.

I jumped up and ran over to Thanh. "Thanh," I whispered, "She's just trying to be a respectful neighbor. She is balancing -- doing what you do every day! She's trying to finish homework now, so that a neighbor giving free help is not forced to wait!"

"STAY OUT OF THIS, PETER!," he growled, picking up the rod. I ran over to Trang. "Trang," I whispered, "He's about to whip your daughter for being good, not bad!"

"Peter," she whispered, "Go home. This must be done."

Upset, I picked up my books and papers and left. As the door closed behind me, I heard their daughter scream loudly and cry.

Two days later was "babysitting Saturday," when my family took care of the daughter while Thanh and Trang were at work.

Since I had tried to save her, their daughter, when she came over, lowered the waist of her pants and raised her shirt just enough to let us see a part of a deep red gash running from her buttocks below the waist of her pants to her back beneath her shirt.

"Mr. Peter," she said, "Look!"

Last year, when I was still babysitting their daughter, she asked me, "Mr. Peter, do you remember that time my father whipped me with that rod?"

"I can't forget it, honey," I answered sadly.

"Mr. Peter, can you tell me why I was whipped? I don't know. I never knew why."

"Little one," I answered, "You were whipped because your dad, at 10:00 at night, asked you to make me wait to help you finish the last of 25 math problems, while you took over drying dishes. You gently pleaded that I was a guest in your home at 10:00 at night, rendering a free service by helping you with your homework, and so it made more sense for you to finish the homework first, so that I could go home, and then you would dry dishes."

"What!!!" she responded. "But that means that my dad whipped me for being a good person!"

"That is correct, little one. You were whipped with a stick because rather than hurt a neighbor who was helping you, you tried to do things in a good and moral way.”

"Did you know that he did not stop whipping me after that? He whipped me again and again and again, with that stick, with hangers, and with a belt."

"Well, I warned your mom that he wouldn't stop."

"What did my mom say to you, when you whispered to her that night to stop what was about to happen?"

I lied to their daughter in my response -- and I wish I hadn't. I have never stopped feeling obscene for my lie: "She told me that she felt that whipping you was unjust, but that for the sake of keeping the family together she would force herself to put up with this."

I didn't tell their daughter that her mother agreed in advance to support her whipping, and that all she told me to do was leave.

The whipping just isn't necessary.

Just love them.

Please.