Another Way to Tell

So I recently had an insight...

Something one sibling abuse expert has said is that, when trying to determine if a sibling is being abusive, disregard the emotions. Separate the emotions from the behavior, and look at the behavior itself. 

That's sound advice.

But I think that where a lot of parents miss the signs of bullying is thinking that both kids are "equally contributing to it" because the victim child is fighting back. 

Something else parents should try is looking at the emotions. 

Often, in families where it looks like both kids are being mean to each other, you can still tell that one is the abuser and the other the abused. How? The abusive one is mainly doing what she's doing for fun. Is she smiling when she's insulting her brother? Is he laughing when he's teasing the other one? If you can see a smile on the child's face, then you've spotted the bully, whose motivation is power.

The abused, on the other hand, often does what she's doing out of anger. If there's a hurt tone of voice, if he doesn't look happy, then that's the victim. His motivation isn't power--it's revenge.  

Yes, disrespect should not be allowed. From either party. But I firmly believe we need to get real about the root cause. In many families, the disrespect can be traced back to one party in particular: the one who thinks it's fun to be mean. 

Don't just hold children equally accountable. Be honest about who's the main antagonist. Yes, victims should be taught to respond appropriately, but the burden does not fall on their shoulders. It is adult accountability that will really put an end to bullying (and consequently, the fighting), and this accountability needs to target the ones who are accountable. 

The No-Blame Game

A while ago, I was dealing with  a bully coworker. I didn't know what to do, because all of my attempts to stand up to bullies in the past have not gone so well. I was surfing the Net, looking for any smidgen of advice I could find. I came across this website, which offers pretty helpful advice in fighting back workplace bullies. One of the tips that really resonated with me concerned advance preparation. It said something along the lines of "be prepared for your colleagues to say that what's going on is a 'personality conflict' between you and the bully."

I had suspected that was going to happen. People never want to admit that one party really is to blame. 

You hear over and over again from people to not "play the blame game." This infamous Blame Game. Tell me really, though, how often have you seen people play this?
I wonder if we sometimes suffer from the reverse problem--not that we blame too much but that we shy away from blame. We play the no-blame game. We're afraid to put blame where blame is due.

Why do we do this?

I think there are two reasons. The first is that we're afraid of danger (for lack of a better word). Every party is always both wrong, both right, so we can heave a sigh of relief and go on our merry way. Because if one party was wrong, we would have to deal with an uncomfortable imbalance in our world. That imbalance is unsettling to us, and we don't want it to exist.

The second reason is we secretly believe we're more "enlightened" thinking blame is always evenly dispersed. It's mature...isn't it?...to disperse blame evenly. To see both as guilty. Only a childish brat would think one side was right and the other was wrong. You're a wiser, more sophisticated person for always believing blame belongs to both sides.

This needs to change. We need to get real that some people intentionally harm others, either out of a lack of awareness, a lack of empathy, or a genuine desire to cause harm. And in response to that harm, it is appropriate--even necessary--for a victim to rise up. Victims should respond assertively and appropriately according to the situation. And they often do. The larger problem is not the victims' response.

Bystanders need to change their response to how they handle these situations. When they see the unmistakable signs of one person abusing another, they need to do a few different things. The first is that we need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable

There is room for not picking sides while simultaneously holding a guilty party accountable. The trick is to focus on words, actions and intentions. Is either person name-calling, insulting, intimidating, belittling, or embarrassing the other party? These actions are never acceptable. Hold them accountable. What's their intention behind the action? Do they have a genuine problem, or do they just want a power trip? Look out for "reacting" vs. "seeking out." Reacting to a problem (in an acceptable way) is fine. Constantly seeking out a reason to pick on someone is not.

Parents need to be open to the idea of guilty parties. It's not as simple as "both parties are equally to blame all the time." Sometimes there's a guilty party. Sometimes there's not.  When there's a guilty party, that person needs to be held accountable. Finding this person is the first step to attaining equilibrium.

Let's Talk About the Lena Controversy

Maybe you've heard of her:

If you haven't, let me fill you in. Lena Dunham is a young actress/producer/writer who became a celebrity in 2012 with the release of her mega-hit T.V series, "Girls." Described as being a "Sex and the City for 20-somethings," the show follows the lives of young women trying to get it together in New York City. From this show, Lena became an instant success, and has been featured in practically every talk show, magazine, blog (hee hee), you name it. Almost every millennial knows her name. 

Recently, Dunham has become the subject of a controversy because of certain scenes in her recently-released memoir. (Yes, this woman has a memoir. At age 28.) In these scenes, Dunham describes spreading open her younger sister's vagina to find pebbles she had stuffed in there, masturbating in bed next to her, and bribing her sister with candy to kiss her on the lips for long periods of time.

FYI, I did read the actual passages in the book before I started writing this post, so I'm judging these based on what I have actually read, not what some bozo on the Internet has told me to think. In the pebbles-in-vagina scenario, Lena was 7 and Grace was 1. In the masturbation-in-bed one, Lena was 17 and Grace was 11, in the kissing-on-the-lips incident, it's not clear what ages the girls are, but they were both still children. 

The controversy is what to make of it all.

Some people say Lena molested her sister. Some people are saying everything she did was just normal childhood sexual exploration. Which side should we take? 

Well, I'll give you my two cents. There are a couple of factors that need to be taken into account. One is the definition of molestation. According to this website, there are a couple of acts that are defined as child sexual abuse. These are: 

• sexual touching of any part of the body, clothed or unclothed
• penetrative sex
• encouraging a child to engage in sexual activity
• intentionally engaging in sexual activity in front of a child
• showing children pornography or using children to create pornography
• encouraging a child to engage in prostitution 

OK, I feel sort of sick just typing all that. Let me take a break.

I'm back. So did Lena molest her sister? Looking at the definition of child sexual abuse, there are a couple of things that immediately seem not OK. Out of all the incidents, the kissing one seems the most serious to me. Why? Because it seems like the most intentional, where Lena seemed to be purposely deriving sexual pleasure from a non-consensual act. 

The other ones are grayer to me. Masturbation is definitely a sexual act, but was Lena intentionally engaging in it in front of her sister? I don't think she was. The pebble incident is also a little bit iffy, but it seems more like curiosity than an intent to arouse. 

The second factor is how Grace feels about it all. Does she feel victimized by what Lena did? She has come out publicly that she does not. She has said it is up to the individual affected by it to decide whether or not it was harmful. I agree.   

What the Lena controversy can teach us all is that it's important for parents to police the behaviors of children. Internet experts everywhere were saying, "Oh, childhood sexual exploration is normal!!!!" And maybe it is. But if sexual exploration is normal, then children should explore their own bodies and be taught to leave others' bodies alone. 

Maybe you yourself were a victim of sibling sexual abuse, and this recent controversy has left you feeling angry, or confused, or scared. I say that each person is the narrator of his or her own story. If you felt victimized by something a sibling did to you, then that is your story. You have every right to feel that way. 

And in case you didn't already know, I've mentioned Lena on my blog before. Whether she is a perpetrator of sexual abuse is iffy, but she was certainly guilty of another type of abuse. A type of abuse we as a society haven't talked about, and need to.