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| October 12, 1978 Shelton Mason County Journal |  |
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October 12, 1978 |
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PA is the way, says Fay Benjamin
Former child abuser shares h er
I
By STEVE PATCH
Even before they were taken
from her, Fay Benjamin's kids
suffered no shortage of love.
Troth is, Fay almost loved
them to death.
"And I know now," she says
bravely, "that many times it
would have taken only one more
slug and my kid would have
been dead."
Fay Benjamin, you see, was a
child abuser - still is, in fact, in
the same way that an alcoholic
in a sense always is an alcoholic.
But the story the 37-year-old
Tacoma woman told some 60
Sheltonians last Saturday at this
community's first ctdd-abuse
symposium was not one of
resignation or despair.
Fay Benjamin has found
what she believes is a way out,
you see, and so solid is her
conviction that she now is state
coordinator of the national
organization that baled her out
- Parents Anonymous.
"Don't ever let anyone tell
.you child abusers don't love
their children," said Mrs.
Benjamin. "They love them just
as much as anyone else. But, as
it was with me, that love very
often involves a lot of stress and
hostility."
When motherhood first
visited her, some 16 years ago,
Fay was a young service wife
with what she was to learn later
were a whole slew of pretty
unreasonable expectations as a
parent.
First-born Cindy, now 16,
bears no physical sears from her
mother's expectations. "But she
definitely was overproteeted and
overcontrolled," admits her
mother.
Things were different,
however, when the first male
offspring came on the scene.
Young Jerry, now 14, seemed to
represent all of Fay's worst
frustrations.
"You have to understand
that I myself had been raised
with a great deal of stress by my
own parents," she explained.
expected him to be ready to
vote! And what's more, to me he
was a repetition of a male figure
I'd come to despise.
"Having been taught to hit,"
she added, "I figured that was
the way to handle my own kids,
so by the time he was seven
months dd Jerry was getting
battered around pretty good. l'm
not bragging about that, but it's
a reality -and it's happening all
around you much more than
you'd think."
When Jerk's brother came
along, 13 years ago, the stress
just got worse. "For about the
first year or so I thought David
was the little 'koochie-coo'
darling boy I'd always wanted,"
she related. "But then, when he
began to be a little more
demanding, I became convinced
he was just a 'bad boy,' too.
"So I tried to beat the hell
out of him to make him the
perfect boy."
Still, it was hardly for want
of trying that Fay couldn't cut it
as a mother. In fact, she
knocked herself out trying.
"1 was living for my family,"
she said. "And it took me a long
time to figure out I was missing
out on life."
The crux of the problem,
said Fay, was that no one had
ever bothered to teach her how
to be a parent. Not her own
parents, certainly - she lived in
an orphanage much of her own
childhood.
"A child hiding out in a
mother's body - that was me,"
said Fay. "I didn't know
anything about being a mother -
and why would I. After all, to
be a doctor you've got to
complete something like 12 years
of schooling; to be a lawyer,
something like eight or nine.
"But when they take you to
the delivery room no one says,
'Hold it! Do you have your
degree to have this kid? Where is
your parenting7'"
Fay can laugh now at her
own ignorance, but she shudders
at the thought of what might
tremendomly high expectations.
"As a result, why, when
Jerry was just two and a half, I
drinking out of the toilet when
he was a crawler, and Fay's
solution simply was to keep the
bowl sparkling clean.
"And it's kept dean to this
day," she said. "lle did a good
job training me."
Another incident involved
the one-time "disappearance" of
her son's testicles - or rather
their not-abnormal retraction up
into the pdvie cavity. "I was
terrified," Fay recalled. "I
telephoned my doctor and said,
'His two things have disappared!'
I didn't know what to call them.
I certainly did feel stupid, too -
I mean, I'd checked him out
when he'd come home from the
hospital and he had everything. I'
was sure I'd done something
wrong."
Not all of Fay's parenting
misadventures were comical,
however. When they became
physically disciplinary, in fact,
they were downright brutal.
"Yes, I'd have to say I really lost
control quite a few times," she
admitted.
Approximately seven years
ago, at the height of her various
parenting crises, Fay got the jolt
of her life. An administrator at
the school her children attended
telephoned to say they would
not be returning home. The
physical and emotional abuse
finally had provoked action on
the part of teachers, who'd seen
it but until then hadn't reported
it, and the court had directed
Fay's kids be put in foster
homes at least temporarily. '
"For two months I didn't
even know where my kids were,"
she said. "On top of that, my
husband blamed me andwalked
out, I was emotionally just a
mess."
Determined to make it as a
mother, Fay managed to get her
kids back and soon was holding
down two jobs simultaneously.
"All I had was a high school
diploma," she said, "but I never
went on welfare and never once
made under $20,000 in a year."
What's more, the physical
abuse stopped. "I knew what
would happen if I did so much
as a single thing," she said. "I
Fay Benlamln
The 37-year-old Tacoman can laugh now, but for years the pressures of
parenthood had her00and her children00on the brink of violent disaster.
half after I got the kids back this
health nurse confronted me,"
continued Mrs. Benjamin. "She
told me I was losing the battle.
She said the kids still weren't
getting cared for right.
"Well, I just collapsed. What
happened is this nurse had just
cracked this 'toothpaste glaze'I'd
built up around me as a sort of
protection. And of course I d/d
need hdp."
parenting problems - many of
them, like Fay's, at least
potentially of an abusive nature.
Fay took her up on it - and
discovered an atmosphere of
concern unlike anything she'd
imagined.
"I'd felt so long that I was
the only person God put on
earth that felt the way I did,"
she said. "And suddenly here I
was in the middle of all these
she could unburden hersdf of all
her shared shames and fears
without being castigated or
shunned made the road to
healthy parentage that much
smoother,. :
"Acceptance means more
than anything else," she said.
Taking chalk in hand, Fay
advanced to the blackboard to
diagram PA's so-called "pyramid
of power." She drew several
.,wasn't going to to..h th wi i :hg. hoarse s:Ug, sted, Fay: pe.ople .talking about the ve W
/i ten-foot pole:' .... >''< .... .... v. ,t<enf , a meetlfi 6fPafents ' things I'd been feeling."
But Fay and her family Anonymous, an organization Having shared her troubles,
weren't healthy yet - and Fay whose members all share the Fay soon found them less
knew ito "About a year and a distinction of having overbearing burdensome. And the fact that
blocks: neighbors, family,
friends, spouse and so On.
"Your spouse is the top
line," she said. "He's really got
to be there for support. And I
'If you find that offensive, I'm sorry...'
at the high school for the
community's first child abuse
seminar.
''We tend to think of child
abusers as some kind of
monsters," observed Nurse Hicks.
"But kids can be very demanding
and frustrating. There simply
isn't a parent alive who loves his
kid 24 hours a day every day for
18 yearn
"The point, of course, is that
child abusers don't love their
kids any less."
Whatever the event or series
of events that happens to trigger
abuse, Hicks observed that it
most often is nothing more than
an indication that the parenting
role has become too big to
handle - and that the offending
parent hasn't been able to "bale
out," or fred an adequate relief
valve.
"We have to learn to be
parents," she said. "The idea
that parenting is instinctive is
bull. Most abusers are lonely,
frightened and isolated people."
According to Hicks, the first
step toward alleviating the
problem of child abuse is to
make its ugly reality more
widely known. "Maybe the
frustration and anger that results
will move us all to be more
responsive to what we see," she
suggested, referring specifically
to doctors, ministers, teachers
and the like who only 'recently
have begun more widespread
compliance with laws requiring
they report any and all signs of
abuse.
Although sexual and
neglect-type abuse eases actually
outnumber overtly violent ones
more than two to one, according
to Hicks, they aren't always as
easily recognized. The sears,
however, are just as real.
Sexual abuse, particularly,
seems to be a real bugaboo
today. "It's where other kinds of
abuse and neglect were probably
15 years ago," noted Hicks. "It's
a tremendous problem."
By STEVE PATCH
Be honest now, parents.
If you've never once in your
child-rearing years so much as
considered laying an angry fmger
on your less-than-angelic tykes,
please raise your hands.
Nurse Katy Hicks of Tacoma
would like to meet you.
"I figure you've got to be a
saint, or catatonic, and you
really don't know what's going
on around you - or just a liar,"
she said.
Mrs. Hicks, who for eight
years now with the Pierce
County Juvenile Court has been
investigating suspected child
abuse and neglect, was addressing
a group of Mason County
citizens assembled last Saturday
Katy Hicks
"T/wre simply isn't a parent
alire who loves his kid 24
hollrs a day every day for
t.
independent polls of women
from various walks of life and
found that invariably between 38
and 42 percent of them
confessed to having suffered
some sort of sexual abuse by
their 18th birthday.
"This is an incredible
problem," she said. "It really
shakes you up, too, when you
think of the eases we see all the
time. Just recently, for instance,
we had a three-month.old baby
in with a lacerated vagina and
anus from attacks by her father.
And there was a four-year-old
who had been forced to give his
father a blow job every night for
months.
"Now, if you find that
offensive, I'm sorry," she added.
"But that's reality."
Here are a few more realities
Hicks unloaded:
• Whereas red writs in the
"... if you find that
offensive, I'm sorry. But
that's reality... "
shape of model train tracks once
were common signs of physical
abuse, today they largely have
been replaced by Hot-Wheel
tracks.
• Victims of "accidental"
wringer-type washer machine
injuries prove to be three to five
times more likely to be
victimized by nonaccidental
injuries.
• One of the legal problems
involved in cases of medical
neglect is that only after the
child is ill can the court do
anything by way of intervention.
• While most physical scars
heal, unattended victims of child
abuse very often carry the
psychological sears the rest of
their lives - and come to inflict
similar ones of their own when
they become parents.
The real-life stories Hicks had
to tell Saturday were as
unsettling as were her color
slides of abuse victims. One, for
12, 1978
instance, described the plight of
a boy booked for armed
robbery.
Seems the kid's parents, a
couple of rather ingenious
thieves, would send him into
houses at night armed with a
hunting knife and orders to
"start stabbing and hollering"
should anyone discover him.
The kid, incidentally, was
just four years old. "He was
hardly out of diapers" said
Hicks. "Ludicrous!"
Another case involved a bum
victim, a young boy whose
father had scorched his palms
with a cigarette lighter to
discourage him from taking up
smoking. When confronted, the
father told authorities he'd done
the very same thing with his
other sons and his own father
had done it to him, too - all to
make a seared-in no-smoking
impression.
"And if that's not incredible
enough," added Hicks, "all the
time he was talking to us this
father was smoking one cigarette
after another."
To better understand the
mechanics of abusiveness and the
social forces behind them, it was
suggested one must understand
the historical dynamics.
According to symposium
speaker Sue Blakeley,
chairwoman of the board for the
Child and Family Center in
Olympia and a family therapist
and counselor, at the very crux
of the situation is the changing
rdationship between family and
nonfamfly institutions and the
idea of personal self.sufficiency
versus reliance on outside
support.
In short, she said, the
pressures brought to bear on
people these days - and the
parents of the world have so
many more - are enough to
make anyone crack if he tries to
handle them alone.
"Why, simply doing the
shopping at the supermarket
these days requires thousands of
decisions," said Blakdey. "And
like to put God in this middle
square here, because He's the
right-hand man for me."
Fay is a woman generously
endowed with facial energy. At
this juncture, she unleashed one
of her frequent ice-meiting grins
and wiped out the "God' In the
middle of her pyramid.
'Tve been told,' ,she said,
"that the government might be
indined to withhold funding if
for a mother there are all sorts
of related pressures. For
instance, should she get her kids
Trix, like they want, or should
she heed the advice of
nutritionists who are now saying
it isn't good for the'm?
"And, of course, all the
while her kids are jumping up
and down in the store and
screaming that they want Trix."
Blakeley cited other
pressures: the ease of divorce,
society's increased mobility, the
frustrations of early-retirement
plans that go awry as inflation
climbs ever higher.
"All of these changes create
a profile for potential abuse,"
said Blakeley. "And all are
created by our social
institutions."
Although it wasn't all that
many generatiogs ago that
practically every one of our
social institutions was
encompassed by the family unit,
observed Blakdey, today that
unit is becoming progressively
more isolated - and with it the
parent.
"Everything today seems to
be geared to efficiency and
control," she said. "But
efficiency for whom? For the
family? I doubt it."
Another indication of our
growing obsession with
self-sufficiency,' she observed, is
the over abundance of books and
the like of the "do it yourselF'
persuasion.
"That's the trend - do it
yoursdf," said Blakeley. "So we
have doht-yoursdf divorces, for
instance. If you're going to let
someone down, why, you might
as wall just get rid of him. And
do it yourself - it's easy. If the
kid steps out of line, don't ask
for help. Put him in his place.
Do it yoursdf, because nobody
else is going to hdp you."
Blakdey added that she goes
along with the importance of
"Looking Out for Number One,"
as the title of the current
bestselling book puts it, but she
wonders, too, if perhaps it isn't
Hicks said she once
IS .rears...
conducted a series of
t i , ,
Page 12 - Shelton-Mason County ,Journal - Thursday, October
Sue Blakeley
"Everything today seems to
be geared to efficiency and
control But efficiency for
whom? For the family? I
doubt it... "
becoming almost impossible to
do so these days.
"If you're constantly being
bombarded With derisions and
responsibilities, and society is
always telling you to do it
yourself," she observed, "how
can you possibly hope to look
out for number one?
"We've gotten used to
institutionalized dependence, I
bdieve. For instance, the state of
Washington is third to the last in
the nation in appropriating funds
for mental health and related
programs.
"So you tell me who is
helping us look out for number
one?"
Blakeley suggested the first
step toward curbing the
incidence of stress-related
problems such as child abuse is
to begin to alter our way of life
- with the emphasis on
downplaying materialism and
those institutions that tend to
benefit most at the direct
expense of the family.
"And we all need to devdop
a 'We Care Package,'" she
added.
vior'
we put God in the middle
square, so let's, put 'faith'in them,
instead. Okay?"
Today, Fay's children, aged
16, 14 and 13, all live at home
with her - and with no sign of
the bruises they once carried
inside and out. She and
ex-husband Jim are giving their
union another try. And Fay has
PA to thank for it - she makes
no bones about it.
"Those people literally saved
my life," she told Saturday's
gathering. ''Of course, to sit here
and say my home life now is all
hunky-dory would be a bunch of
garbage. Without the constant
support of PAI could easily go
back to abusing my kids again. I
know that. And I intend to stay
with Parents Anonymous."
Fay can cite PA's advantages
over those of most
social-agency-type programs at
the toss of a hat - and did. "It's
now, it's 24 hours a day and it's
free," she said. "Now, there's a
pocketbook deal if I've ever seen
one!
"Seems like when l went to
a psychologist at tint," she
added, "he would no more than
get started when he'd say, 'Well,
4 guess it's about time to see if
you have the money so I can
talk to you again next
week...'"
Having been there herself,
Fay now feels she perhaps can
relate more effectively with
other parents unable to cope
with the pressures of
-parenthood. And her first advice
to anyone suspecting that a
friend or acquaintance is abusing
his or her children is to get
involved.
"You've got to be willing to
risk getting ydled at or beifig tdd
to mind your own business," she
said. "Because, no matter what
she might do, the person really is
saying 'Help!' I know. And I
know that a child abuser can be
very defensive.
''The problem is big, but the
hostility is pretty big, too.'"
Even a child abuser has
feelings, reminded,Fay, and the
abuser, too, can suffer from a
kind of abuse. Fay rdated a
common form.
"I like to call it the 'Store
and Stare Abuse," she said.
''The first time I really noticed it
was a couple years ago, when my
daughter and I went to the local
Safeway, and here was this poor
young mother with a couple
little kids on her arm and this
," •" ,/a •*
cute little
gift in her
"Now,
young girl
day, and
just all
pretty soon
pickle jar -
her a slap.
"And of
the-place just
hence mY
idea,."
Well
dislodged
sent it
mom's
first a
lookers-on,
a tempe
"I have
mysdf doinl
she
There was
smacked
a terrible
holocaust
pickle aisle
was feel
As fat
14.year
proved
group.
to the
she could h(
took the
to the
them some
she'd ear'
babysitting.
"And,
mother
been
her kids
shopping
she just
to the
AlthOU
admonisheS
its failure
abuse
Fay
really is.
is at fad
blame
what I'W
what we ca
once we
problem."
What
society,
financial
ago PA
$15,000
for its
operation
,'There
eve n
she
like me
community,
Fay
interested
759-3814
N. 24th
local PA
Phillis Wt
Shelton.
mother
care .and
be reache