PEDIATRICS Vol. 111 No. 3 March 2003, pp. 712-713
More on "It’s About Their Children"
To the Editor.—Recent letters from practicing colleagues about the AAP Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health’s statement on coparent adoption1 provide a valuable opportunity. This opportunity can best be described by the simple adjective "all."
Dr Hagan’s commentary in the August 2002 issue, "It’s About Their Children," concludes, "After all, we are all pediatricians and our focus is on children. Cannot this controversy be used as an opportunity to increase the dialogue regarding the needs of these children."2 My pediatric career has focused on prevention of child abuse. Underlying this complex reality of human history, social attitudes remain the largest obstacle to stopping child abuse. The attitude of ignoring children other than our own has long been pervasive. We pediatricians are most fortunate. We work daily with all ages, sizes, shapes, origins, and creatively surprising children. They all share 1 trait. They love life and appreciate being respected. They are astutely aware of our respect, whether we are female, male, old, young, of a different race, have or have not children of our own, or whatever our sexual identity.
Volumes of human history and memories of hurt children and adults are littered with fear, distrust, and unspeakable violence. Because social attitudes of power and control still prevail, weak and vulnerable persons, especially children, are easily disliked and disrespected. Studies of infant development and posttraumatic stress disorder in children teach us just how persistent and strong such disrespect is on an individual child. Thus, Selma Fraiberg’s experienced insight "Trauma demands repetition" is demonstrated by scientific studies. Van der Kalk’s posttraumatic stress disorder studies show revictimization as a central cause of antisocial behavior, and addiction is at its core.3
All of us were once children. Alice Miller recently reminded us that: "Whoever they are and however dreadful their crimes, deep down inside every dictator, mass murderer, terrorist cowers the humiliated child they once were, a child that has only survived through the complete and utter denial of its feelings of helplessness. But this complete denial of suffering once borne creates an inner void. Very many of these people will never develop a capacity for normal human compassion. Thus they have few if any qualms about destroying human life, neither that of others nor the void they carry around inside themselves. Today we can actually see the lesions in the brains of beaten and severely neglected children on the screens of a computer.4 Numerous articles by brain specialists, notably Bruce D. Perry, have indicated these facts."5
Dr Carole Gervais’s letter in response to other colleagues concerns over the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health’s statement asks us, "What’s Best for the Child?" She speaks as a positive parent: "Whether a parent behaves in a loving, nurturing manner has nothing at all to do with whether the parent is a heterosexual or homosexual; it has everything to do with love."6 I think Drs Hagan and Gervais are asking pediatricians to broaden the question, What’s Best for "All" Children?
George W. Brown, MD, FAAP
Douglas, AK 99824
REFERENCES
1. American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. Coparent or second-parent adoption by same-sex parents.
Pediatrics.2002; 109
:339
–340
2. Hagan JF Jr. It’s about their children [commentary].
Pediatrics.2002; 110
:408
–409
3. van der Kolk B. The trauma spectrum: the interaction of biological and social events in the genesis of the trauma response. J Traumatic Stress.1988; 1 :276
4. Perry B. The Impact of Traumatic Experience on Developing Children. Narkewicz Visiting Professorship Lecture. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont; June 14, 2000
5. Miller A. The Wellspring of Horror in the Cradle. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss Giroux; 2000
6. Gervais C. What’s best for the child? [letter].
Pediatrics.2002; 110
:420
PEDIATRICS (ISSN 1098-4275). ©2003 by the American Academy of Pediatrics
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