How the daycare child abuse hysteria of the 1980s became a witch hunt

[DonViejo]

By Maura Casey July 31 at 10:06 AM

Maura Casey is a former editorial writer for the New York Times.

WE BELIEVE THE CHILDREN

A Moral Panic in the 1980s

By Richard Beck

PublicAffairs. 323 pp. $26.99

TV news was no friend to those of us who had small children in the 1980s. Allegations of child sexual abuse in day-care centers swept the nation, with high-profile cases in California, North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Minnesota and other states, leading to empty playgrounds, hyper-vigilant parents and the implication that behind every tree lurked a pedophile waiting to snatch our children. Sexual abuse is an awful crime, but the perpetrators are usually relatives or family friends, and less than 1 percent of cases take place in day-care centers. Nonetheless, 30 years ago America was described as experiencing an “epidemic” of sexual abuse in day care.

Richard Beck, an editor at N+1, does a herculean job of investigating why this happened in his absorbing book “We Believe the Children.” Beck makes the case that the sexual abuse trials of the 1980s yoked numerous undercurrents in American society: fear of crime; the decline of respect for traditional authority; homophobia (their homosexuality helped send some day-care workers to prison); the conservative backlash against feminism, which had encouraged women to work outside the home (with its resultant need for day care); and the reality that the patriarchal nuclear family had not just changed, it had become “incoherent.” Conservative evangelicals had just helped elect President Ronald Reagan, and many of them believed that “porn, gays, and women had run amok.”

This is quite a laundry list, but Beck does a good job of marshaling the evidence. Throw in, for good measure, journalists who were slow to question allegations that emerged not only of sexual abuse, but also of Satanic rituals and even human sacrifice, particularly in the McMartin Preschool case in Manhattan Beach, Calif., which dragged on for more than six excruciating years. The allegations persisted despite the fact that there were no missing people, no bodies and, oh yeah, virtually no evidence to bolster the claims. Geraldo Rivera added to the hysteria by airing, just before Halloween in 1988, a two-hour special, “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground.”

“We believe the children” became both the unofficial motto of advocates for the prosecution and a catch-all response to those few who asked whether the accusers had completely lost their minds. The approach was based largely on the work of psychiatrist Roland Summit, who claimed that, of every 1,000 children who say they were sexually abused, only two are three are guilty of inventing or exaggerating. He also said it was normal for children who had been sexually abused to retract their claims and say they made it all up. The upshot: No matter what children said, they were sexually abused, and if you didn’t believe them, something was wrong with you.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-modern-witch-hunt/2015/07/31/057effd8-2f1a-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html?

[cpwm17]

1. I remember the claim that children don't lie about sexual abuse.

It didn't ring true to me. Any such claims as that are nonsense.

Due to the work of a selfish and unethical prosecutor and media, terrible judges, an evil child worker that claimed expertise that she didn't have, and the accusations of a mentally ill mother, workers at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California went through hell.

The infamous McMartin Case - The HBO movie: Indictment:

[cpwm17]

2. McMartin Preschool: Anatomy of a Panic, Retro Report, The New York Times

[Hoppy]

3. In New Jersey, we had the Margaret Kelly case.

One of the charges included that she undressed the pre-school kids as a group and performed sexual acts on them. This was while other adults were on the property. Then she would get them dressed in time for the parents to pick them up.

Now, if you ever tried to dress even one toddler, imagine how difficult it would be to dress an entire group of, say five or six toddlers. It would be beyond herding cats.

Yet, she was convicted and sentenced to decades in prison.



Her conviction was overturned on appeal but not after she spent a few years in prison.

[murielm99]

4. Have you ever seen a class of kindergarteners,

or first graders, getting their coats, mittens, hats and boots on for recess, or to go home at the end of a school day? I swear the teachers spend half their time helping kids get dressed to go out, and only half teaching. If they are lucky!