Child abuse increased as economy crashed, study shows

[Hoosier Daddy]

Source: MSNBC Website

As the U.S. economy began to tank, the number of abused kids landing in the hospital with severe brain injuries spiked, a new study shows.

Anecdotes linking child abuse to the recession have surfaced before, but there had been no hard data to back the connection until now.

“It’s definitely disturbing,” said Elizabeth Gershoff, a psychologist who studies parenting but was not involved in the study.

Although there is no proof that financial hardship itself is causing the uptick in abuse, earlier research has tied parental stress to child maltreatment.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44573194/ns/health/#.Tnbu_9Qxj-k

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I will bet big money that the people abusing their kids are overwhelmingly "pro-life." :puke:

[InkAddict]

1. What's even more disturbing is our acceptance of

war criminals, torturers, and WS fraud-creators that robbed good but pre-disposed genetically or pre-damaged fragile persons who were once children, then competent caring parents whose coping skills are EXTREMELY stressed.

We're a sick, sick country!

[CarmanK]

4. We have temporarily misplaced our moral compass!

For 30 years, beginning with Reagan, the republican party led by Grover Norquist, funded by the Cockroaches and propagandized by the Murdogs, has done everything it can to DIVIDE THE NATION, in order to conquer it. Corporate America desperately wants to control our ECONOMY in order to exploit our natural assets and deliver short term profits/pleasures. The tact was simple, but in line with the addage, "first they came for ____________and I did nothing, then they came for ______________, I did nothing and then they came for me and there was no one to do anything. The point is the GOP began with the demonizing of the poor-Welfare Queens- and pushed for reforms beginning in the 80's and 90's when unemployment was 4% and made it more difficult for people to get assistance. The poor were the "lazy, unworthies" instead of the FACES OF millions of children, disabled and sick persons who really made up the majority of the poor. Then came the culture wars: gays, women's right to choose, right to live, Muslims etc... and in all this the politicians weakened our govt and corrupted our agencies with political cronies and industrial loyalists who fundamentally changed the responsibilites of the federal agencies that were supposed to protect the COMMON GOOD. We accept decption by our highest officials. Bush/Cheney raised lying to a new level of public discourse. Our govt agencies failed to enforce the laws, so the people: were overwhelmed with illegal immigration, increased number of tragic deaths of workers in mines and on oil rigs; poisoning of our water by an arrogant gas industry which pumps an unknown chemical cocktail into the ground for fracking, and then says it is just a coincidence that surrounding properties have sinks that generate fire instead of water. The repugs, never produced MORE FOR LESS as they promised, in reality they squandered taxpayer dollars with failed privatization ventures in the military and domestically, and raised BILKING AMERICAN taxpayers as business as ususal. And there is the surrender of our democracy by the disillusioned as evidenced by SUPER THIEF IN CHIEF RIck Scott in FL-the man stole millions from medicare and is now gov of FL. Napoleon Walker in WI is a college drop out, that has power to dispose of public assets without public input or accountability and of course the new TYRANT Rick Snyder of MI, who really thinks of Democracy as inconvenient with his widespread use of EMERGENCY FINANCIAL MANAGERs. The town dictators: dissolve town councils, fire public officials and spend taxpayer dollars without taxpayer consent. BENTON HARBOR, MI is the poster child for TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.

[DrunkenBoat]

2. I'll bet they aren't. And I'll bet there's no significant correlation to beliefs about

abortion at all.

Except insofar as beliefs about abortion are linked to income.

[McCamy Taylor]

3. Wealth disparity is associated with domestic violence. This is well documented

and no surprise at all. Note that Florida's governor axed spending to help child abuse victims at a time when they need help more than ever.

[Turbineguy]

5. Shit rolls down hill.

With republicans making the world safe for predators at the top, the most vulnerable at the bottom pay the price.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Which suggests its only going to get worse.

[jwirr]

7. That is not surprising. As a social worker who has worked alongside

child abuse investigaters I have seen it rise every time there is a major layoff and breadwinners become frustrated men and women trying to make ends meet when there is not enough money. A further cause is the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that overcomes the person who is unemployed. In our county we set up stress programs for the unemployed to help this. For the 99ers this must be just terrible but they are not alone. I would guess this is also happening to those who have lost their businesses and their homes. We live in terrible times.

[raccoon]

8. I expect in hard times all forms of family abuse increase. nt

[newspeak]

9. during the great depression

there was a rise in child abuse and spousal abuse. Also, families who could no longer afford feeding their children were abandoned. I love those pictures of supposedly "rich" men flinging themselves out of windows after the stock crash, but the reality is the highest rate of suicide was those who were laborers, considered the middle class, working class.

I took my MIL to see michael moore's "capitalism: a love story" and what they don't teach in our sterile history classes today is of the labor strikes, the riots. Don't want the plebes to know how desperation can turn into violence. How FDR sent in the national guard to protect the laborers against the police and Pinkertons. FDR actually did save capitalism, while the truly greedy robber barons were making even more money off of our misery and funding mussolini and hitler. No teabagger can convince me that hitler was a soooooochlist, when he was an avid pen pal with henry ford, hearst and some of our other notable industrial and banking traitors. A socialist wouldn't have murdered unionists, a socialist wouldn't have rounded up communists and democratic socialists, a socialist wouldn't be pen pals with some of the greediest robber barons of our country.

[jwirr]

10. Thank you.

[InkAddict]

11. Yup - Until most recently, I reacted basically as a Refusnik

to that helplessness and got the kids involved in music. One was so good at the performance side of it, she earned a year-long renewable scholarship to a respected private college. That bet didn't pay off any further; she dropped music and the instrument sits in the closet because she decided she could not earn a living wage at it and could not pass Theory. The new major and degree, Hospitality Management, wasn't much better in the austere economy of a land-locked Midwest city.

After all the losses, perhaps it's better to just clog up their works, a private sit-in of one added to an insurmountable heap of adjusted worthless human energy, so to speak. See, I'm almost at "acceptance." Then I'll be ready to move foreward without a backward flash of anger and without a lost set of youthful bargaining skills with a ruthless sea of employers. I will either survive or with quiet determination force their homicidal intentions into the open. I pray they stay only intentions. Heaven knows, they don't seem to be bothered much about torturing and killing and bullying under my flag elsewhere.

Perhaps this is the special time I have left to share what little time is left with my family and friends and I need be grateful to have such a large portion before an abrupt end.

I am shamed and flooded with guilt about choices, but there was an OPTIMISM,for a while there was HOPE,for a while there was a CHANCE. Sometimes, the mirage in the desert is just that, a mirage, and calling out for AGUA won't change a thing.