Treat your children well

Children don't have it easy nowadays. That at least is what you read in the papers. Child abuse has probably always been there. You might think its an international problem. There are different kinds of child abuse, and Unicef is trying to do its best to stop things from getting worse. What worries me is that also in the Netherlands children are abused, and that I seem to be reading more and more about it. Last week a toddler in Rotterdam seems to have died because of the wounds inflicted on him by babysitter. Its not only parents or teachers who seem to be doing it. A new development furthermore is that people are trying put the blame on responsible authorities, who should have tried to prevent these things from happening. If a child dies questions are asked by politics and local newspapers about welfare work. Were they aware of the particular problem? How did they deal with it. Most stunning about all of this is, that what you read about it, seems to be the tip of the ice-berg. That is what is really frightens me. All-too-often mistreated children grow into mistreating adults; a very wry "circle of life". Of course lots of people are worried. There are citizen and government inititiatives to spread awareness of the problem. Whether it's going to help, will probably only become clear in the long run.