Using the boys became a tool in my father’s armoury. Since one day the boys would become
old enough to tell the police what he had been doing, Dad needed a backup plan. The best
way to cover his crime was to implement the boys in his activities. In other words, he got the
boys to participate in having sex with their sisters. He also convinced them that if they told
anyone, that they were just as guilty as he was.
As I said before, I did not know why my sisters kept silent, but learning about my brothers
gave me the insight to why so many children remain quiet about their suffering. In a word,
‘blackmail’.
The truth of the matter was that the boys were forced into the act, it was non-consentual. It
was only the oldest girl who was put through this duress but the three oldest boys were made
to participate. All the while my mother had no idea this was going on.
Even though one night she caught my father in one of the girl’s beds, he claimed he thought
she was her and only touched her boobs. Since he was drunk at the time, mum believed him.
One thousand warning bells were rung right there!!!
With the family rule of ‘don’t ask and don’t tell’, many secrets were transpiring and everyone
was afraid to tell anyone what was going on.
I am also sure mum would have noticed some changes in the girls and I’m sure it’s
appropriate to put some of it down to puberty, but not when it co-insides with many other
signals. As for the boys, I don’t think mum understood boys at any time in their life, let alone
when something was wrong. But I do know this about mum, she doesn’t cope with conflict,
because she gets over emotional. Besides, she would not have known who to talk to even if
she wanted too. The concept of welfare or police intervention was unheard of unless there
was more than sufficient evidence.
By my mother’s own admission, she claims she had no idea what dad was doing. But my
guess is that because of her victim mentality, she failed to notice any warning signs because,
one, it was not happening to her and two, if she did notice, she felt she was powerless to stop
it, and three, there was no one who would help, so what was she to do with the information?
When my oldest sister was in her fifties she challenged my mother that she must have known
something was going on between dad and the girls. My mother still replied that she really
didn’t know. The irony is that my mother also believed that gran must have known something
was going on between her and her boss, but in the case of my mother she never challenged
Gran to find out. Both generations believed that their parents ignored any warning signs.
Maybe so, but both generations still blamed the people who were supposed to protect them
more than their abusers.
I said earlier that the word ‘unspeakable’ is one reason abuse remains undetected. I’ve
noticed that every victim has a reason for not speaking up and it’s usually that they are being
manipulated by their abuser. Another reason is passivity, or neglect from the people who are
supposed to protect them. The fault with these crimes lay squarely on the men, however both
criminals thrived due to the neglect of the child’s protector.
Eventually the victims of these sex offenders have grown up and sort to find healing. In both
circumstances both women knew their abusers and both of these men admitted their guilt to
the girls when they were challenged later in life. Both girls have dealt with that part of the
abuse. However both women never received the acknowledgement from their protector for
failing to protect. Their mother’s denial has haunted both these women all their lives and
healing still eludes them both. This is the conversation I would so like to have with my
mother, for her and my sister’s sake, but it is also the conversation that she avoids with the
help of my oldest brother.
I said before that I need to discuss why children keep silent about their attackers. The reasons
are blackmail, lies and deceit. Blackmail is a necessary tool to prevent the victim from saying
anything to someone else. For example, the child may have been told that if anyone finds out
what is happening, someone, such as the child, will be taken away from the family. The irony
is that there is a lot of truth in that statement. Children do not want to be responsible for
breaking up the family and they do not realise that if they are removed, it will be for their
own protection. Children hate the thought of being separated from their mum, dad and any of
their siblings. Their life revolves around their home life, and what is familiar is therefore their
security. A child would rather put up with an abusive parent than have no parent at all. It
takes a lot, and I mean an awful lot for a child to get up the courage to believe there may be a
better life outside of its family.
A child molester has to blackmail or deceive their victim for their crime to continue and
blackmail is why my sisters never spoke up. Because I have four sisters, there was a stage
when the two older girls had the threat lingering over their head that their dad would
eventually move on to their younger sisters. Although the younger girls were not at an age
that appealed to my father, the older girls still had the desire to protect them from someday
suffering the same treatment as they were facing. They certainly knew that their mother was
not going to protect them. At the time, the older girls kept silent, because they felt they had to
deal with this dilemma themselves. As a result, they came up with different ideas to protect
their younger sisters. When our father came home from the pub at night the older girls would
hide the younger ones. I’m sure you know the old saying, ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Dad
never thought about the other girls then. However, if that didn’t work, one of the girls was
even preparing to go to gaol for murder if the situation became too desperate. Although in
some way they tried to tell our mother, she was always able to make excuses for her husband.
After all, in the 1970’s there was nowhere for a woman to go with nine children. Thankfully
all of that has changed and there is no excuse in the new millennia to justify child abuse, even
though it still occurs.
~ 7 ~