Certainty is a kind of prison; when you're absolutely certain, you're absolutely blind and can't move in any direction, forward, backward, sideways, anyway.

James Burke

The Heisenberg Principle

In 1925 Werner Heisenberg unsettled the world of physics with his observation that the goal of physics to describe accurately the world may be unattainable. [⁽²⁾] The more precise our measurements, he argued, the more uncertain we become about the world since the act of measurement itself interferes with the world and becomes inseparable from the phenomenon being measured. In trying to view a single atom through an electron microscope, for instance, the electron shot at it by which it should be illuminated would so disturb the target, knock it even from the field of view, that we could not be sure that the image we viewed was what the target "really" looked like. The act of observation disturbs the object observed in such unpredictable and uncontrollable ways that we are forever destined to be uncertain about the appearance of reality.[⁽³⁾]

In my view, the Heisenberg Principle has its counterpart in the study of child abuse and neglect. We are forever destined to be uncertain about the reality of child abuse.

The Perspective

How is it possible that the more we know, the more uncertain we should become? Let me offer the following analysis.

Child abuse as we understand it does not take place in traditional societies. This is not to say that children are not treated harshly, indeed even mistreated. In traditional societies the members of the groups determine for themselves in light of their traditions just how adults should treat children. What is helpful or harmful is a matter of community consensus. Mistreating a child is treating him in a way not approved of by the prevailing commonly shared norms.

This is possible because the group is homogenous. It shares the same language, traditions, culture and values. Further, it is highly likely that everyone within a given range knows each other personally. Deviation is difficult in that it is hard to deviate without discovery. Deviance is usually met with an immediate response. Whatever happens to a child as long as it conforms to the collective interests is, by definition, the best for the child since it represents community consensus and commitment to the child. Without such commitment, no one would survive, neither children nor adults.

Industrial society changed all of that. In an urban setting, families no longer participate in a clearly unified cultural community. Urban areas are characterized by a great deal of diversity. Typically, people come from different areas and do not share the same values or background. They do not know each other and hence lack the moral authority to assert their values as preeminent.

Industrial society is also rational. Work moves from the land to central locations, and is typically rationalized and routinized. Tasks are broken down into specialty areas. Overall coordination of effort derives from the rationality of legal authority rather than the morality of tradition. Deviance occurs relative to the written rule rather than collective values. Conflicting values may compete for control of the legal order, and whichever ones dominates politically, may claim moral authority. It is only as permanent as the political power that produced it, however, and only as enduring as the written rules it promulgates on its own behalf.

Key to understanding industrial society is understanding the nature of specialists. [⁽⁴⁾] Specialists are the natural outcome of a highly refined division of labor. Tasks become so complicated and knowledge so extensive that no single person can command all necessary to satisfy the requirements of daily life. Specialization is also more efficient. More can be accomplished when tasks are divided into specialty areas which cooperate toward a common end than when individuals are responsible for all aspects of labor.

Specialists exist because some source of authority has ordered tasks divided and employed people to fill necessary positions. Specialists, therefore, serve the interests of some source of authority. But while specialists may be indebted to a source of authority for their employment, the source of authority is at the same time dependent on the specialists, for by virtue of their specialized knowledge, they and they alone can make the system work.

Throughout the two- to three-hundred years of emerging Western industrialization, definition of good and bad, right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate has gradually shifted from traditional authority of small communities to complex legal authority of large urban areas. Management of such definitions have moved from traditional mechanisms such as chieftains, patriarchs, and village councils, to legal mechanisms such as legislatures, courts, agencies, and bureaus. Most activities -- even child rearing -- have tended over time to come in varying degrees under the aegis of some sort of legal entity. Accordingly, specialists have come to define and regulate the world.

The specialist has emerged in child protective work as surely as in any other area. Since the emergence of the juvenile court in 1899 [⁽⁵⁾], a variety of specialists have emerged whose assigned or adopted responsibility it is to protect children from the destructive consequences of industrialization. These specialists are (1) reporters of abuse, such as, teachers and physicians; (2) evaluators of abuse, such as, child protection workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists; (3) enforcers of child protection, such as, police, prosecutors, and judges; (4) advocates for victims of abuse and accused abusers, that is, legal and policy specialists; (5) healers of victims of abuse and accused abusers, that is, therapists and the like; and (6) communicators about abuse, who are mass media specialists.

Since issues of child protection emerged as a result of the failure of traditional adult-child relationships, one task of these specialists has been to assume the burden of defining adult-child relationships thereby replacing the definitions followed in the past. In sociology of knowledge terms, they have actively been engaged in constructing social reality. [⁽⁶⁾] For this reason, laypersons' definition of adult-child relations has become less relevant in the social order while specialists' definitions of the situation have become more relevant.

It is important to note that in a complex, industrial legal order, the consequences of specialists' definitions extend far beyond the bounds of the formal, written rule. Because of the wide variety of specialists involved in something as broad as adult-child relations, targeted persons may be affected directly and legally from many directions simultaneously. In addition, fear of stigmatizing publicity or lawsuits alone are often sufficient to put ordinary citizens on notice that the definition of the situation and subsequent negative consequences, lie without recourse in someone else's hands.

In other words, if power is a function of the extent to which fear can be induced, then specialists are in a position to exercise power. The power of specialists may not only be focussed on their target populations, however, it may also be oriented toward other specialists in the same or related fields. Although there is a tendency to want to attribute issues of power to individuals, the dynamics of rational specialization is not a matter of personalities or personal motives per se, but of organizational dynamics. This is characteristic of all organizations.

Still, the mechanism of power resides in the perceptual qualities of participating or affected individuals. Perceptions may or may not be based on facts of any sort, but perceptions may give rise to behaviors. To the extent that perceptions generate fear because of perceived power to affect lives negatively, a person fearing unwarranted exercise of power may feel vulnerable. A sense of vulnerability and great fear may occur when (1) the circumstances which may give rise to unwarranted exercise of power seem outside the threatened person's control, such as, race or gender, and (2) the consequences would be grave, such as, loss of liberty, job, money, reputation, and the like. Further, when the legal order and the nature of the evidence makes it difficult to enjoy usual legal protection, such as cross-examining witnesses, and when the claimed offense carries the stigma of violation of some of the worst taboos of the culture, a person's sense of vulnerability may be enhanced.

In the face of such conditions, one might reasonably expect that a person potentially subjected to unwarranted exercise of power might take steps to avoid even the appearance of impropriety by avoiding, if need be, all potentially suspect relations and activities.

The possibility of an adult-child relationship being the subject of accusation may have implications for that relationship. It should not be surprising that adults who feel themselves threatened by the perceived chance of false accusation of child abuse, may regard children differently than if they were not subject to threat. They may not want to be alone with children, touch them, hug them, help them, indeed do anything that might in any way open themselves to charges.

And thus, to the extent children need the nurturance of adults -- their affection, touching, help, support, guidance and encouragement -- children will grow up without such, at least not the quantity and quality that would otherwise have obtained.

It is this sense of vulnerability that links child abuse to Heisenberg's principle. In general, we can postulate that:

The greater the perceived threat of accusation, the more potentially accused persons will withdraw from situations in which others' definitions of the situation are likely to be determinate.

Stated otherwise, as the perceived cost of interaction in a situation over which a person perceives no control rises beyond the perceived benefit of the interaction, that person will respond by withdrawing from the situation or otherwise altering his or her behavior in such a way as to make the high costs of accusation less likely.

To the extent this occurs, the nurturing adult-child relationship will disappear. What will replace it will be a set of calculated, bureaucratic regulations stipulating in behavioral terms the conditions of adult-child relations. The goal of these, as all bureaucratic rules, will be to eliminate affective factors from task-oriented behavior. To the extent that hurt is the result of emotion or dysfunctional values, they must be limited. But since such distinctions are inherently value judgements subject to competing values, all non-system values must be eliminated.

Thus, in an effort to eliminate hurt, love will also be eliminated. Without love there will be no nurturance, and without nurturance the adult-child relationship will become uncertain. The search for clarity of definition will become a matter of legal maneuvering between forces vying for control. No amount of refinement will make a definition clearer because every refinement opens up more common practices to scrutiny. Since all child-rearing practices are value-defined, none can withstand objective scrutiny, and all will ultimately fall. Clarification, therefore, will only make more acute our uncertainty about who children are and how we should relate to them.

This, then, is the theory. How does it look in the real world?

Problems of Child Abuse Investigation

While specialization of tasks has been long in the making, specialization in the area of adult-child relations has been among the latest to emerge. Although the creation of the juvenile court, as noted [⁽⁷⁾], was the first effort to take the definition away from laypersons, issues of child treatment still remained largely in traditional hands until 1962 when Kempe et al described the "battered baby syndrome." [⁽⁸⁾] Since then, awareness, knowledge, laws covering abuse, and child protection as a technical specialty has expanded dramatically.

Two factors, however, increasingly confound our efforts to understand child abuse. The first is that, whereas we began by recognizing child abuse as one recognizes midnight from noon, widening attention and broadening definition have increasingly confronted us with the need to distinguish the vague point at which day becomes night. What used to be regarded as ordinary acts increasingly are treated as deviant.

The second is that we are increasingly confronted with the dilemma presented by the question "If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear, does it make a sound?" Just as a hearing ear is needed to interpret movement of air molecules into sound, so also is an interpreting eye necessary to interpret human actions into child abuse. Since child abuse often occurs behind closed doors, it is quite like the tree in the woods. The best witnesses are often no better than no witnesses at all.

The putative child-victim, often lacking language and descriptive skills, as well as possibly being intimidated by adult authority, is many times incapable of describing adequately what happened. The suspected adult-abuser is not a good witness because of the presumption that he or she is motivated not to tell truly what happened.

While extreme acts may fill the headlines, the increasing rate of unsubstantiated reports [⁽⁹⁾] suggests that (1) ordinary acts by ordinary people under ordinary circumstances are being reported more often, and (2) more cases revolving around testimony of principals rather than hard evidence are being reported. Our concern here is with the consequences of this development.

Consequences of Child Abuse Investigation

Early in the 1980's the popular press began to carry stories of individuals caught up in what was said to be a mindless, indifferent, and officious system as the result of presumably false accusations of child abuse. [⁽¹⁰⁾] The McMartin Pre-school case in California, parents in Jordan, Minnesota, and charges against a grandmother who ran a day care center in the Bronx, New York, for instance, all captured headlines and the evening news. [⁽¹¹⁾] By this time all states had laws mandating reporting of child abuse and neglect, and reports were increasingly frequent in the daily news. [⁽¹²⁾] Great pressure not to deny child sexual abuse, especially, were felt widely following Suzanne Sgroi's mandate that "Recognition of sexual molestation of a child is entirely dependent on the individual's inherent willingness to entertain the possibility that the condition may exist." [⁽¹³⁾]

Expressions of professional concern began to appear in the literature led by Douglas Besharov, former Director of the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect. Besharov noted the increasing rate of reporting cases of suspected child abuse and the accompanying rise of unsubstantiated cases which he blamed on inadequate definition. Fuzzy definitions of child abuse, he argued, were not only encouraging citizens to report any and everything as abuse, agencies were also unable to distinguish between abuse and non-abuse. [⁽¹⁴⁾]

Immediately and coincidentally, pent-up concerns began to be released in print about the consequences of false accusations for agencies, professionals and lay-citizens alike. Stories of false allegations, especially concerning sexual abuse, appeared with increasing frequency in the popular press. [⁽¹⁵⁾] It also became clear that whatever was happening, the mass media was coming to play a major role in the development of charges and consequences even before the evidence had been considered. [⁽¹⁶⁾] News of such events were repeated every hour on the hour on hundreds of radio and television stations from coast to coast. The truth of the media became everyone's truth, and facts became irrelevant. Child abuse, especially sexual abuse, acquired the status of an "urban legend" much as had recent product tampering -- the Tylenol killings, for instance -- and the highly publicized razor blades in Halloween apples a decade earlier. [⁽¹⁷⁾]

As a result, changes in the behavior of teachers, coaches and others who work with children began to be reported. Teachers became afraid even to "put an arm around a youngster and say `It's good to see you.'" [⁽¹⁸⁾] "Many school teachers [reported being] anxious about holding children on their laps, fixing stuck zippers, or even talking to students alone." [⁽¹⁹⁾] "Teachers who used to hug troubled students ... [quit] the profession over the fear of being called a child molester," according to press reports. [⁽²⁰⁾]

Teachers, in turn, began to place demands on administration to protect them by means of rigid rules. For instance, the director of Child Advocacy of the National Council of Churches received "scores" of calls, such as from a large Midwest church day-care center where the staff of over 100 had "issued an ultimatum. Fearing that they would be falsely accused of sexual abuse, they refused to return to work until the Board of Directors issued precise guidelines for physical contact with [their] young charges." [⁽²¹⁾] Other day-care centers reported requiring parents to sign release forms before the workers would be permitted to change babies' diapers, and not permitting a splinter to be removed from a child's bottom without witnesses being present. [⁽²²⁾]

Articles railed contemptuously against a Child Protective Services run amok, charging that politicians and bureaucrats alike used abused children to serve their own ends. [⁽²³⁾] Such publicity touched raw nerves, eliciting numerous stories of the consequences of this new fear. A teacher in a church-run pre-school told of teachers being "accused of being 'verbally abusive' and 'impairing self-esteem' for asking a child to blow his nose or tie his shoe. If a child was absent more than two days, [staff would speculate] that he may be recovering from bruises inflicted by his single mother working two jobs. The director report[ed to CPS] any child who [did] not seem average." [⁽²⁴⁾] Teachers and child-care workers were upset at what they saw happening.

Victims took the system further to task, cautioning well-meaning professionals not to allow themselves to get drawn into the process. A teacher's instincts may be to protect a child, but in so doing the teacher could inadvertently contribute to grave injustices to others and cause the destruction of his or her own career. [⁽²⁵⁾] Yet others became political, organizing themselves in a national group called Victims of Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL) which began to lobby legislative bodies for protection from an "unthinking and uncaring bureaucracy". [⁽²⁶⁾]

The press, in turn, was attacked for using child abuse to sell newspapers and television time. When asked "Why [feature female promiscuity] again, when it has been done so many times before?" one TV producer inadvertently indicted the industry by replying, "We'll keep pitching sex as long as people keep watching it." [⁽²⁷⁾] A noted commentator carried the indictment further when he stated pointedly that "A lot of the graphic horror stories in the press are little more than child porn, published or broadcast because editors and producers want to titillate. And when they're not being salacious, the media is being mawkish, which sells almost as well." [⁽²⁸⁾]

Child protection professionals began to fight back, however, both to defend their position as well as to protect themselves from false accusations or liability for having acted on false accusations. Some, notably those who had been involved in early development of awareness of child sexual abuse, simply denied that there was an issue. Pointing to statistics that indicated a statistically small number of false accusations and hence no great harm relative to the benefit derived from their services, they also observed -- correctly, of course -- that "unsubstantiated charges" does not necessarily mean "false charges." [⁽²⁹⁾] Others deflected criticism by questioning the credibility of self-proclaimed victims of false accusations [⁽³⁰⁾], especially the members of VOCAL. [⁽³¹⁾]

Still, some professionals began to take the matter seriously and accept the possibility that some accusations might be false, especially in bitter divorce cases, and began to offer advice to professionals. The testimony of experts came under criticism as unreliable proof that abuse occurred, that a claimant is credible, or that children don't lie. [⁽³²⁾] Benedek and Schetsky noted that in cases of false accusation they studied, all came from adults rather than from children themselves. They argued that clinicians must develop special techniques of interviewing and inquiry to separate out the false positives. [⁽³³⁾] Family physicians were advised on how to protect themselves from being falsely charged. [⁽³⁴⁾] New research was prompted which ultimately would indicate that ano/genital findings which physicians had long accepted as evidence of sexual abuse were actually found widely in normal populations. [⁽³⁵⁾] Physicans were warned about drawing conclusions about sexual abuse based solely on physical evidence. [⁽³⁶⁾]

Media attention grew with the increase in reporting and notoriety of cases of sexual abuse as well as missing children. Although the basis for news reports came under scrutiny because of inflated and misleading statistics [⁽³⁷⁾], they persisted unabated. And with media attention came proposals for dealing with the problem. Teaching children how to protect themselves by identifying "good touches" vs. "bad touches" and then warding off "bad touches" by saying "no" or telling someone, flew across the land like wild-fire, as a means to "empower" children to protect themselves. [⁽³⁸⁾]

Strangers in general and males in particular became targets for special attention. Programs for helping children identify dangerous persons left the message that "a stranger is anyone you don't know. Most people are strangers and most of them are nice. [But y]ou can't tell by looking who's nice and who's not." [⁽³⁹⁾] The popular press generated more mistrust by informing the public that "[The abuser is] a man you trust. He's a man your children trust. He's a teacher, a coach, a Cub Scout leader -- someone your family knows well." [⁽⁴⁰⁾]

Whether this all reduced the incidence of abuse or abductions is debatable, but the effect on others was noticed quickly. Mothers kept their children at home and wouldn't let them talk to strangers. [⁽⁴¹⁾] Men immediately felt themselves under suspicion for simply being men and especially if they were in occupations which required working with children. The view was heard that the days of men entering nurturing roles were over. The risk of accusation was too great. [⁽⁴²⁾] Child care was once again becoming "woman's work." Similarly, it was observed that "Any man who wants to work with young children is [treated as] a potential pedophile. ... The wave of fear is not only dividing day-care workers from parents, it is also destroying the vital bond between day-care workers -- female as well as male -- and children." [⁽⁴³⁾] Social workers were warned of the costs. [⁽⁴⁴⁾]

Child care administration, even if it trusted men, became apprehensive about hiring men. An administrator would be crazy not to ask "What would the community at large think of a man who would want this job and of a program that would hire him?" [⁽⁴⁵⁾]

But even if an employer had confidence in a man, the employer's fear of false accusations which could bring about ruinous law suits, could compel the employer to have a woman present whenever the man was around children. But, having two people to do the work of one would be economically intolerable, and so men would not likely be used [⁽⁴⁶⁾], unless a program were important, e.g. girls athletics in public schools. If only men were available to coach, some schools would hire a female chaperone for the male coach. [⁽⁴⁷⁾]

This has all been occurring, mind you, against a backdrop of increasing sensitivity to issues of wife battering, rape, date rape, sexual harassment at all levels, and court cases upholding women's rights in ways never before thought possible. In response to news that a court had freed a woman of murder charges after she poured gasoline over and set fire to her sleeping husband who had beat her for years, one man expressed the sense of male vulnerability well when he exclaimed, "It's open season on men!" [⁽⁴⁸⁾] It is no criticism of the women's movement to say that the issues raised here, especially to the extent they involve sexual abuse, cannot be separated from the political climate fostered by that movement.

Thus, while women also claim to have been falsely charged with abuse, men especially have come to see threat of false accusation as particularly great. Whether it be imprisonment on false charges of rape [⁽⁴⁹⁾] or changing occupations because of fear of false accusation, as in juvenile detention work [⁽⁵⁰⁾], men increasingly are expressing apprehension about being accused -- simply because they are men -- of acts for which there can be no defense, where the charge is its own conviction, and where the life of an accused one is destroyed even if he is found not guilty in court.

The effect has been to create an atmosphere not entirely different from that of the days of the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's. At least one commentator has described child advocates as "shar[ing] the same paranoid mind frame ... [of] commie hunters and Satan hunters." [⁽⁵¹⁾] It is the Rosenhan phenomenon: once labelled, it becomes impossible to distinguish between guilt and innocence, fact and fancy. [⁽⁵²⁾] The definitions of experts dictate all outcomes.

Hypotheses for further study

It is my contention that the process described above, as in the case of Heisenberg's Principle, is an unavoidable and natural consequence of industrialization and specialization in the realm of management of human affairs. Although there is a tendency to want to solve the situation by further refining the definition of child abuse [⁽⁵³⁾], in the long run this will result in more uncertainty. Toward the end of validating this perspective and understanding the process, I would submit for further study the following hypotheses:

The more the definition of child abuse is refined:

1. the more specialists will be unable to distinguish "true" abuse from non-abuse or false accusation.

2. the less often abuse will be reported due to the specialists' inability to distinguish "true" abuse from non-abuse or false accusation.

3. the less often cases of abuse will be pursued by the courts because of mistrust of specialists' expertise.

4. the less willing will be child protection workers to pursue reports due to fear of consequences of making a wrong decision.

At the same time fear of specialists' inability to distinguish "true" abuse from non-abuse or false accusation will cause a decline of activities and participation in roles which are subject to intense scrutiny, this rather than risk misinterpretation of acts or otherwise false accusation. Specifically, I would further hypothesize:

5. a decline in "good touches" in favor of no touches at all, rather than risk misinterpretation or false accusation.

6. a decline in adult males in nurturing positions.

7. a decline in acts of friendship or kindness to children by unfamiliar adult males (e.g. "strangers").

These outcomes may further be hypothesized to have the following effects on the welfare of children. The greater the level of fear of false accusation:

8. the greater the likelihood that children at serious risk will not be adequately protected;

9. the more adult interaction with children will become impersonal and distant, taking place only in impersonal settings in the presence of witnesses guided by impersonal rules; and

10. the more children will grow up lacking close, supportive and friendly involvement with adults.

If these hypotheses are substantiated, one might conclude, therefore, that our efforts are not producing a clearer picture of child abuse but rather the reflection of an image distorted by the inquiry itself. If this is so, it implies that:

The more we think we know, the less we actually know;

The more short-term help we provide, the more long-term harm we cause;

The more an old harm is eliminated, the more a new harm emerges and increases; and

The more ordinary life becomes suspect, the less able are we to make meaningful decisions about ordinary life.

In the realm of the social, as in the realm of the physical, this is inevitable and unavoidable. We must begin to discuss it, to study it, and to come to terms with it.

1. Professor of Sociology, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington 98926, USA. Tel: 509-963-1305; Fax: 509-963-1241.

2. 1. Cf. Heisenberg, W. The Physical Principles of Quantum Theory. (Trans. by Carl Eckart and F. C. Hoyt.) The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1930). See also Heelan, P. A. Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, (1965).

3. 2. Bohm, D., Heisenberg's contribution to physics. In: The Uncertainty Principle and the Foundation of Quantum Mechanics: A Fifty Years' Survey. W. C. Price and S. S. Chissick (Eds.), p. 561. John Wiley & Sons, New York (1977).

4. 3. For discussions of the consequences of specialized knowledge on social organization, see Blau, P. M., Exchange and Power in Social Life. John Wiley, New York (1964); and Homans, G. C., Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. (Rev. ed.) Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (1974).

5. 4. Platt, A. M., The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1969.

6. 5. Hacking, I., "The sociology of knowledge about child abuse." Noûs 22:53-63 (1988).

7. 6. Ibid.

8. 7. Kempe, C. H., Silverman, F. N., Steele, B. F., Drogemueller, W., and Silver, H. K., The battered-child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association 181:17-24 (1979).

9. 8. Besharov, D. J., "'Doing something' about child abuse: The need to narrow grounds for state intervention." Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. 3(Summer 1985):539-589. See also, Besharov, D. J., "Unfounded allegations: A new child abuse problem." Public Interest, 83(Spring 1986):18-33; and Besharov, D. J., "Policy guidelines for decision making in child abuse and neglect." Children Today, 16(November/December 1987):7-10+.

10. 9. See, for instance, Daughtery, P., "I was accused of child abuse." Ladies Home Journal. 100:18+ (November, 1983).

11. 10. Hechler, D. The Battle and the Backlash. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988; Press, A. "I've gone through hell." Newsweek, 104:38 (October 1, 1984).

12. 11. Hechler, D., op cit., Ch. 2.

13. 12. Sgroi, S. M. et al., Sexual Assault of Children and Adolescents. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1978; p. xvi. Quoted in Hechler, D. op cit., p. 25.

14. 13. Besharov, D. J., op cit.

15. 14. Such as the one wherein a physician had misinterpreted lesions in a young girl's vagina and reported the teenage day-care worker for sexual abuse. See Baxter, A. "I was falsely accused of child abuse." Glamour 84:168-169+ (July 1986).

16. 15. Before trial, for instance, television already proclaimed that the accused, the case mentioned above, was an "All-American girl gone wrong." Ibid.

17. 16. Best, J. and Horiuchi, G. T., "The razor blade in the apple: The social construction of urban legends." Social Problems 32:988-499 (1985).

18. 17. Gest, T. "The other victims of child abuse." U. S. News and World Report 98:86 (April 1, 1985).

19. 18. Baxter, op. cit.

20. 19. Gest, op.cit.

21. 20. Lindner, E. "Child carelessness: Sexual abuse in day care." Christian Century 102:270-272 (March 13, 1985).

22. 21. Wesson, C. "Child care" National Public Radio, Weekend Edition (April 2, 1988).

23. 22. Wexler, R., "Invasion of the child savers: No one is safe in the war against abuse." Progressive 49:19-22 (September, 1985); Elshtein, J. B. "Invasion of the child savers: How we succumb to hype and hysteria." Progressive 49:23-26 (September, 1985).

24. 23. Wexler, R. "Readers respond to 'Invasion of the Child Savers.'" Progressive 49:6-8 (November, 1985).

25. 24. Spiegel, L. D., "Child abuse hysteria -- a warning for educators." Elementary School Guidance and Counselling 22:275-283 (April, 1988).

26. 25. Hechler, D. op cit.

27. 26. Katz, S. J. "Stop the witch-hunt for child molesters." New York Times I:27 (June 20, 1984).

28. 27. TRB, The New Republic (no date), quoted in Wexler, R. op cit.

29. 28. MacFarlane, K. "Child sexual abuse allegations in divorce proceedings" in MacFarlane, K. et al. Sexual Abuse of Children, New York: Guilford, 1986; Krugman, R. D., Elementary School Guidance and Counselling 22:284-286 (April, 1988).

30. 29. Krugman, R. D. Ibid.

31. 30. Hechler, D. op cit.

32. 31. McCord, D., "Expert psychological testimony about child complaints in sexual abuse prosecutions: A foray into the admissibility of novel psychological evidence." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 77:1-68 (Spring, 1986); see also the criticism of Dr. Higgs in England who found child sexual abuse everywhere, with profound consequences, after learning about "reflex anal dilation," the so-called "anal wink", as evidence of child abuse. "So who's abusing whom?" Economist 305:57-58 (November 21, 1987)

33. 32. Benedek, E. and Schetsky, D., "Allegations of sexual abuse in child custody and visitation disputes." in Benedek, E. and Schetsky, D. (eds.) Emerging Issues in Child Psychiatry and the Law. New York: Bruner/Mazel, 1985.

34. 33. Renshaw, D. C., "When sex abuse is falsely charged." Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality 19:116-124 (July, 1985).

35. 34. McCann, J. et al. "Perianal findings in prepubertal children selected for non-abuse: A descriptive study." Child Abuse and Neglect, 13:179-193 (1989).

36. 35. Krugman, R. D. "The more we learn, the less we know 'with reasonable medical certainty'." Child Abuse and Neglect 13:165-166 (1989); Paradise, J. E. "Predictive accuracy and the diagnosis of sexual abuse: A big issue about a little tissue." Child Abuse and Neglect 13:169-176 (1989).

37. 36. See, for instance, McGehee, C. L. "Is missing children problem on local doorstep?" Ellensburg Daily Record, Ellensburg, Washington (March 27, 1986); Best J. "Missing children, misleading statistics." Public Interest 92:84-92 (Summer, 1988).

38. 37. For a review of programs on touching, empowerment and other programs for sexual abuse prevention, see Wurtele, S. K., "School-based sexual abuse prevention programs: A review." Child Abuse and Neglect 11:483-495 (1987); Costello, J. "Talking about touch." Parents 61:180 (March, 1986).

39. 38. Kraizer, S. K. et al., "Programming for preventing sexual abuse and abductions: What does it mean when it works?" Child Welfare 67:69-78 (January/February, 1988).

40. 39. Abel, G. G., "The child abuser: How can you spot him?" Redbook 169:98-100+ (August, 1987).

41. 40. McGehee, C. L., op cit.

42. 41. Miller, S., "Men and child care: The plot thickens." Ms 16:54-56 (October, 1987).

43. 42. Richardson, D., "Day care: Men need not apply." Education Digest 51:58-59 (January, 1986).

44. 43. Weinbach, R. W., "Public awareness of sexual abuse: Costs and victims." Social Work 32:532-533 (November/December, 1987).

45. 44. Richardson, D., Ibid.

46. 45. Writer's own observations as Chairman of the Board of the Kittitas County Child Advocacy Council, Ellensburg, Washington.

47. 46. Interview with public school official, Ellensburg, Washington.

48. 47. The writer witnessed this in a restaurant in Seattle, Washington.

49. 48. Dear Abby, "Girl who cried rape in fact cried wolf." Ellensburg Daily Record, Ellensburg, Washington (June 15, 1990). Girl claimed boy raped her. He didn't, but he was convicted and went to jail anyway. Now she's sorry and wants to know what to do about it.

50. 49. Writer's own observations at Yakima County Juvenile Detention Facility, Yakima, Washington.

51. 50. Cockburn, A., "Out of the mouths of babes: Child abuse and the abuse of adults." The Nation 250:190-191 (February 12, 1990).

52. 51. Rosenhan, D. L., "On being sane in insane places." Science 179:250-258 (January 19, 1973).

53. Besharov, D. J., op cit.

Return to Publications

Home page