Staying out of Trouble - By Staying Silent
How RAP Methods Groom Children to Stay Silent about Sexual Abuse
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Staying out of Trouble - By Staying Silent: How RAP Methods Groom Children to Stay Silent about Sexual Abuse
by Krispin Mayfield
CW for discussion of grooming, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and gaslighting of children
In the last chapter, DL identified some of the ways that religious authoritarian parenting created certain vulnerabilities to abuse — including sexual abuse — in the children raised with those methods. Some of those methods include teaching that abuse is loving, requiring automatic submission to adults who hold authority in the community, and not teaching consent. When children aren’t allowed to have boundaries and are taught to distrust themselves, it’s easier for predators to abuse them. In this short essay, Krispin shares personal experience regarding how religious authoritarian parenting methods discourage children from disclosing when abuse does occur.
Last fall, we wrote about how corporal punishment functioned as an expression of evangelical devotion that signaled religious and political identity, and the devastating psychological impacts of corporal punishment on children and societies. Today it’s important to return to the topic of corporal punishment and how it discourages children from disclosing abuse to their parents or caregivers. The regular occurrence of sexual abuse against children in religious authoritarian communities is not a bug, it’s a feature of the system. In order to ensure compliance, parents disciplined in ways that undermined safety in the parent-child relationship, one of the primary factors needed for disclosure to occur. The horrifying reality is that religious authoritarian parenting methods groom children to accept abuse from authority figures — and then to remain silent about it.
When I (Krispin) was growing up, I had quite a few fears — shots, haircuts, tornadoes, things that lived in deep water — and what felt like an ever-present dread: I was scared of getting “in trouble.” In my home, I had to be vigilant to not get punished because there wouldn’t be a negotiation or explanation or talking things through. If I did something wrong and it rose to a certain threshold deemed serious enough, I’d get spanked. Being spanked was both painful and shaming, an excruciating experience that loomed large in my mind. Life felt like walking alongside a cliff without a guardrail — you could go about life as normal, but at least some part of you had to be ever-aware that you might cross over the line into danger.
For a lot of kids raised like myself, staying out of trouble mostly means managing how your parents perceive you — to put on a mask, to keep up a “good kid” persona, to make sure to be good and obedient and compliant — otherwise they will hurt you in a spiritualized ritual. It’s like tight-rope walking, making sure that you don’t accidentally tip over into doing something that will get you in trouble, suddenly landing you into a scenario where the person who is supposed to care for you is hurting you.
In religious authoritarian homes it can often feel isolating, because you can never fully be yourself and let down your guard. Your parents exist not only as a support and refuge, but also as a harbinger of pain. The older you get, the more you learn you have to reserve a part of yourself, to protect yourself from what might end in pain and humiliation. It means highlighting the good things you do, and hiding the bad. It means reporting that you said “please” and “thank you” at your friends house, but glossing over the part where you ended up arguing with your brother over a board game. It’s always better to err on the side of caution, to present yourself in a good light, and conceal anything that might get you in that dreaded state of in trouble.
Despite the fact that my parents said the rules were clear, it wasn’t so clear to me what would get me hit or not. And so it was always better to err on the side of caution. But this also created a certain dynamic: when I needed support, I also had to run a little calculation each time: is this something that will get me in trouble? If I want to talk through a fight with a friend, will I be blamed and get in trouble? When I left my lunchbox at school during my first day in public school, will I get punished instead of comforted?
