Child Neglect Essay

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The outcome of a ravaging issue called child neglect is a disturbed eleven year old girl, with the mind of a thirty year old woman, and an insecure future. It is a worldwide curse that will plague our children forever if it persists to take over our family values. “Ellen Foster,” by Kaye Gibbons, is an emotionally moving novel of child neglect in the South. Ellen tells her story of a dreadful life, leading to another of self-acceptance and solace. She’s born into a life of child neglect from her father. She experiences all types of child neglect, including abandonment, supervisional, physical, emotional, medical and educational. As we have observed through Ellen’s story, child neglect robs a child’s basic necessities needed for development of physical, intellectual and emotional growth, while emotionally torturing and destroying their ability to love and to be loved.

Child neglect is the most common form of child maltreatment in the United States. Researchers have indicated that child neglect is strongly correlated with poverty, single-parent caretakers, unemployment and multifaceted family problems (Cowen). Child neglect is a social problem stemming from child abuse. Abandonment is a minute part of child neglect that occurs when parents leave their child without arranging for appropriate substitute supervision (Cowen). Supervisional neglect is when children are left for hours or days at a time. In physical neglect, which is the majority of child neglect cases, eating, sleeping, bathing and household cleaning are little to none. Emotional neglect includes spousal abuse in the child’s presence, allowing a child to abuse drugs or alcohol and constantly belittling and withholding affection (National Exchange). Medical neglect is an unwilling, unable or unmotivated parent who doesn’t seek medical attention for their children (Cowen). A child, who should be in school and is not, classifies as educational neglect.

According to the Webster’s dictionary, neglect is defined as: “ to ignore or disregard, to fail to care for or attend to sufficiently or properly, to fail to carry out through carelessness or by intention, leave undone.” This describes Ellen’s father accurately. He ignored, disregarded, failed to care for, and was careless about Ellen’s well being. Ellen’s father, along with her grandmother and her aunts, were able to inflict, upon Ellen, all of the major possibilities of child neglect.

Ellen’s father abandoned her on many occasions, such as when Ellen’s mother died. They had a limousine take them to and from the funeral. When the limousine dropped them off at the house, Ellen’s father left. This would be a time when a child’s emotions would be running wild and could use the support of their parents the most.

When the smiling man let me and my daddy off in the yard I thanked him for the ride and went on inside. My daddy came in the house, got his keys, and left in the truck. He stayed gone until the next night and I can not report all he did. (Gibbons, 23)

This will emotionally torture Ellen for life. She will feel that her father does not love her or care for her enough to be supportive in a time of tragedy. However, she is privileged to be as mature as she is, because she seemed to get through the next couple of days quite successfully.

Ellen didn’t have any supervision in her life. She seemed to be doing all of the supervising over her drunken father. She handled the money, grocery shopping, cooking and keeping her mother safe, as well as many other responsibilities that an eleven-year-old shouldn’t be dealing with.

Physical is an aspect of neglect that Ellen under goes frequently. She doesn’t have any good clothes to wear to her mother’s funeral, because her father does not provide them for her. She ends up having to use one of her cousin’s dresses.

She gave...

Arntz, Jane Boucher. “ Self-Esteem: The Need to Repair
the Damage.” Business Journal 30 Apr. 1999: 16
Berliner, Lucy. “ The Problem with Neglect.” Journal of
Interpersonal Violence Dec. 1994: 9
Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th edition. 2000 Columbia University Press
Cowen, Perle Slavik. “ Child neglect: Injuries of omission.” Pediatric Nursing Jul/Aug 1999: 25
“Funds will help Welfare Agencies Boost Response to Child Neglect.” Mental Health Weekly 4 Aug. 1997: 7
Gibbons, Kaye. Ellen Foster. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Helfer, Ray E., and Ruth S. Kempe. The Battered Child. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
“National Exchange Club Foundation: Preventing Child Abuse . . . Serving America.” 28, Sept. 2000:
www.preventchildabuse.com/neglect

CHILD NEGLECT
Eng 1A
10/16/00
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