Reformed Reflections

In 1985, over one million North American families were falsely accused of child abuse. Mary Pride claims that bureaucrats have actually maneuvered themselves into a position of having the power to take all the children in the family, without having evidence and without any appeal. North America has become anti-family. Even social workers have become the enemy rather than the supporters of the family unit. Pride wonders whether there is anything in the current anti-.family climate that would stop a social worker from lying in order to yank a child away from his natural parents – all "in the best interests of the child"?

Today's family appears to be without civil rights, as far as child abuse is concerned. Pride questions the charge that child abuse has dramatically risen in recent years. She says, "It came as a great relief to me personally to find there is much, much less abuse in America than we have been told. The reason? .A great, glaring gap between what you and I mean when we talk about abuse and what the ‘experts' mean. You and I think of bloodied children, battered children, raped children. The 'experts' think of parents who scold and withhold TV-watching privileges. Abuse, you see, is undefined by law."

Mrs. Pride attributes the current anti-family mood to the spiritual change America has undergone. Once it was governed by laws based on an absolute; we are now governed by the dictates of special interests fads of the elite.

Mrs. Pride alerts the public to the dangers that threaten the very existence of the family. As an alternative, she suggests some proven ways to significantly evidence real crime against children without disrupting the family. Her style is popular, blunt, but not always charitable.

The book is well documented. It contains appendices on Hotline prevention and what to do if you are hot-lined, a suggested definition of child abuse and pro-family groups, organizations for hotline victims and a selected summary of child abuse laws for U.S.

States & Territories as of July 1985, the latter consisting of 57 pages. An apology is given to Canadians for not having been provided with pertinent Canadian statistics. The author was foiled in her requests for information by the "languid response of the bureaucracy".

Mrs. Pride, a former far-left wing feminist, is active in the movement to preserve parental rights. she and her husband are also working with others to change child welfare legislation in Missouri. Mrs. Pride has also written The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality, and The Big Book of Home Learning:The Complete Guide to Everything Educational for You and Your Children.

Johan D Tangelder