Melissa Trezza
Professor Hodgson
ENG 45023
June 4, 2007
Uncle Sam Wants to Know:
Are You a Good Mother?
The sovereignty of the family cannot be so impenetrable that it prevents the state from saving children who are at real risk of maltreatment. At the same time, it cannot be so porous as to allow the state to storm the castle to “save” children who do not need saving. (Coleman 439)
In colonial times, children were seen as property, owned by their parents, who could do with them whatever they wished. Children were rented out for labor purposes for extended periods of time and no restrictions were placed on discipline (Coleman, 431). Times have changed. There are over nine hundred thousand confirmed cases of child abuse and/or neglect each year in the U.S. and the cost is an estimated ninety-four billion dollars (Massey-Stokes, 193). However, some question Child Protective Services’ invasive, quick-to-assume-the-worst tactics. Although it can be difficult to determine when intervention is needed in cases of suspected child maltreatment in the U.S., it is often necessary for the government to get involved, as it did in the story presented in The Good Mother, by Sue Miller.
Depending on whom one asks or where one looks, there are hundreds of different ideas and definitions of what constitutes abuse, neglect, and maltreatment. Legal definitions tend to be vague, which gives the authorities more leeway in investigation and prosecution (Coleman 416). In 1996, the federal government defined it in the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA):
Physical Abuse: Inflicting of physical injury from punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning, shaking, or otherwise harming a child.
Child Neglect: Failing to provide for the child’s basic needs including physical, educational, or emotional.
Sexual Abuse: Performing sexual acts ranging from fondling genitals and exhibitionism to intercourse, rape sodomy, and exploitation through prostitution or production of pornographic materials.
Emotional Abuse: Acts and omissions of parents or caregivers that caused or could lead to behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders. Emotional abuse underlies other forms of abuse.
(Massey-Stokes 194-5)
Interpretations of what constitutes abuse or neglect amongst the general American population can be quite different from any legal definition. Some may consider circumcision, mild spanking or even ear piercing abuse. Legally, Anna Dunlap was neglectful of her daughter’s “basic needs” on several occasions, including when she left her alone in the car and when she engaged in intercourse with her daughter in the room. On the surface, what Anna’s boyfriend, Leo, allowed Molly to do to him – touch his penis – certainly sounds like abuse; however according to the law, this may not be the case. What occurred between Leo and Molly may not fit the “legal” definition of sexual abuse, but it was inappropriate, to say the least. Although it can be difficult to define child abuse or neglect, the majority of the American population can probably agree with the definitions given by the government, which give the needed leeway for interpretation due to various circumstances, which are bound to arise.
Despite the fact that child abuse and/or neglect are likely underreported, the statistics prove that it is a huge problem. There are more than 879,000 victims of child maltreatment each year (Coleman 413). In 2000, four children died each day as the result of abuse or neglect (Massey-Stokes 193). In Los Angeles alone, in 2004, 48% of child homicides were perpetrated by a family member, yet only 8% had previous a previous history with Child Protective Services (CPS); and in Arizona only 21% of deaths resulting from child abuse had a record with CPS (Bensley 141). While Anna’s daughter, Molly, was certainly not in any danger of being murdered by anyone in her life, she could have become one of the many children who end up in foster care each year in this country. There are over 500,000 children currently in the foster care system; the vast majority (68%) of those are there because they have suffered abuse or neglect from their caretakers (Takayama 201). If Molly had not had a father to go to, she could have become another statistic.
There are many statistics and case examples that demonstrate how Child Protective Services sometimes goes too far, too often. The majority of child abuse investigations end up being closed after no substantiated maltreatment is found. Out of the over three million children investigated each year, 879,726 are found to be victims of abuse or neglect; this leaves 71.4% of those three million children and their families traumatized by often invasive investigations for no reason (Coleman 413). There are several cases where Child Protective Services stepped over the line investigating possible maltreatment. The case of ten-year-old John Doe, Jr. is just one example. His mother complained to CPS that he had received corporal punishment at his private school (which advises parents ahead of time that the practice is used in their institution). The parents ended up becoming the focus of an investigation themselves after John’s siblings were interviewed, who had told the investigator that they had been spanked by their parents. After several months of investigation, deep suspicion, and intrusion, the case was finally closed – CPS having found absolutely no substantiation of abuse by the parents (Coleman 419-20). Then, there is the case involving Bill and Becky, and their children, five-year-old Lauren and two-year-old Jessie Wallace. Bill’s sister, Rachel, who had a history of psychological problems including severe dissociative and multiple personality disorder, told her therapist that Bill was going to sacrifice his child, Jessie to Satan. The therapist, required by law to do so, notified CPS. CPS went to the house in the middle of the night and removed the children from the home – even after having spoke to Lauren, who told them no one had every abused them. The very next day (Jessie’s third birthday), both children were subjected to intrusive physical examinations of their vagina and buttocks. Both examiners, at first, determined that abuse had taken place. For two months, Bill and Becky were only allowed to see their children during supervised, weekly visits. Finally, one of the examiners wrote a letter stating that she had finally gotten around to reviewing the full report and determined that the other doctor was incorrect in her assessment of the case; Lauren had a history of vaginal irritation and infection, which explained the original findings. Lauren and Jessie were given to their grandmother, and one month later, were finally allowed to go back to their parents (Coleman 421-2). Despite these real-life cases, in the fictional case regarding Molly, the authorities acted appropriately. No one needed to come in the middle of the night and steal her out of her home because she was with her father at the time of the disclosure. In addition, there was no invasive examination of Molly and Anna was not, in the end, banned from having her daughter. Obviously, the government has some work to do in regards to when and how it initiates its’ investigations, but the hundreds of thousands of children who are victims of abuse or neglect at the hands of their caretakers, like Molly, still deserve the government’s attention.
Deciding when to report or investigate a possible child maltreatment case is always a weighty issue – partially because there are often other explanations for what appears to be signs of abuse or neglect. Many people are legally required to report anything that could be a sign of abuse, such as therapists, doctors, and teachers. These people, as well as others, often have doubts as to whether to report a possible problem because they are not sure that they have all the facts. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises pediatricians to “remember that some child injury risks are unpredictable or unavoidable” (Hymel 1297) – in other words, children hurt themselves and it is in their nature to do so. In addition, there are diseases that can appear to be the result of child abuse. For instance, Biliary Artesia, a chronic, progressive liver disease, has a side effect of bone disease, which causes bones to break easily (DeRusso 185). Many caregivers of children with this illness are investigated for child abuse. The child arrives at the emergency room with a broken bone that seems to have no real explanation. Hospital personnel are often quick to call CPS, but if they would contact the child’s primary care physician first, undue trauma and stress to the child and family could be avoided (DeRusso 185). Leukemia is another disease that has caused a number of unneeded child abuse investigations. Leukemia causes people to bruise very easily. Often, it is the bruising that alerts the family and physicians to the fact that the child has Leukemia in the first place. FTT, or Failure To Thrive, is a disorder, which commonly occurs due to malnourishment. With FTT, the child fails to develop mentally and/or physically (Block 1234). Although it is typically caused by caregiver neglect, it can also be caused by cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, HIV or AIDS, celiac disease, among other diseases (Block 1234). There are many diseases and conditions that can present as child abuse, but that does not mean that suspected abuse should not be investigated.
When reading The Good Mother, by Sue Miller, one tends to befriend the protagonist, Anna Dunlap, and defend her misguided ways because she is a very likeable character; however, when her errors in judgment are listed factually, absent of emotion, it is easier to understand why the authorities intervened, eventually giving custody of Molly to her father, Brian. Almost right from the beginning, Anna’s parenting skills are questionable when she leaves her daughter in the bathtub by herself while she puts away groceries and washes dishes (Miller 9). Of course, people do this all of the time; but it is a well-known fact that many children drown in bathtubs every year. In fact, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, out of the 459 drowning deaths in the home every year, two-thirds of those occur in the bathtub when the caretaker leaves the child alone for just a moment (CPSC Warns). Next, on page 23, Anna leaves Molly in the car sleeping while she goes inside the notary’s home to sign divorce papers. When she comes out, she sees the jacket that she used to cover Molly up on the ground outside of the car, which means Molly had made it outside of the car. Thankfully, Molly is inside the car when Anna finds her, but she is crying hysterically. Had it been warmer outside, the scenario could have been much, much worse. In 2003, there were forty-two deaths attributed to children being left in cars in the heat (Young 125). However, even though it was not particularly warm outside, Molly still could have been in danger. Children’s thermoregulatory systems do not work as well as adults’ – they heat up three to five times faster (Young 125). Even without the potential heat danger, anyone could have kidnapped Molly or stolen the car. As determined by Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), child neglect is defined as “failing to provide for the child’s basic needs including physical, educational, or emotional” (Massey-Stokes 194-5). Anna may not have intentionally put her daughter in harms way, but her actions were certainly neglectful.
In addition to Anna’s carelessness in regards to her daughter’s safety, she also shows lax judgment when it comes to involving her daughter in her sex life. At the end of chapter five, Anna and her boyfriend, Leo are in bed, making love when Molly comes in. At first, they stop and lay down in bed together – Leo behind Anna. Molly had had a bad dream and came into bed with them to sleep – Molly lay in front of her mother. While lying there, Leo decides to continue with the intercourse, therefore, they were having sex with Molly in the bed (124). Anna believes this is a way to unite them together as a family:
I can remember feeling a sense of completion, as though I had everything I wanted held
close, held inside me; as though I had finally found a way to have everything. We seemed
fused, the three of us, all the boundaries between us dissolved; and I felt the medium for
that. In my sleepiness I thought of myself as simply a way for Leo and Molly and me to be together, as clear, translucent. (124)
While one might be able to understand how Anna is feeling – wrapped up in the unification of the two most important people in her life – it does not make it right; in fact, her thoughts are a bit twisted. Having intercourse with a young child in bed is probably not the most appropriate way to blend a family.
Although Anna has many lapses in judgment throughout the novel, the defining event that gets Molly taken away from her is not brought about by a particularly bad decision – other than trusting someone she should have been able to trust. The incident is brought to light in chapter seven, when Brian calls Anna forewarning her to expect a hearing because he is keeping Molly. He implies that Leo has done something to their daughter, but never actually explains anything to Anna, leaving her completely stupefied (Miller 152-3). Then, the answer Anna did not want to hear comes from Leo’s lips:
“Leo,” I said.
“God,” he answered, his voice whispering slowly, dreamily. “What other wonderful ideas did you have while I was gone?”
“Leo,” I asked. “Leo, did you ever touch Molly, her body I mean. Did she ever touch you? Wake up,” I said.
His fingers reached towards my face, felt my wet hair, my open mouth. We lay in the garish silence a minute.
“Yes,” he said. (Miller 167)
Soon after, both Anna and Leo visit her lawyer to go over the complaint filed by Brian and to discuss Leo’s side of the story. The legal paperwork indicates “sexual irregularities with minor child” (Miller 171). According to Leo, he was drying off after having taken a shower when Molly was in the bathroom with him. Because she had been learning about body parts (including sexual body parts) she pointed and asked him if that was his penis. He said “yes” and she then asked if she could touch it. Without thinking, Leo immediately told her that she could. As if that was not inappropriate enough, he began to get an erection. This is when he told her, “That’s enough, Molly” and turned away (Miller 177). Molly seemed “anxious” about what had happened and they spoke about it more later that night. She knew in a “vague sense” what the “purpose of an erection” was, so it “confused her”, according to Leo (Miller 178). He never told Anna about the incident because he was “embarrassed” and when asked by the lawyer why he did not just tell Molly “no” when she asked to touch him, he says that he believed Anna would have wanted him to be as open and relaxed about it as possible (Miller 178). According to Anna, Leo and she were naked around Molly often and they were very open with Molly about things of that nature; Leo simply “misunderstood the rules” (Miller 178). Anna’s lawyer, Muth, tells them that judges do not like to hear “anything about sexual stuff with kids” and that even if she promises to never see Leo again, it may not effect the outcome because “they hear it all the time” – “a promise, to them, is what someone is willing to say to get a kid back” (Miller 179). By federal standards, which defines sexual abuse as “performing sexual acts ranging from fondling genitals and exhibitionism to intercourse, rape sodomy, and exploitation through prostitution or production of pornographic materials”, what Leo allowed Molly to do to him, does constitutes sexual abuse. Whether he did so for his own sexual pleasure or not, and whether it was a pattern or not, does not matter; what he allowed Molly to do was wrong and inappropriate and an adult should know better.
Anna Dunlap felt self-doubt in regards to her parenting skills as well as feelings of resentment towards herself and Leo for what happened between him and Molly. She questions her ability to be, basically, a single mom after she leaves Molly in the car by herself at the notary’s home, “And I sat hunched in the back seat with her in my arms until she was still, feeling only that I could not do this alone, I was not strong enough, good enough to do this alone, I could not do this” (Miller 23). When Ursula tells Anna, “”Everyone knows you’re a good mother, Anna”" (Miller 211), Anna realizes that it is because Ursula has always been “aggressively, assertively” in her “corner” that she prefers her company over Leo’s; his presence only filled her with doubt (Miller 211). Immediately following the revelation of the incident between Leo and Molly, and throughout the rest of the story, Anna feels awkward in her relationship with Leo. The passion and connection that once existed is gone:
It struck me suddenly that much of our conversation for the last several days had been just this polite – apologies, thanks, careful backing away from demands or questions. Each of us was behaving as though the other was fragile, easily damaged. Nothing was natural between us. We hadn’t made love since Sunday night, the night Leo returned; and as I remembered all that, it seemed to me that I had known, even as we did it, that it marked the end of something. Now we lay in the same bed together each night, sometimes touching each other lightly, without passion, before we turned away and sought sleep. But sex seemed unthinkable. (Miller 174)
Later in the book, although they are making love again, the affection is still missing:
. . . each day I felt a mingled sense of relief and dread. Relief that another marker was gone by, Molly’s arrival was that much nearer. Dread at the idea of another long evening to pass through with Leo, the false intimacy, the touching, the lovemaking bitter reminders of what it had all been like when I felt it, wanted it. (Miller 220)
Anna probably feels contempt towards Leo for many reasons. Although she states several times that she does not blame him, somewhere deep down, she must. Despite the liberal attitude of the household, she probably understands that Leo should have told Molly “no” – he is the adult, he should know better. Even if this is not the case, when it comes down to it, he is the reason she may lose Molly – it is his actions that caused it. Attempting to feel the passion and love for someone who has caused so much strife is usually a losing battle. Forced relations only makes the resentment that much stronger. Anna does not only blame Leo (at least subconsciously); she also blames herself for “allowing” it to happen. While speaking to her friend, Ursula, she puts takes some of the responsibility for what happened:
But I thought something was possible with Leo. . . . It’s that I blame myself too, for thinking something was possible with him that’s not. Some kind of . . . life without limits or something. And it’s not. It’s just not. It’s as though I was dreaming, and now I’m awake. This is real. Brian’s real. He’s really Molly’s father. And having to cope with this stuff. (Miller 213)
Here, Anna is becoming aware of how oblivious she was to what was going on. She did not understand the reality of it. Her idealistic fantasy life is simply not possible. However, even with the resentment she feels towards herself and Leo, Anna does not understand how her unconventional lifestyle could have had such a negative impact on Molly.
Anna believes that the way in which she has raised Molly was acceptable, despite obvious societal norms in the U.S. Anna wrapped herself up in a pseudo-hippie lifestyle when she became involved with Leo. In one of her sessions with the court-assigned psychiatrist, Dr. Payne, she admits to having had no rules or boundaries in the life she built around Leo and Molly:
“Well, I felt . . . I honestly didn’t feel, with Leo, that there was the need for all the rules, the lines. We were all – Molly too – we were all happy. We had been naked around her, it’s true. We had her in bed with us when we were naked. And to me, it was part of this whole world that Leo had opened up to me where . . . ” My throat burned. Payne watched me, saying nothing. “Where I was beautiful, and our sex together was beautiful, and Molly was part of our love, our life.” (Miller 236)
This is the utopian lifestyle that many think is such a brilliant idea. Perhaps in theory it is, but in the real world, it just does not pan out. Children, especially as young as Molly, tend to find it difficult to comprehend so much sexuality being thrown at them; it is confusing to them, and most other children in this country are not raised in the same way, which only adds to the confusion. Anna even thinks that having Molly in bed with her and Leo while they were engaged in intercourse was a way to make them a family (Miller 124). Most adults would probably just go to the park or on some other outing to bring the family closer. Sexual intercourse probably should not be a “family event”. Although Anna believed that having Molly in bed with her and Leo would connect them in some way, she still thinks that there remained a clear line between her relationship with him and Molly, “And always, I thought, there’d been some final clear boundary between Molly and whatever went on with me and Leo. Always” (Miller 155). Obviously, Ms. Dunlap is a very confused, conflicted woman. Her thoughts do not seem to coincide with one another. Throughout the novel, the audience is reminded that Anna does not believe that what Leo did with Molly, or how she lived her life, was wrong. While speaking with the Family Service Officer, Mrs. Harkessian, Anna is conflicted with the story she is spouting:
Mr. Cutter, I said, had misunderstood my attitude about issues relating to sex. Though it was clear to me how the episode could have happened, I didn’t condone it. As I talked, I kept thinking of my mother, of how I’d lied to her in high school, the long elaborate stories entirely fabricated about what had gone on at parties. Yet this was all the truth, everything I was saying to Mrs. Harkessian. What made it feel the same way? (Miller 207-8)
So, the question is, what makes Anna feel like what she is saying to the FSO is a lie? It could feel like a lie because she does not believe that Leo misunderstood her attitude about sex, perhaps she does condone how Leo had responded to Molly, or maybe she just feels like she is throwing Leo under the bus for what she feels was an honest mistake. Later, Anna again indicates her feelings of disloyalty towards Leo, “I was grateful for Leo’s easy acquiescence to the conditions Mrs. Harkessian had imposed; for his not arguing with the lie we were all perpetuating about him – that he was dangerous, that his presence was pernicious, and therefore that mine was perhaps less so” (Miller 219). Anna clearly believes that, although Leo had perhaps made an error in judgment, he is of no threat to Molly. In Anna’s mind, one mistake, either on her part or Leo’s, does not a dangerous person make.
Professor Doriane Lamblet Coleman believes that “sometimes, in its zeal to protect children from the perceived and real inclinations of their parents and to safeguard its own health and welfare, the state itself commits violent acts that harm the children” (415) and there are many facts to support her view. There is no doubt that the government must refine its’ processes, ensuring that they do not overreact and that they act only when, and to the extent, necessary. Although Anna Dunlap believed that the court was wrong in its’ final decision, she also believed that it was her fault, “There was no one I blamed as much as myself . . . It was a chain of events set in motion by me, by my euphoric forgetfulness of all the rules” (Miller 280). There is no doubt Ann loves her daughter with all her heart, but she also has a history of neglect when it comes to Molly’s well-being and the government had every right to intervene to ensure her safety.
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