What is child abuse? Depends on who you ask. But everyone always asks the adults. What about the kids? What do they say? There is no consensus on what child abuse is. Some people believe it is ok to hit or even severely beat your children, some people say it is ok to raise your gay children in a homophobic environment, some say it is ok to raise your daughter with misogynistic values that denigrate her and brainwash her into feeling secondary to men, some people say it is ok to withhold all forms of medicine from your child (even until they die, which is legal in some states [Eddy's Christian Science]). There is no objective standard of child abuse and never will be. Child abuse is subjective, but it is not subjective to children.
A child has the right to determine when they are being abused. Maybe their parents just don't like them very much and always use a negative and dismissive tone with them... who wants to be raised by parents who don't love them and make them feel unwanted... and what if the parents directly tell the child they are unwanted and a burden? Should a child have to live in a home where they are told that their presence is undesired? What if parents abuse their children with supernatural threats? Is it ok for a schizophrenic mother to tell her children that there is the possibility they will be raped by demons in the night, or that evil spirits live inside their toys that might hurt them? This makes no sense and is very terrifying for young children. What if the child is a logical and rational child and the parents are forcing them to learn religious materials that have nonscientific overtones, and when the child says they can't understand, they are demonized as being flawed because they are relying on their own rational mind rather than on the mind of god which makes no sense to humans? To tell a child they are wrong for being logical is abusive and can drive a child insane. There are many reasons why a child may feel unsafe in their environment, and it does not always need to be an extreme case like heavy physical or sexual abuse, milder forms of abuse are also intolerable.
If we are going to protect children we need to give them a way to protect themselves. Children should have the right to leave their parent's home and be raised by the state for any reason, they should not even have to have to prove abuse but simply make it clear there is an incompatibility in the home. Parents should be made to feel their rights over their children are not absolute and that they can lose them at any time. If parents knew their children could leave whenever, they would likely treat them better. Parents whose children left them because of abuse would need to pay extra taxes to pay for the child's raising by the state, these taxes should be excessive to both provide the child with the best care possible and to also punish the parents for their mistreatment of their child.
In the West today it is still believed that the best place for a child to be is with its biological parents, but perhaps children feel differently. I resent the fact that I was not removed from my abusive household and that if I did ask to be raised by the state I would have likely been denied because my abuse was religious and not physical. My mother should not have felt she had full ownership over me and could do whatever she wanted, including telling me I was demon-possessed (with the backing of her whole congregation) just because I had my own religious beliefs. It is not ok to tell your young children they are inhabited by evil spirits that are manipulating their minds and actions. I also had to deal with the fact that I knew of children being raped and these rapes were not being reported to the authorities by the congregation but covered up. Children should not be made to feel as though if they got raped that they would be silenced and the rapist (a proven rape) will get away with it. Children who feel uncomfortable in environments where children are being openly raped, even if they are not raped themselves, should be able to leave. If your mother knows of children being raped, yet does not call the police and nothing is being done by community leaders to stop it, then you are in an unsafe and hostile environment.
Child abuse does not need to be physical for it to be extreme, and children should not have to put up with any child abuse, harsh or light. Adults have very little say in what is and what is not abusing their child, especially when it comes to trying to mold your child into what you want them to be, especially with spiritual threats like accusing them of being demon-possessed and a candidate for demonic night rape. Children can be made to feel unsafe in many ways, and finding your parents opinions on religion and politics abhorrent is a good reason to leave your house and be raised by the state on your parents expense. Parents should know that they don't have full rights over their child, indeed very little rights, children should have the right to reject their parents for any reason and be taken into state care upon request.
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