Lisa is a successful business professional, and she shares her story with us. She traveled frequently for work, and employed a babysitter who, in essence, became part of the family. The babysitter eventually got into a serious relationship, and her boyfriend was also welcomed in to Lisa's home. But eventually, his behavior crossed a line.
Lisa makes several important points in this interview. Abuse in any form can be extremely traumatic for a child, and it happens everywhere - regardless of a family's socioeconomic status. And when a child survives abuse, the specially trained counselors at Child Advocacy Centers, like CARE House of Oakland County, can make a big difference.
In this candid conversation, Lisa reflects on her and her daughter's journey, what she's learned, and why she's such a vocal evangelist for CARE House.
The "It Shouldn't Hurt To Be a Child" Podcast is narrated by Karen Newman, and is made possible thanks to the generous support of Sheryl Hauk.
Resources:
CARE House of Oakland County Website: https://www.carehouse.org/
CARE House Phone Number: 248.332.7173
Find a Child Advocacy Center (CAC) Near You: https://nationalcac.org/
Lisa: First of all, I learned that this happens to one in four girls in the United States. It has nothing to do with socioeconomic class. It happens to great mothers and parents of young children. And so the depth and the breadth of child abuse in the country was obviously... I became more aware of, and it became very personal.
Karen: It shouldn't hurt to be a child. Welcome to the podcast named for that simple fact. I'm Karen Newman. In this episode, we introduce you to Lisa. She's a mom. She's also a successful business executive. When she first learned about child abuse firsthand, she was the chief financial officer of a large real estate company. Her daughter was about 12.
Lisa: I was a full-time working CFO. And because of that, had a full time babysitter, that was with me from the time my youngest daughter was born. And obviously she was part of the family, very trusted. And she ended up getting married to a man who was also part of the family. We knew him really well.
He, while she was dating him, came to the house, periodically. Was really a pretty, in my mind, wonderful young man. Um, I did travel quite a bit. I'd say, maybe four nights a month. And so when my daughter was about 12 and I went through a divorce and so she was in therapy and counseling, she disclosed to my counselor, that this husband of my babysitter was doing some inappropriate things on the physical side.
Really, it was more kissing, neck rubbing. Um, when she was in her room studying my babysitter was focused more on my younger daughter. And so this person was kind of hanging out in her room and this proceeded to get worse and worse. And, Katie was talking to this counselor about what was happening. And the counselor came out to me who was sitting in the waiting room and said, you know, Lisa, we've got a real problem here.
Karen: Lisa says that is when she learned two words that are vital to know for anyone who wants to help kids who have been the victims of abuse: mandatory reporter.
Lisa: What I've learned right then was something called mandatory reporting. Never had heard of it. And she said, I need to report this to child protective services, which also I'd never really heard of.
I am a good mom and this happened under my nose. So after a lot of, call it, uh, beating myself up for not seeing some of the signs. I quickly learned that having a CARE House in the community was so critical. And the awareness of this issue is the only way it's going to really be prevented. The fact is, that my daughter was able to describe what was happening early.
So it didn't get to a point which it could have because I'm pretty convinced he was grooming her. But she was strong enough and able enough to describe what was happening. Cause she had gotten uncomfortable and it started, you know, pretty mild and had gotten more uncomfortable. And she was able to say that.
Karen: Lisa says she has learned so much since first walking into a child advocacy center. Now she wants you to understand how important the mission of education must be for every community.
Lisa: Educating young people young girls and boys. because it does happen to boys, on just what is the appropriate amount of physical touch and what is not appropriate, and giving them the ability to report when something is happening.
It's just, I think, a very important thing for our community. So we have educators who go out into schools when they're invited. Churches, synagogues, really anyone who's willing. And it's free to go in and talk about, as we said, body dynamic, you know, separation, kind of the reporting. Some of these teachers don't even know they're mandatory reporters.
How do you handle when a young student kind of makes a comment? You know, what's required by law? All that training is there for a school to use. Frankly, what I'm shocked at is how few schools take advantage. And if I can tell the listeners one thing, if you're a parent in a school district, I would tell you, just ask your PTA.
Why don't we take an assembly for two hours and do a CARE House training? Because the schools I get, they have a lot of things pulling at them. Right? All different curriculum and all that. But this is something that in, call it late elementary school would be so easy to do and it's free. So I want to emphasize that. Free of charge for the school to put on.
Karen: Lisa wants all kids to know what's okay and what's not. Because her daughter had this knowledge, she could report her abuse.
Lisa: So this started with neck rubs as this, um, this man would leave her room. So he was hanging out in her room. Bad idea, right? Remember, I wasn't there but bad idea. And when he left, he would rub her shoulders.
And then months later it would be kind of a kiss. And a remember, it's a brother, almost. This person was like a brother and then went across the line. He kissed on the lips and it was a deep kiss. And so at that point, Katie was like, whoa, what, what is this? And that's when she reached a discomfort. But I don't know.
It could have... I have a very strong daughter. I'm so proud of her. And she knew that, now this is inappropriate. I'd say the other thing I learned, which has been as we've progressed since now, she's in her twenties. When we think of child abuse, sometimes we think of it as only when someone is sexually abused in an aggressive way.
You know what I mean? Like touching in your genitalia area, um, penetration. What I learned, and this was very emotional for me, is that none of that happened to my daughter. But just what happened to her, which is a trusted older person who crosses a line even by kissing inappropriately, is devastating. A victim will so often think it is their fault.
Because no one talks about this. Right? And so, you know, one of the reasons I'm willing to sit here on this podcast is to say, we can't not talk about it. We have to be willing to expose what's happening and to be willing to say these victims are the victims. And it's all on the spectrum. It isn't just when they get to that point, it's like, there's a grooming process and it's all bad.
And it results in devastation to these young... I mean, my daughter, I feel has had just.... She's amazing. But when she thinks back on her childhood, that's always going to be a huge cloud.
Karen: Now, as you have heard, Lisa is able to talk about what happened to her family, but that took a while.
Lisa: Yeah. I would say five or six years after when it was less raw.
Katie has, and frankly, she excelled in school.. None of that happened, but I got to a point where I could say, are you okay if I tell this story? Because it's your story. And really the first time I spoke about it was at a CARE house gala where I was co-chairing it. And I knew, I wanted to say why I'm up here on this stage, because I think people look at someone like me and say, oh, that couldn't have happened in her home right?
So it's interesting. Those of us that are in our positions like this. It's pretty powerful to say no, no, it happened to me. It happened in my home. It happened with me at the home. And that was hard to admit that, because I am a pretty strong person and I've been pretty successful. And when I think about, you know, how proud I am of how I mothered my children, which I am very proud.
It's a very painful chapter, but I think it's important to expose. So for me to be authentic about it, because like I said, if it happened in my home, it's happening in homes that we would not expect in our community and CARE House is there for exactly this purpose.
Karen: Lisa's the family is an example of how child abuse does not discriminate. It happens in every zip code everywhere.
Lisa: I frankly think we stereotype a lot of bad things as happening only to people who maybe are living more in poverty than we are, or aren't as educated as we are. And I think unfortunately, when it comes to, um, call it sexual deprivation, that comes not because someone's poor, that does not come because someone's (not) educated.
That comes from family of origin issues. It comes from, I hate to say this.. Depravity, it comes from pornography. I mean, I hate to say this. If you want me to get on a roll, let me talk to you about pornography and what that's doing to our culture. And what's the internet is doing to that side of it because I'm pretty heavily involved in anti-trafficking efforts, um, which I've also started to get involved in partially from my work at CARE House. So I think all of that has normalized some of the depravity in this area. And I don't think that has anything to do with socioeconomic.
Karen: And that's why Lisa believes a local child advocacy center like CARE House of Oakland county, where she lives, plays such a vital role. It's there for everyone.
Lisa: It's a pretty remarkable place. And like I said, the way I experienced it was in the forensic interviewing process, which by the way, CARE House is uniquely able to do that in a way. Everybody comes together and the child gets interviewed once. If you don't have a CARE House, you've got child protective services coming one day, you have the police coming another day and these children are being interviewed like four times. And they have to tell this story multiple times, and they're being interviewed by a police man versus we have at CARE House, professional interviewers who know how to interview.
I mean, my daughter was older. Some of these young children are six and seven who come to CARE House. So that's number one. But the other thing is once the victim is identified, CARE House provides free counseling for that victim. And they have family counseling as well. Obviously not the perpetrator, but for the family, for as long as it takes.
And I want to mention that I did not take advantage of that with my daughter. That's my biggest regret. And the reason I didn't take advantages, is of course, I said, oh, I can afford a counselor. I know really good counselors. And in hindsight, I think the CARE House counselors have been trained specifically.
Our counselor was working on the relationships between, you know, my ex-husband, the family. So she was excellent at that, but she wasn't trained in abuse. So I think the uniqueness of the counseling that these counselors who have been trained to really deal with trauma, is very, very unique. And so my regret is that I should have taken, you know, I could have paid for it, but the specially trained counselors that are there and have seen so much of this and seen how to kind of bring it out of the victim is just something I think is very valuable.
You know, there's a lot of nonprofits that do great work in our city and I'm involved in others as well. But this nonprofit is the really only one that is 100% child advocacy for abuse. There's one, as I won't mention the name, who deals with abused women. There's foster care. There's a lot of different non-profits all doing really, really good work, but this is the only really one that focuses on this issue.
And I think it's an issue, a, um, epidemic on abuse that I think they are uniquely qualified to both educate. And, and I think one other thing I want to mention is CARE House's goal is to eradicate child abuse. They'd like to put themselves out of business, right? For them, the educational piece is so important, but it's really hard to get the time in these school districts or in these places.
And I think that's really one of the reasons I'm an evangelist. I was really lucky. My daughter was strong. My daughter was smart. You know, we had an open family situation. Like I'm a very big communicator. That is not the case for a lot of children and many times it's because of the family structure that this happens. Again, no socioeconomic difference.
And so I feel very strongly that this unique non-profit can raise the awareness of what has been a pretty devastating epidemic in our country and not really talked about. I look at these people who show up every day and are positive, who love on these children and hear unbelievably horrible stories. And yet come in with positive attitudes. And I think they are the unsung heroes.
Karen: Lisa has helped us understand that child abuse can happen in any home. And when it does, professionals committed to serving the community can make all the difference in a family's life. "It shouldn't hurt to be a child," made possible by the generous support of Cheryl Hauk.
For more information on CARE House of Oakland county and its programs, visit care house.org To find a child advocacy center near you, visit nationalcac.org. I'm Karen Newman. Thanks for listening.