Moral panic discussion

[adamhovey1988]

I thought it might be kind of an interesting thing to talk about something that I’m sure some of y’all have lived through, and that would be moral panics. I was thinking, one of the ones that I know because of my own reading, but my mother has expounded on. During the early mid-1980s, before I was born but after my brother Michael was born, my mother and my father lived in Los Angeles. Well, my mother was trying to enroll my brother in some kind of daycare or preschool or something there, and they found that he had bruises on him, and my mother said he had hurt himself, because this is what kids do, and they called family services, because, as it turns out this was during the Satanic ritual abuse scare in the 1980s. What kind of moral panics have you lived through? I remember the clown scare pretty well, especially because it was fairly recent and I live in South Carolina.

 

[MaryT777]

There was a period of time I worked full time while my daughters were 2 and 9 months. I remember picking up my oldest, Hannah one night, and everything was fine. The next day she had a few bruises on her arm so I took Hannah to the doctor.

It was so horrifying, as soon as the doctor walked in he was in “legal mode” He said to me “do I have your permission to examine the baby?” I was freaked totally out for I knew something was wrong.

Then he examined her to proclaim that the bruises COULD be consistent with child abuse of dragging a child by the shoulder. I told him she had been in daycare the day before and that nothing odd had happened at home. He said you better talk to the babysitter and let me tomorrow before 5pm or I will have no alternative but to call child protective services.

Of course my business man husband at the time was in Mexico. I called my babysitter that night and told her the truth. I called in sick and kept Hannah and then Sophia, my youngest home with me. I met her at 3:39 pm. She was equally scared I could tell and had her husband home and her family.

She told me Hannah had leaned way over in the high chair and got her arm stuck. Well the odd thing is she used to do this at home. Lean way over to one side or the other of the high chair and hang her arm down. She never got her arm stuck though ( Thank God!~)

I called the pediatrician and he said “ok that would be consistent with that type of bruising. I won’t need to call family services.”

WHEW. I was so shook up my mother came down and stayed with me for the weekend. I still couldn’t get over this sick feeling in my stomach that department of human services would show up at my door for the next two weeks.

Nothing happened but that was the end of it. I quit working shortly after that and was blessed to be able to stay home as my husband had a promotion and we removed to a different city.

I was never so scared in all my life. That’s my example of moral panic.

 

[adamhovey1988]

Oh my goodness, that’s horrible. My mom said that the doctor said that my brother had never been abused in his life when he had to see one, he was just a little kid and that’s what kids do. I remember, when I had some camouflage on my eye, because my brother used to bring it home, for some reason, and they called Protective Services on my mother when I was I think in the fifth grade. And, I even liked it off in the person they have me talk to you to prove it. Needless to say, my mother was quite angry.