Does anyone else think their parents could have done more to prevent them being abused?
As an adult, I see how carefully my wife protects her children. When they tell her that someone has done something bad to them, she accepts that what they say is true, until the contrary is shown. Also, she has raised them TO KNOW that it is unthinkable that an adult should abuse them.
I was too afraid, too ashamed, to tell my parents what was being done to me. But surely, any parent should be able to see in a 10-year old kid's face that something seriously bad has happened to them? I still get very angry about this - so many years later...

Maybe I'm unfair to expect them to have realised. I don't know...

I totally do.

I assume you mean parents who were not abusers themselves. One of my parents was an abuser. I suppose had the other one been physically present during that time, the abuse would have been minimal or non-existent.

One biological parent was the abuser, other bio parent and their second spouse/step-parent did nothing but send my siblings and me to the abusive one. I still blame them for sending me to him, even though they had their suspicions.

Hi, my brothers,

YES, my "mom" was the first, in every category, sexual, mental, emotional & physical. She was my only parent.

After i gave a stranger, "my permission" to marry my "mom"
( you see i was considered the "man" of the house)from about 8 yrs old. So i "gave my permission".while i was in that orphanage/Home. He told me he would accept me into his house.
He did, but i would live to regret it, as in his own way he was an abuser too, mentally & emotionally. All that i ever meant to him was that "I was a strong boy, with a weak mind."
Fortunately, i only had to put up with all of them was 3 years, until the day i turned 17.

I guess that i should also blame God, as HE was supposed to be all knowing. And above all " I/we were the children of God, a precious gift. In HIS image & likeness.

What in the hell happened??

Heal well my brothers, heal well.

Pete..Irishmoose.

I am blaming my father. I remember He was throwing the plates against the wall. He hadn't abuse me phsically however he hurt my mum in front of me . They had arguing all the time. Because my father wasn't clever enough to win an argument, he usually used force.
Triggers
While my cousins, living in the house next door, forced me to do oral sex and anal penetration as well, my father did nothing.
My mum warned him about them that they were overpowered me.
He was absent as a father and I can't forgive him for that.

i grew up without a father and mom did not want to marry another men after him but she was mentally, physically and emotionally abusive toward me.She turned her children to her husband in many ways but not sexually. My other authority figures ignored me and neglected me which made an easy target for perpetrators.

Yes, they could have done something to prevent it if they had not been living so much in their had and did not thought that everything is about them,

My uncles has been trying to talk to me and have contact with me because i live outside my home country, but i do not want any contact with them and i hope will find the wisdom and strength to forgive them one day.

for my mom, i have really mixed feelings, i love her because she is mom and for the scrafices she has done to rise us, at the same time i find myself really mad when she is trying tell me something or give me advice like regular mom gives to their sons.

I was lucky in that I had two loving parents. Neither of them were abusive - except some anger management problems from Dad. We have been a happy family - until my abusive past surfaced (step-grandfather was the abuser - who is dead). It surfaced by way of my anger towards my parents - it was very confusing for me, my parents, and my wife and siblings. I had so much anger. Deep down I have been blaming them for not knowing more - not protecting me - and for asking me to pretend like everything was ok when I hinted that "grandpa" was too friendly with me. What I'm slowly starting to realize is that my parents made a mistake, but they didn't mean to - they're human. My anger is still there, though - but I'm working on re-directing it towards my abuser. Baby steps. Right now my parents and other siblings are on vacation in Colorado. I'm here in Virginia with my wife - still not ready to talk with my parents until I get my head around my anger - intensive therapy and EMDR are slowly getting me there. We'll see. I guess this was a long way to say that, yes, they should have known more - and yes, it is perfectly normal to be angry. The tricky part for me seems to be how to uncover who was really at fault and who just made a mistake - and then deal with the resulting emotions as well as I can.

Chris
www.buryingjack.com

Good parents for most of the 20th century didn't think of abuse as one of the things they had to look out for. Bad people were obvious weren't they? The sophistication to know and accept that apparently good people will do bad things wasn't widely distributed. So when children showed signs of abuse it wasn't recognized for what it was. They would insert something that seemed rational to them into the void of understanding.

thats my take on it

There was no sexual abuse at home. However, there was plenty of emotional abuse as well as some physical abuse. This left me and my brother very vulnerable to the sexual abuse that happened by a neighbor kid and a taxi driver.

And yes, I did blame my parents. There was a whole lot of years that I was very angry at them for not protecting me and for setting me up for the sexual abuse.

Darrel