The Bastard Out of Carolina is a book that deals with many emotions and issues.

to it all. She got Glenn to get the *censored* kicked out of him and This made him unable to hurt Bone ever again. Child abuse is the intentional use of physical force by a parent or caretaker that causes a child to be hurt, maimed, or killed. In the United States the exact incidence of child abuse and neglect is unknown, but it is recognized as a major social problem. Under state laws requiring physicians—and encouraging other persons—to report incidents of suspected abuse, more than 2 million cases of neglect and physical abuse are reported annually. There are many different kinds of child abuse. It covers a wide range of parental actions that result in harm being inflicted on children of all ages. The kind of abuse, however, varies with age. Infants and preschool children are most likely to suffer deliberately inflicted fractures, burns, and bruises. This is known as the battered-child syndrome, first identified during the 1960s. Historically, reported cases of sexual abuse, ranging from molestation to incest, primarily involve male perpetrators and school-aged or adolescent female victims. More recently, however, a growing number of pre-school victims and male victims have been identified. Some states have broadened their statutory definitions of abuse to specifically include emotional or mental injury. Constant parental rejection, for example, can permanently cripple a child’s personality. Perhaps the most prevalent type of abuse is neglect—that is, physical or emotional harm resulting from a parent’s failure to provide a child with adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, and moral training. A common symptom of neglect among young children is underfeeding; an undernourished infant often fails to thrive and may even die. In the age range between 8 and 17 years, neglect, as opposed to physical or sexual abuse, was involved in about 70 percent of all validated reports of mistreatment in the U.S. in a recent year. Many studies have shown that most child-abusing parents were themselves abused children. Some researchers assert that abusing parents have infantile personalities. Others note that abusing parents unrealistically expect their children to fulfill their psychological needs; when disappointed, the parent experiences severe stress and becomes violently angry and abusive. In spite of this emphasis on individual psychopathology, few child abusers can be considered true psychotics or sociopaths. Incidents of abuse occur among all religious, ethnic, and racial groups and in all geographic areas. The relationship between poverty and abuse is strong; the vast majority of fatalities involve parents and caretakers from the poorest families. Child abuse is not, of course, only a U.S. problem. In Great Britain, for example, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reports that child abuse increased by about 70 percent between 1979 and 1984. How can we help prevent this abuse? Public concern about the growing incidence of child abuse has led to the enactment of both state and federal legislation. Although the focus remains on identifying, reporting, and treating cases of abuse, prevention efforts are increasing. Since 1980, some 45 states have established specific resources for child abuse prevention services. Under the 1962 amendments to the 1935 Social Security Act, state public welfare agencies are responsible for child protection. Because effective solutions cannot be achieved without clear data about the dimensions of a problem, the 1974 federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act was an important legislative measure. It mandated establishment of a major program of research, demonstration, training, dissemination of information, and financial grants to the states by a National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. All the states have laws requiring the reporting of suspected cases of abuse. Typical social service responses to these reports involve agency investigations and court proceedings to gain physical custody of a child deemed “in need of care and protection.” Sometimes, the child is separated from a parent and placed in a foster home. The Federal Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 placed special emphasis on reducing the number of children in foster care through an expansion of family-based services. Today, many states have established specific units within their child welfare system to secure the therapeutic and support services necessary to keep families together. Projects that provide short-term relief from child-rearing situations and a range of concrete supportive services to parents have demonstrated that child abuse often occurs when parents are under severe and unremitting stress as a result of events within the family environment over which they have no control. To avert a significant percentage of separation of families and to solve the problem of child abuse, the major role that social and economic forces play must be better understood. Effective prevention requires a fundamental change in societal values and public priorities in order to correct the conditions of poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, and ill health that are found in the overwhelming majority of abusing families. It is also necessary to place a greater emphasis on the rights of children and the responsibilities of parents toward their children.