Victoria Tran

Professor Broadbent
Writing 39C
What is Family

Defenseless children are being beaten and sometimes even killed by the very people that
are supposed to keep them safe, their parents. Around 60,000 cases of child abuse were reported
in Japan last year and the numbers are raising each year. This number is also a super
underestimate of the actual amount of child abuse that happens in Japan. This is due to Japan’s
lack of awareness and understanding of what child abuse is. The Japanese’s normalization of
child abuse caused by their culture makes it hard for most citizens to comprehend that their
“discipline” can be considered harmful for their child and categorized as abuse. Because of
Japan’s friendly and respectful image, many people around the world, including the Japanese, do
not know that child abuse takes place in Japan at such a high rate.
Children are like clay. They are easily influenced by the people who are the closest to
them and molded by their experience. Their definition of love and family comes from what their
parents have shown them. So, when they are confronted with abuse instead of kindness, they
mistake that for love. They grow up thinking that what their parent did to them is normal and
acceptable. This idea of what a family and love is shapes their own encounter with their own Commented [VT1]: Chose a better word
child when they later on become a parent themselves. As a result, people who were abused as a
child are more likely to become the perpetrator of child abuse as well, keeping the terrible acts
against children in a constant loop.
Children are the future. They are the people who will transform the world into a better
place for us to live in when we, the older generations, grow older. Child abuse ruins that future
that we dream of. It cripples the children both mentally and physically, leaving them at a
disadvantage from the rest of society. Disadvantaged children bring down productivity rate and
affects society through increase crime rates, drug abuse, health care costs, and child welfare
costs. 80% of abused children develop a mental illness, leading to many of them failing to
achieve a higher education. This makes it hard for them to find a good job, reducing the
productivity rate of society and trapping them in a life of poverty and hardship.

“Money can’t buy happiness, but neither can poverty” -Leo Rosten
Increased stress brought on by economic hardship and the inability to control that stress
level has been linked to child maltreatment according to Kristen Shook Slack and multiple other
experts in the article “Understanding the Risks of Child Neglect: An Exploration of Poverty and Commented [VT2]: Does this flow….
Parenting Characteristics.” Single mothers are a prime example of how poverty plays a role on
the development of children maltreatments. This is not to say that being a single mother leads to
being a child abuser, but that society’s unfair treatment towards women produces a poverty-
stricken environment that leaves them stuck in an unfavorable, stressful situation. In Japan, like
the rest of the world, women are extremely discriminated against in the work place and society.
However, unlike America where a lot of protests and reforms have and still are happening for the
equality of women’s right, Japan is at a standstill because of their culture. It is hard for them to
find a job when their society insists that their place is at home taking care of the children and the
housework. If they do get a job, they earn 15%-40% less than their male counterpart. And their
employment would likely not last long due to many Japanese women not being able to return to
the work force after leaving upon childbirth. For a married woman, becoming a stay at home
mom can be a comfortable living situation. However, for a single mom, this means that they
have to work twice as hard, doing multiple small, irregular jobs just to make ends meet. And
sometimes, doing all those jobs is not enough. It is poverty that increases the possibility of child
abuse happening and, unfortunately, single mothers are a group that tends to fall under that Commented [VT3]: How do I put the commas in this
poverty line. phrase?
Apparently where government efforts to reduce economic inequalities are more limited,
increases in infant and child homicide rate are most likely to accompany increases in the
prevalence of mothers who are single. (Gartner)