Oversight - Or Child Abuse?

Sometimes child abuse leaves marks anyone can see,none of the pain shows, it is easy to dismiss as
whether they want to or not, but not always.childish imaginings and wonder secretly what's really
Sometimes it's invisible, and so hard to understandwrong with me?
that you don't realize anything is wrong, even whenSeen in retrospect by the adult who was once a
it's happening to you. When that happens it's easy togifted child, the circumstances that guided my
talk about evil and cruelty and failure to acceptthoughts and shaped my intellect are not so
responsibility, but sometimes it's not that way. All toofrightening to confront or hard to define as they
often it's unintentional. Sometimes choices made withonce were. It's not just that decades have gone by,
the best of intentions will lead to consequences thator that most of my elders, the authority figures who
will be sad beyond imagining.did their best to shape the limits of my boyhood
What do you call it then? What happens when dutifulworld, have passed on. Such insights as I have been
parents choose to deny what would have beenable to manage, to make sense of the way my life
obvious if it were not so extraordinary, convincedworked itself out, have come at the expense of
that their child will become a better person withoutsoul-searching self-examination, more than enough
acknowledgment of the unusual intelligence they can'texperiences to fill several books, and by great good
explain. That's what happened to me sixty-somethingfortune or the grace of God, a refusal to give up.
years ago, and I still don't know what to call it.If you had told me back then that I was indeed
Mom and Dad wanted to protect me from theexperiencing a boyhood shaped by the uninformed
temptations of arrogance and pride, to save mejudgments of my family, or at least by some sort of
from the pain of being different, and they must havebenign neglect, I would not have believed you. If you
believed that ignoring the bright intensity of a littlehad presumed to go so far as to suggest the world
boy who wanted to learn all about everything andabuse, I might very well have jumped to the defense
who always understood such explanations as heof that same family, but in the light of the attention
managed to get, would make it go away, or at leastthat has recently been devoted to issues concerning
turn into something ordinary. I learned all too quicklygifted children, it might be difficult not to use that
that I was not ordinary and that being that way hurt.word.
I had no idea why that should be so, and the onlyIt helps to remind ourselves that gifted children do
explanation I could imagine was that I must nevernot exist as an isolated phenomenon. Smart kids are
trust that anything I came to believe about myselfalways part of the social milieu, the political and
would necessarily be true.religious and popular attitudes that shape the choices
Over the years I have invested energy beyondmade by their elders. If a very bright young person is
reckoning in disciplining myself not to complain aboutregarded as a shining example of precocity, as some
the bad things that happened to me or about thesort of living treasure to be protected and nurtured,
good ones that did not. After all, as my Grandmotherit is because the particular mindset that supports
Victoria would have reminded me all too quickly, Isuch a perception is not uncommon in the community
have never wanted for sufficient food, warmsin which they are growing up.
clothes, or a roof of one sort or another over myLife does not always work out that way.
head. Perhaps those things make it worse. When