Having faced the ultimate betrayal by her mother and the horrendous abuse by her father, Toni Maguire shares her story in the nonfictional book Don’t Tell Mummy. Toni Maguire’s book Don’t tell Mummy was one of UK’s bestsellers in 2007. On her WordPress blog Toni talked about her inspiration behind the book, stating “Writing about my experiences has helped me deal with the past and realize that there is no shame in being victimized.” She wrote a sequel to Don’t Tell Mummy called When Daddy Comes Home which talks about the emotional trauma and abuse she experienced on his return and how her mom continued to neglect and betray her. She later states on her blog that where children are victims, adults need to be survivors. In the story Don’t Tell Mummy Antoinette displays the courage of a survivor.
The Visit
Don’t Tell Mummy is the story of how Toni was molested as a child by her father and neglected and betrayed by her mother. The story beginning in a hospice facility where her mom was then kept due to a terminal illness, later found out to be cancer. As she goes to visit her mom in the hospice facility the doctors come to her with concern for her mom. Her mom was in a tremendous amount of pain and the drugs that they were prescribing her were not working to their full effectiveness. The doctors questioned Toni about what information her mom was withholding from them, she simply stated to the doctor and the minister that her mom was afraid of dying. The doctors told Toni about how her mom would often times request for a minister to come in but when he would she would change her mind. Toni knew that for to disclose such information about her mom that she would also have to address the hidden painful things in her own past. Reliving...
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...she deserved to be heard. I am glad that she is making her voice heard even when so many people tried to silence her. She is so resilient. Having read this story it gives me a greater understanding of the lives of those who been molested as children. It makes me think twice before I ever judge someone because they could have such a painful childhood. I cannot even imagine having gone through that and yet having my sanity. Reading Don’t Tell Mummy made me very angry at the people in her life. Those people were supposed to protect her and yet they rejected her. So many people could have been protective factors for her, preventing her from committing suicide in the future but they failed her. All but the judge and her grandma failed her. One thing is for sure, they thought that they could hold her down but she kept rising. She is a survivor and inspiration to so many.
Born in 1959, author Debra Oswald began writing as a teenager. She rose to prominence with the debut of Gary’s House where it was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award. Many of her works features abandoned and neglected children that grow into adults to fight their own demons in the past. Oswald writes about the importance of a family’s psychology, both real and surrogate. In Gary’s House, Gary had a bad relationship with his father that lead to neglection and eventually hate but when Gary himself becomes a father he disregards his past to provide for his future child. This is the author’s intention of representing how important family is.
Barbara was born in 1948, convicted for manslaughter, due to emotional duress, sentenced for 25 years, to be suspended after 10, arrested in 1996. Barbara’s story stood out the most to me and i found it very interesting and sad. Barbara 's life has been filled with tragedy since she was young. Barbara was molested by her grandfather when she was a child, and was too young to understand what had happened at the time. Barbara ended up telling her mother about what happened recently after, but her mother told her to keep it to herself. When Barbara got older she learned that her grandfather also molested her mother as well. This made Barbara very confused and question her mother.
Susie’s mother opened the door to let Molly, Susie’s babysitter, inside. Ten-month old Susie seemed happy to see Molly. Susie then observed her mother put her jacket on and Susie’s face turned from smiling to sad as she realized that her mother was going out. Molly had sat for Susie many times in the past month, and Susie had never reacted like this before. When Susie’s mother returned home, the sitter told her that Susie had cried until she knew that her mother had left and then they had a nice time playing with toys until she heard her mother’s key in the door. Then Susie began crying once again.
From a very young age, Bone was sexually abused by her step-father, Glen Waddell. Like Bone, Dorothy Allison also suffered abuse from her step-father, starting at the young age of five years-old. During the time of the novel, and until recent years, it was unthinkable to speak of any sort of abuse outside the household. Throughout history, children have been victims of abuse by their parents or other adults, and fo...
It’s a good thing she speaks out as the truth of the unknown is now known. The ignorance becomes the reality and relief, and all she is seeking out for is reconciliation between the past and the present. Forgiveness is paramount, but the key is to run away from the racial stand. The work helps us appreciate how far we have come from and learn to respect others to avoid the past
This story speaks of a married woman who fell in love with a man who was not her husband. She bore this man a child and realized that she could not live without him. In the event, she decides to leave her husband to be with the child’s father. However, there is only one problem and that is that she has two other children by her husband. She has a daughter who is 9 years old and is very mature for her age, and a darling son who is 5 years old. As she leaves to restart her life again with this other man, the 5 year old son is left behind to stay with his dad, and the little girl is tragically killed by a pack of wolves. The little boy is devastated by his mom’s decision to leave him behind. He is constantly haunted by dreams and images that come to his mind surrounding his mother’s...
Picard, Anna. "Could you too be a killer mummy?" New Statesman [1996] 9 July 2001: 29. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Jan. 2014. Print. This work is included in the paper because it provides a nonfictional story similar to the, main, fictional piece. The author tells the story of a mother killing her children and the "reasoning" behind it. This ultimately gives the paper a more complete dimension by providing a comparable story.
Julie Gregory was a sick child. She was in and out of the doctor’s office, and was in the hospital on several occasions. Her illnesses baffled the doctors. She was treated for a variety of sicknesses, but she always seemed to come down with yet another ailment. After enduring years of sickness and misdiagnosis, Julie finally figured out that it was her mother who was responsible for her suffering. Her mother suffered from Munchausen by Proxy. She was abusing Julie to gain attention and sympathy for herself. Julie was not suffering from chronic illness; she was suffering from chronic child abuse. Julie is not alone. Too often in the world today, children are abused, resulting in lasting emotional and physical scars. The question is, how does the pattern of abuse actually affect a person later in life? Julie sought help and seems to be on the road to recovery, but for some, the damage is ongoing.
Sandy Wilson, the author of Daddy’s Apprentice: incest, corruption, and betrayal: a survivor’s story, was the victim of not only sexual abuse but physical and emotional abuse as well, in addition to being a product of incest. Sandy Wilson’s story began when she was about six years old when her birth father returns home from incarceration, and spans into her late teens. Her father returning home from prison was her first time meeting him, as she was wondered what he looked like after hearing that he would be released (Wilson, 2000, p. 8). Not only was her relationship with her father non-existent, her relationship with her birth mother was as well since she was for most of her young life, cared for by her grandmother and grandfather. When she was told that her birth mother coming to visit she says, “…I wish my mother wouldn’t visit. I never know what to call her so I don’t all her anything. Not her name, Kristen. Not mother. Not anything (Wilson, 2000, p. 4).” This quote essentially demonstrated the relationship between Sandy and her mother as one that is nonexistent even though Sandy recognizes Kristen as her birth mother.
Secret Survivors by Sue Blume is a paper uncovering the incest and it’s aftereffects in women. Throughout this paper, Blume makes some points that are very hypocritical and bias. She is a private therapist, social worker, and diplomat in social work, but she has never been a victim, and her opinions make for a worse argument.
Parent/Child relationships are very hard to establish among individuals. This particular relationship is very important for the child from birth because it helps the child to be able to understand moral and values of life that should be taught by the parent(s). In the short story “Teenage Wasteland”, Daisy (mother) fails to provide the proper love and care that should be given to her children. Daisy is an unfit parent that allows herself to manipulated by lacking self confidence, communication, and patience.
Presenting the story from a third person perception and having the narration by the mother or “Mama” gives the story great relevance to real life situations that ha...
Nothing hurts more than being betrayed by a loved one, Christopher’s father has no trust in Christopher and tells him that his “Mother died 2 years ago”(22) and Christopher thinks his mother died of a heart attack. When Christopher finds out his father lied, he runs away to live with his mother and his father despritally looks for him and while looking for him realizes the importance of telling the truth. When someone betrays one’s trust, they can feel morally violated. Once Christopher finds his mother, she begins to realize how unfit her living conditions are for Christopher and brings him back to his father, bring him “[..] home in Swindon”(207) Christopher feels incredibly hurt and distressed he does not want to see his father. Whether a relationship can be repaired depends entirely on whether trust can or cannot be restored. Christopher’s father works very hard to regain his trust, he tells his son “[..] I don’t know about you, but this...this just hurts too much”, Christopher’s father is dealing with the result of being dishonest with his son and himself.
Mary Bell was a murderer, sadistic torturer of her victims, and a victim, more importantly she was a child. At the age of 10 Bell had killed two boys before the age of eleven. Growing up in the financially depressed town of Newcastle in England, in which Bell lived an impoverished life. Bell was born to her Betty Bell, a prostitute who suffered with mental illness and her father, presumed to be Billy Bell, a lifelong criminal who had a history of violence and was frequently unemployed. At the time of Mary’s birth, her parents were not married, and only married a few years after her birth.
The use of rock-cut tombs and burial caves was inherited by the Israelites from the Canaanites. However, while the Canaanite Bronze Age caves were mostly crude and undefined, one can see the deliberate shaping of rock-hewn tombs in Israel and Judah. The most common type included a square room entered through a small square opening which could be closed by a large stone. Rock-cut benches on three sides of the chamber provided space for three bodies. More elaborate examples had an additional rear chamber. Both cave and bench tomb burials remained consistent in plan, body treatments, and categories of mortuary provisions throughout the Iron Age. The only variations were in relative wealth, and beginning in the 9th century BCE, a few lavish individual tombs were cut in Jerusalem and Gibeon, and twelve of these were probably for important political and/or religious functionaries (Bloch-Smith 1992). From Judah, the total number of reported tombs are 24 cave and 81 bench tombs from the 10th through the late 8th century BCE, and 17 cave and 185 bench tombs from the late 8th through the early 6th century BCE (Bloch-Smith 1992).