We like to think of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as days when young children give lots of hugs to their loving parents.  We don’t like to consider that these days are also days when thousands of innocent children are beaten by their parents, their anguished cries often not heard outside of their dysfunctional homes.  Saddest of all, these children are condemned to be beaten and screamed at by the people they trust most. 

In 1988, I was waiting for an elevator at the State office building where I worked as an Assistant Attorney General. Many social workers had their offices in the same building, and several of those social workers were also waiting for an elevator.

All of a sudden, a middle-aged man started yelling at a three-year-old boy, who started crying.  The boy weighed about 40 pounds.  The man quickly got angrier and started smacking the boy violently with the palm of his hand-maybe it was his fist.  Whump! Whump! Whump!   The little boy was now breathless and whimpering.  Like the other half-dozen people waiting for an elevator, however, I did nothing but stand there horrified.  The man cocked his arm back to strike the boy yet again when one of the social workers jumped forward and yelled at the man: “Stop hitting that child!”

With that, the man looked confused, then angry, then more confused, then meek.  The social worker further instructed him: “follow me.” The man followed the social worker, presumably to the social worker’s office.  …