Letter: Complict in abuse
When I watch the Olympic Gymnastics teams compete, there is something so deadly serious about the sport.
The girls seem machine-like as they go through their routines flinging themselves like a desperate bullet looking for some kind of drilled portal that will transform their natural flesh into artificial glory.
The sex abuse scandal involving the USA gymnastics team and Larry Nassar should make us consider our own role and responsibilities as parents and nations in creating a system that causes rational people to pressure each other into sacrificing their children on an Olympic altar.
Can you imagine, as a parent of one of these gymnasts, knowing you paid for and supported this kind of behavior toward your kid?
What about those gymnasts who chose to skip a system that required submission to sex abuse?
What about those parents who learned of these “treatments” and pulled their kids out of the system, forfeiting their dream to compete in the international Olympic arena?
Do we hold the parents culpable for turning such a blind eye to their child’s suffering within the training “system?”
Like the Catholic church sex scandal, adults chose abuse and complicity over their children.
Shelly Hansen, West Richland
This story was originally published January 24, 2018 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letter: Complict in abuse."