Life Growing Up shares your experiences growing up and dealing with abuse. Why was this an important book for you to write?

To be completely honest, I wanted to relieve myself of so much anger. While writing this book, I felt much tension alleviate and less stress.

There are a total of twelve of us siblings, eight brothers and three sisters, and each one of us has a story to tell and share, this one was mines. I also wrote it because of how angry and bothered I was with Child Protective Services who ignored our cries for help over the years that we were growing up. I believe their involvement could of made a difference and would have saved us from daily abuse.

I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?

The hardest part for me was writing about the abuse itself. I hated reliving the sexual abuse parts along with the times my father physically hurt me as well as my siblings. I don’t like talking about it because it brings back very heartbreaking memories. The hardest part to write about was when my Nine year old brother “Quithoberto” died seven days after falling from a wonder bread and hitting his head on the concrete. Just a week before he died, my father had beaten him up pretty bad. I loved him very much, still do. I never forget him, I miss him dearly even until this very day. Though I wrote in the book that he was one of the lucky ones, because he would never get hurt again by our father, unlike us.

What is a common misconception you feel people have about child abuse?

Some of the misconceptions that people have about child abuse is that it only happens in lower socioeconomics families which is not true. It also happens in both middle and upper class prejudice and self-deceptions and fueled by statistics derived mainly from sources involved in the treatment of child abuse in lower class families. In reality, both mid and upper class families are more difficult to obtain, but current literature demonstrate and or prove that child abuse occurs in all socioeconomic levels. The belief that abuse occurs only because parents misjudge their strength when physically disciplining their children is a simplistic view of abusing behavior that fails to consider the complex dynamics underlying parental abusive patterns. The preferred or main view that children are sexually abused primary by assailants unknown to them is undetermined by statistics showing that the majority of sexually abused children have been victimized by someone known to them, often being relatives. The misconceptions that child abuse occurs most frequently in school aged children is challenged by statistics showing that almost half of those abused are under the age Six. Unfortunately, while some argue that criminal prosecution is the best way to handle child abusers, the difficulty of gaining a conviction and the need of abusing parents for rehabilitation argues for civil action’s being the most effective one.

What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?

Well I know that I am not the only one to have experienced child abuse in anyway, there are thousands out there. Why do you that think some children who grow up with severe inflicted child abuse turn of the system? Many of them just like us, were let down by Child Protective Services. Many children have died under the watch of Child Protective Services and this is the reason why now in our present times Child Protective Services have improved in their methods. If you are one of the fortunate lucky ones that were never abused by your parents, then you have absolutely no idea was it is like for us who were abused. So I encourage you to do research on the topic or subject at hand and see for yourself how bad it is. Also, report any kind of suspected abuse, don’t keep silent, help the child. I wish someone had cared enough to help us out of a life of misery, because that’s exactly what it was, a life of misery, day in and out, for years.

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