We Believe the Children

Starred review from June 8, 2015
N+1 editor Beck surveys the wild allegations, surreal trials, and sensational atmosphere of a child abuse panic that gripped the United States during the 1980s, while lucidly analyzing the intellectual and political climate that made it possible. From affluent Southern California to America’s heartland, allegations of molestation quickly escalated into lurid investigations of supposed networks of Satanic cults abusing children. The case of the McMartin preschool, where therapists and social workers interviewed hundreds of children as part of an investigation leading to a 105-count indictment against five teachers (and, at six years, the longest trial in American history), lends the book its narrative arc. Interspersed chapters document the reactionary backlash against the sexual revolution and the welfare state in favor of the nuclear family (where most child abuse actually happens), as well as the emergence of radical theories in psychology that enabled gross coercion and muddied legal waters. Beck marshals extensive research into an absorbing dissection of a panic whose tremors still affect us today. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic.

June 1, 2015
An attempt to explain the hysteria that surrounded the child sex abuse cases that swept the United States in the 1980s. Beck, associate editor of n+1, argues that the sexual revolution of the 1960s and '70s triggered a backlash from conservatives in the '80s, which caused widespread panic about child abuse in the preschools. The McMartin Preschool case in Manhattan Beach, California, one of the longest and most expensive in American history, takes center stage, with individual chapters on allegations, the preliminary hearing, the trial, and the verdict. The author also cites another California case and ones in Michigan, Texas, Florida, and Massachusetts. Through interviews and archival research, Beck shows how therapists and detectives (the line between them is blurry) induced youngsters to tell wild, even fantastic, tales of sexual abuse, sometimes involving bloody Satanic rituals, by their caretakers. The title comes from posters carried by parents in Manhattan Beach incensed that their children's incredible stories, not backed by actual evidence, aroused skepticism in some quarters. Beck also shows the role of the media and of overeager prosecutors and mental health professionals in creating a situation that destroyed the lives of innocent people, many of whom spent years in jail. Comparisons with the Salem witch trials are inevitable, but the author points out a difference: the victims of that one later received apologies. Beck sees the day care trials as a warning from conservatives to career-minded mothers who chose to pursue lives outside the home and entrust their children to others. He looks to the source of the hysteria in people's fears about the social changes taking place in American society. Unfortunately, the author devotes much more of his text to a rehash of the McMartin case and less to exploring theory about the causes of the hysteria surrounding child sexual abuse. An intriguing but uneven treatment of a subject that has not received much attention in years.

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May 15, 2015

Using research and interviews with those involved, Beck attempts to show that in the 1980s an atmosphere of hysteria existed surrounding the issue of child molestation, primarily at day care centers, and that children were coaxed into making false accusations that led to numerous wrongful convictions. The author, an editor at n+1, a New York-based literary magazine, details cases of child abuse at day care centers and babysitting services in states such as California, Texas, Florida, and New York that gained media attention. Many related convictions were later overturned. While a helpful history, information comparing the reported cases of child abuse from the 1980s to the present would have been beneficial. Hysteria may have existed in the 1980s, but it is difficult to determine what has changed in the way child abuse accusations have been handled since then. VERDICT Academic libraries may want to acquire this title as will psychotherapists and counselors who work with children who may find the descriptions insightful; especially timely with recent frenzies over unlicensed or unregulated day care providers.--Karen Venturella, Union Cty. Coll. Libs, Cranford, NJ

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