LISTEN to the program NOW in streaming audio: NEW! Sign up for our OFF THE PAGE PODCAST! (What's that?)

Today Lois Einhorn is a Professor of English at Binghamton University, a respected scholar and an expert in the field of ethics and nonviolent communication.  Dr. Einhorn – she holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University – has written extensively on topics as varied as employment interviewing, ghostwriting and the inaugural addresses of President Lincoln.  She has received several awards for excellence in teaching and is adored by her students for the unusual degree of warmth she brings to the classroom.

Her newest book is “Forgiveness and Child Abuse: Would YOU Forgive?” in which Lois Einhorn describes in gross detail the brutal physical and sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her own parents.  It is amazing that Lois (and her sister, who shared her torture) even survived through adolescence.  Lois’s later success in life could be considered miraculous.  The question of forgiving her parents has become a matter for passionate, thoughtful and widespread discussion.Even today instances of child abuse may not emerge from the shadows.  Historically in the western world, children beyond the toddler stage were considered little adults and the property of their parents.  Prior to the 20^th century the State of New York had stricter laws protecting animals from harm than protecting defenseless young humans.  Recognition of child abuse as a menace to both individuals and the society was aroused in 1968 with the publication of “The Battered Child”, edited by Doctors Henry Kempe and Raymond Helfer.  Even then, child protective laws and policies directing health professionals to report apparent abuse date mostly from the 1970s and 80s.

Lois Einhorn was born in 1953.  The abuse perpetrated by her parents was a kind of weekend ritual, and was both physical and psychological.

Today a federal agency, the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Child Abuse Prevention Network based at Cornell University are concerned with all aspects of child welfare.  The New York Office of Children and Family Services and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare can provide protective services and a legal framework for taking action.  In New York State alone during 2003, seventeen out of a thousand children were abused or neglected.  Nationally during that year more than 800,000 children suffered from abuse or neglect.

But Dr. Einhorn’s book is not about the prevalence or reporting of abuse.  It is about the act of forgiving.  Many years after the final episode of parental torture – and years after her parents’ death – she needs to know if the time has come to forgive them, or even if forgiveness is warranted.  The pain remained and there may even have been some self-denigration remaining from the time when she was meant to feel useless and made herself feel numb.  Lois Einhorn has wondered about this for years, but she writes, “I have needed to go through the pain – not above it, not below it, not around it.  I must also grapple with unanswerable questions.  For example, why did I survive?  Why did God ‘save’ me?”

The questions are not simply tossed out rhetorically.  Dr. Einhorn shared her story with hundreds of people from many walks of life and her book prints the response of 53 of them.  It is an impressive group, including actor Ed Asner, former U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton, psychologist Albert Ellis and her own Binghamton University colleague Susan Thornton. 

The foreword to “Forgiveness and Child Abuse: Would YOU Forgive?” is by Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence.  He writes, “I find this book important because it puts into perspective the evils of a Culture of Violence that dominates every aspect of human life today."

The 53 contributors do not agree on whether and how Lois could forgive her parents, but in the book’s final chapter she tells how she was able to find peace and grant a degree of forgiveness.  “I recognize the need for self esteem,” she writes, “not other esteem.  I value truth more than approval.”  Her new strength and personal growth have been recognized.  In 2004 Lois Einhorn was named a Heroine of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace by the World Forgiveness Alliance.