{"id":992,"date":"2013-06-24T15:49:56","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T15:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=992"},"modified":"2016-07-04T01:18:53","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T01:18:53","slug":"started-as-a-rumor-not-about-molestation-not-at-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=992","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Started as a rumor \u2013 not about molestation, not at first&#8230;.&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"style187\" style=\"text-align: right;\">June 24, 2013<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201c(I) followed the Little Rascals case closely in the Norfolk and other papers&#8230;. Moved by (its) strangeness and patent senselessness, as well as by reports nationwide at the time of what came to be tagged \u2018false memory syndrome,\u2019 I wrote and later published a short story inspired by the spectacular miscarriage of justice&#8230;. The thrust of my story was popular hysteria and jaundiced, ambitious therapists together with a grievous breakdown of the judicial system&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cI believe that behind the recovered memory and child abuse therapeutic notions of that time, so destructive of the lives of the Edenton Seven and many others, lies Freud&#8217;s almost immeasurable popular impact on our now so heavily sexualized culture\u00a0<em>\u2013<\/em>\u00a0though the easy lure of the witch hunt seems to have been all too contagious in Edenton&#8217;s fearful, credulous and manipulable parents as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style173\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u2013 Historian and writer John L. Romjue of Yorktown, Va., responding to \u201c<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lib.unc.edu\/blogs\/ncm\/index.php\/2011\/10\/24\/little-rascals\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Remembering the shame of the Little Rascals Day Care case<\/em><\/a><em>\u201d at North Carolina Miscellany (Oct. 24, 2011)<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">Although \u201cWitches of Devon,\u201d the title story in Mr. Romjue\u2019s 2002 collection, veers dramatically from the course of the Little Rascals case, it does indeed capture the essence: \u201cIt had started as a rumor \u2013 and not about molestation, not at first. There had been an \u2018assault\u2019 incident at Happy Children (day care). Joanne Jamison had spanked a little girl\u2019s bottom and not suitably apologized to the mother&#8230;.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>June 24, 2013 \u201c(I) followed the Little Rascals case closely in the Norfolk and other papers&#8230;. Moved by (its) strangeness and patent senselessness, as well as by reports nationwide at the time of what came to be tagged \u2018false memory syndrome,\u2019 I wrote and later published a short story inspired by the spectacular miscarriage of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2433,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}