Great Photo, Lovely Life, filmmaker and survivor Amanda Mustard reflects on growing up in a family where sexual abuse was normalized, unnamed, and buried beneath love, fear, loyalty, and silence.
Her story challenges something many of us cling to: the idea that child sexual abuse exists in clean moral binaries. That there are monsters on one side and innocent families on the other. That if someone harms a child, we simply send them to jail and the story is over.
But it isn’t over.
Amanda’s grandfather went to prison. He was released. And the harm continued.
Research tells us that the vast majority of families (as many as 88%) never report child sexual abuse to authorities. And when they do, the outcomes often fail to create lasting safety. So we have to ask a harder question: What are we actually trying to accomplish?
Undoubtedly most would agree that prevention is the ultimate goal when it comes to child sexual abuse. And if that is the case, when will we realize that punishment, while deserved in many cases, cannot be the answer.
Real safety requires three things:
First, protection for those who could be at risk of being harmed in the future. This only makes sense when we offer meaningful treatment for the person who is has caused sexual harm, or is in danger of causing sexual harm. This is not a one size fits all intervention but one crafted to the particular person and situation, informed by the latest research.
Second, healing for those already harmed, at whatever stage the disclosure occurs and the person is ready to face what they have been through. This is a survivor led winding endeavor and takes years. This healing needs to include loved ones, especially non-offending parents who may carry their own unaddressed trauma, as Amanda’s mother did.
Third, systemic accountability and a path toward repair within families and communities. Many people play a role, even if a minor one, in environments where children and young people are sexually harmed. We must all step up to take our share of responsibility if we hope for a safer environment going forward. The skills needed for repair are almost never taught and must intentionally learn.
None of this excuses abusive behavior. The grandfather’s actions were clearly wrong. Children deserve protection. Full stop.
And yet families are rarely simple. People often love those who have harmed them. Intergenerational trauma complicates decisions. A single mother who needs childcare and housing may turn to her parents because there is nowhere else to go. These realities do not make the abuse acceptable but they do make the situation far more complex than “lock them up and throw away the key.”
When we reduce child sexual abuse to a clean moral binary, we avoid the discomfort of that complexity. But avoiding reality is not a prevent strategy likely to work. Engaging in it might.
We are grateful for Amanda’s courage in showing what it looks like to step into the deep end. She shows us the lived experience of so many families in a way most will never want to see, nor understand.
Prevention requires more than outrage. It requires honesty, courage, skill, support, community and the willingness to hold multiple truths at once.
Because if our real goal is safety then we have to be brave enough to think beyond binaries.