So glad this was helpful Maria, and you were able to use it in your writing to work with the situation unfolding between your characters. Good luck with it! 🙂

Thanks Traci. I can only try my best with this one. I suffered abuse as a child but thankfully my children did not, so this angle of the wound I can only see into so deeply.

It would depend on the individual I think. So much would factor in to determine the depth of the wound for a parent: how long it had been since the abuse, how the child was handling it now (did they move past it, are they still struggling, did it completely ruin their life, etc.) and how deeply the adult feels responsibility for the event. Adults (except for the select few who aren’t supportive/don’t care/just want everyone to pretend it didn’t happen) will always feel guilt and responsibility to some measure, but the situation where the abuse took place will determined HOW MUCH responsibility they feel. If the abuse happened by a teacher at school, a parent would feel they let their child down, that they should have known something was off with the teacher, etc. But if the abuse happened at home, with a relative or a friend of the parant and the parent unknowingly gave them access to their child…the guilt will feel so much more severe, even after the fact and many years later. It will be a harder wound to move past.