After reading these comments and giving them some thought, I realized that I could have offered more in the way of encouragement or direction by posting videos or information about the effects of child abuse, and I will probably do a follow-up post with some of that sometime this week. Not sure why that didn’t occur to me when I was writing, but I think this was more about my emotional response to the campaign.

If the Facebook campaign does help educate people about the actual causes of child abuse and substantial ways to process and prevent it, then like I said, that’s great. I didn’t mean to suggest that every person who changed their picture to a cartoon character isn’t taking more meaningful action (and I don’t think I ever said that). In fact, and I meant to mention this in the post but forgot, I do have some friends who changed their pictures who I happen to know are making tremendous efforts to help children every day (Brett, you being one of them). But I am still skeptical of the campaign as a whole, probably because of some of the conversations that I have seen stem from it, in which people who claim to be against child abuse back off quickly when the discussion goes much beyond stating that “child abuse is wrong.” I’m sure that the reason for this is their own histories with abuse, which is tragic and I have sympathy for them. But it doesn’t inspire much confidence that the campaign is going to have a deep or long-lasting effect.

And yes, I still find the whole thing to be rather shallow when you think about the issue being discussed and the action that is being suggested. Rather than asking people to change their profile picture, it seems that it would have been more productive to suggest something they can do that would actually have an impact on a child, rather than just posting a picture of a cartoon character.

For what it’s worth, I’m aware that child abuse is something that all of you who commented care deeply about so major kudos for the work you’re doing in your own lives to end this tragedy.

“How many of these people posting these past few days really want to talk about child abuse and are seriously committed to ending this atrocity by doing something more involved than throwing up a politically correct Facebook status? Not many, I’d wager”.

- I felt irritated and tired and sad. I noticed I had inner thoughts to my self “I’m not doing enough and I’m not doing it right” and I lost touch for a little while with all the things I have done and continue to do that are actions and that do make a difference.

I would really love to acknowledge that it’s possible to do both – to be part of the cartoon campaign and to find ways of inviting people to take there awareness and actions further as well as create the space to acknowledge and celebrate the things we have done to make a difference.

I’d wager most people who have put a cartoon up in place of the profile pic have made a contribution to preventing child abuse in some way and if they had some support would love to do more. I saw suggestions of how to do this in the article above and I wonder if they’d be easier to hear and would go further if they are framed as an invitation from the outset.

Finally I want to acknowledge that maybe the author of this article has witnessed lots of in action and the suffering of children as a result and that the association of happy cartoon images with such a serious subject just doesn’t do it, it just doesn’t cut it somehow. It’s sort of insensitive and maybe would feel more comfortable with a ‘black arm band’ approach – ie: some some space for mourning and acknowledgeing the tradgey of child abuse before rushing in to ‘fix it’s’ that don’t quite fit. And that out of a more serious place, people might pay attention and move to action that really makes a difference?

“Instead of copying and pasting a feel-good phrase into the status bar, why not do something that might actually make a difference in a young person’s life?”

Why ‘instead of’? Instead of writing a post discouraging people from raising awareness you instead encourage them to keep going with it. Why one or the other? Whose to say they are not doing more?

You realize you are an example of this campaign to raise awareness as being successful? It got you to post this.