9. Feral Children
Katherine D. Bennett
I have been fascinated for quite a long time by the accounts of feral children. To be honest, I had never believed that children could survive without parents, nor did I ever believe that animals would adopt or tolerate human children. I passed off the stories as legends and gave them little thought.
Then I received a book about Victor, a child discovered in the early 1800’s in France. He was a truly feral child found by a hunting party running naked and wild in the forest. It took several attempts to capture him, and he was thoroughly misunderstood by all of the so-called experts of the day. He was scarred from battles with wild animals and he had a terrible slashing scar across his throat as if someone had tried to murder him. He seemed not to feel heat or cold and only ate certain vegetables, breads, and nuts. At first he seemed to be deaf, and the experts even fired a pistol off close to his head without him noticing or flinching even slightly. Then someone behind him cracked a nut and he turned toward the sound, looking for the noise he understood. He could hear, but only what was important to him.
Even with the discoveries of his abilities, his difficulties were too profound for the experts of the day. Victor was pronounced an idiot, and was left behind in an institution. His story could have ended there, but a brilliant young doctor named Jean Itard took Victor home and began to teach him. It was a very difficult process, and there were some things Victor never learned. He never learned to speak, but he could use letters to spell out “lait,” French for milk, when he wanted a drink of milk. His toilet habits were terrible, and he never understood or was able to participate in any sexual behaviors, though he seemed to want to very badly sometimes. He died young, only in his early 40’s, in the care of Dr. Itard’s housekeeper with whom he had forged a strong bond.
I have spent many hours reading the accounts of feral children. Feral children are children that have not been raised by humans, have been neglected and confined by their caregivers to the point they are socially retarded, or they are children that have been raised in such isolated conditions that they have never developed the necessary social skills considered to be basic to human culture. They share some common traits and it makes me wonder about us all. Many of the children have a very hard time learning how to talk, and most prefer running to walking. They startle and anger easily and most have had a shortened life expectancy. They seem to not understand human sexuality, and many are afraid of men, and almost all of them prefer the company of women.
Of course, for a child to become feral, he or she would have to have experienced a terrible trauma early on, so understanding them doesn’t give us valid data about human development. Some are abandoned because the child has a disability or the family experiences a tragedy. Some are lost to accidents, and some are stolen by animals. They are reintegrated into human society with varied levels of success. Some socialize well; others are always lost to their experience and never socialize.
In my experiences as a teacher, I have seen children that seem to be on the edge of being feral because their home lives are so deprived or dysfunctional. They anger easily and some jump at the slightest noise. They have no sense of boundaries and they steal and use inappropriate sexual behaviors. They rush through their work and dart from one experience to another. They are afraid of authority and crave any tenderness they can experience.
I worry and will always worry about those poor wild children that have passed through my life. Neglect and abandonment at any level are unconscionable. Let me clarify that I don’t mean superficial neglect and abandonment like forgetting someone’s birthday or the feeling one has when ending a youthful romance. These are normal human experiences. I am talking about leaving a child alone for a weekend because a boyfriend wants to party, or sending a child to school unwashed, unhugged, untalked to, and unnoticed. It makes a child live on the edge of being feral. It is a tragedy.
We all notice the stories of feral children because the stories are astonishing and unbelievable. It is just as astonishing and unbelievable that any child in this rich nation can be hungry and alone. We should notice, but it is hard to see. The child on the edge of wildness may wear designer jeans, because his or her parents can find a way to provide that. Often he or she will have money in his or her pockets and maybe a candy bar to eat, but that is not real food; though it is easy to provide and silences demands for attention and food. We are looking for Victor when we look for feral children, but we only see little Heather or Matt. We are looking for the obvious drama, not quiet desperation. It is the same wild look and howling anger, the difference that most of the scars are inside instead of outside.