Royal Commission and Knox Grammar

The Royal Commission into Child Abuse has been uncovering a lot of horrific stories of abuse in Australia. I think while it’s devastating that so many people have been abused, and some of their stories are heart wrenching, some of the reactions to the abuse have been much worse.

Hearing people discuss the abuse at Knox Grammar has kind of shocked me. There are plenty of people online who seem to imply that these kids deserved it because their parents sent them to a fancy pants grammar school.

I’ve been to both public school, and private school. When I attended Meriden, Knox Grammar was in our circle of friends. We all huddled together on the train station. We attended the same functions. Just because we were private school kids, didn’t make us any less human. It didn’t make us any more deserving of abuse. To suggest that the parents of these kids are to blame because they were more interested in sending their kids to a grammar school than a state school is appalling. I don’t care if you have a beef with private schools getting money from the government. I don’t care if you once hated a kid who went to a private school. I don’t care if you’re secretly jealous that you didn’t get to attend a private school.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, deserves to be abused. Whether you’re a millionaire’s daughter attending Ascham, a janitors kid on a free scholarship at Knox, or a middle class kid attending the local state high school. No matter your status, or income bracket, all children deserve to grow up, free of abuse.