Neglect is abuse.
Neglect is abuse and it's bad abuse. It isn't the "less bad" abuse. It isn't parents just being not very good parents. It isn't just normal because parents are busy working. It isn't less damaging because it's less visible than hitting. Kids need attention from their parents the way the human body needs breath. When kids don't get attention and love, it damages them on a fundamental level that impacts the rest of their lives in challenging, negative and difficult ways. Abuse is usually a double whammy. There's the stuff that's additive like constantly being criticized and being hit. On the flip side of that exact same stuff is the abuse that subtractive, which is the love you never get, or might be that your parents starve you, or don't cloth you properly, or don't allow you to have friends. All that subtractive stuff, that's neglect and it's just as damaging as all of the additive abuse. Sometimes, in some situations, there's no additive abuse, there's just neglect, and again I say, that's just as bad. Additive and no subtractive, subtractive and no additive, those are both equally as damaging as additive and subtractive together. Child abuse is utterly destructive in all of its forms, in all of its variances, and in all degrees.
