Genie. A silent little girl.
In linguistics we learned about language acquisition and how babies develop speech during the first 12 years of their childhood. With this idea in mid, we had a special guest that shared a very powerful story with us about a girl named Genie and how when she was found, she was almost entirely mute. 20 words and a few short phrases like “stop it” and “no more” were the only things she knew how to say. This is Genie’s story on how this happened….
Genie was a normal baby girl when she was born, but was born into a very abusive family. Her dad didn’t like kids and constantly threatened to kill her mom. Genie’s mom gave birth to four kids, but only 2 survived, Genie and her older brother. When Genie was 14 months, she developed pneumonia and was taken to see a pediatrician. She had high fever, low in energy and was really weak. The doctor said that she showed signs possible retardation. Her father took what the doctor said to the extreme, and decided that she was retarded and was going to “protect” her by isolating her from everyone one.
Her dad had no tolerance for noise and would beat Genie every time she talked or made any noise. He kept her quiet by barking and growling like a dog to warn her that he was outside the door. Growing up Genie heard little to no language nor had auditory stimulation; the only noise she would hear was from a window in her room that was kept open a couple of inches. The dad also rarely allowed his wife and son to leave the house or even to speak, and he also forbade them to speak to Genie. The father’s constant abuse made the entire family live in fear and isolation. At this time, Genie’s mom had become blind, so the father and brother were Genie’s primary caretakers, but Genie was living in hell.
The living conditions for Genie were really bad. She was cramped to a small bedroom at the back of the house where she was tied to a baby potty seat. She was unable to move anything except her fingers, hands, feet, and toes. At night she was removed from the potty seat and moved into a sleeping bag sewed up to be like a straight jacket. Once she was inside the sleeping bad, she was placed in a bed made out of metal screening. She was fed three times a day, if she wasn’t being punished. Her diet consisted of baby foods, cereals, and an occasional soft-boiled egg. Since she lived in isolation, she never learned to talk, still wore diapers and had obvious signs that she got severely mistreated by her dad. She lived like this every day of her life until she was about 13 years old.
One day the dad and the mom got in a big argument. Genie’s mom escaped with Genie to the grandmother’s house, where they both stayed for three weeks. On November 4, 1970 Genie and her mom went to apply for financial assistance, while they waited, a social worker immediately called her supervisor after seeing Genie’s bad conditions. . She was hardly human, she would salivate a lot, she didn’t learn how to go to the restroom, she was unable to stand straight, she had a strange “bunny walk”, in which she held her hands up in front, like paws, and she was unable to communicate with words. She was a strange, unsocial silent little girl.
Charges were filed against both parents with child abuse, but Genie’s mother, weak and almost blind, claimed she was herself a victim of abuse by Genie’s father. After finding out about the charges, the dad committed suicide by killing himself and leaving a note stating, “The world will never understand.”
Genie was taken to a hospital for treatment. Since she wasn’t found until adolescence, meaning that during her childhood she was not exposed to any language and that it was going to be difficult for her to acquire language to the fullest because she had passed the critical period of speech. Genie is still alive according to the guest we had, but she is not able to see her. Genie’s story is very sad. I don’t know why a man would do that to his daughter for all those years. This story really warmed my heart, but it also made me sad because Genie was not given the chance to live a normal life as a child. Why are some people so cruel??
