Hell Is For Children

this song. wow. the first time i heard it, i was so moved. child abuse is sadly all too common. i love that a star that big was willing to take a lot of crap for singing about it.

It's about child abuse.

It's a powerful, meaning song. It's about child abuse, and it's one hell of a song.

from an interview she did... Hell Is for Children" came from an article that…I was living in New York when we wrote it and the New York Times did a series of articles about child abuse in America. I came from a really small town on Long Island and I had no idea that this existed, not in the little gingerbread place I came from. I was stunned. It affected me so much. I was moved by the articles. When ever that would happen I would write. I said to Neil [Giraldo, guitarist], ‘I want you to do something to the music that it sounds like pain. I want the intense pain that’s happening to these children in the notes,’ and so he did and it turned out just great. It became an anthem. I always wonder if other people have lofty intentions. I didn’t.

This song was groundbreaking. I admire Pat Benatar for having the courage to publish such a song. It shed ilght upon the topic of child abuse, which was NEVER talked about. Sure, people saw it happen, but they felt that "it wasn't their place to get into the affairs of others."

My thanks to you, Pat.

This song is so powerful. Many people think that this song is messed up because they think that the song is saying that children should go to hell, but it is not like that at all. It is a description of what children who are abused go through.

For it to be allowed for a child to be born and be abused, we must be on some level of hell here.

I just watched Ralph Bakshi's film "American Pop" which featured this wicked track and it brought me here. This song sounds so powerful and has such an important meaning. Though this song speaks about abuse of minors, youth so often is HELL...kids have to put up with a real lack of privileges, constant ridicule and patronizing, way too many rules, school, parents, teachers, dickhead peers, the list goes on.

Kids really do deserve more freedom as growing up isn't usually as happy and innocent as it's made out to be

WTF?

What I don't get is how people know child abuse goes on and then don't think Hell exists. To quote Ben Stone from Law and Order, "I hope there’s an afterlife, the penal code is insufficient for some crimes."