TW To notice that a lot of child murders have one thing in common

Most children are raised by single parents let’s be honest. The first time my ex-husband ever contributed to financially towards his kids was the day of the child support agency made him. He had the shock of his life

But there’s also plenty of research showing that being raised by a single mother decreases life chances and achievements for a child so 🤷‍♀️

Luckily the press have shut up about the “scourge” of single motherhood in the past decades or so but it wasn’t that long ago that people were saying that staying single for the sake of your kids wasn’t a good thing and that the kids lacked male role models.

Basically you can never win and there are always more complex reasons than just having a partner = immediate danger.

As for all the “if DH died, I’d never date”. Well statistically you probably would actually because most people do and it’s all good saying stuff like that when you are married and are just hypothesising.

This is nothing new.

Statistically speaking, the biggest indicator or risk of child abuse is that the child lives with a step parent. That’s not a guarantee, but having a step parent means a child is much more likely to suffer abuse than one living with their biological parents.

I was responding to a post that said that the fairytales had a point about evil stepmothers. I was pointing out that true tend to give the biological dads a totally free pass while the stepmum is evil.
I know it’s set at a time when famine was common. First, most parents would probably have gone without themselves before letting their children starve. Second, the getting lost in the woods was depicted as an evil thing, not a normal thing, and both the dad and the stepmum participated in it but the stepmum got all the blame and the kids then happily reunited with their dad who had tried to kill them twice.

https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/news/article/stepfathers-cinderella-effect-challenged-by-new-study

This study suggests other risk factors such as young paternal age rather than just being unrelated.

But staying single for your kids isn’t a sacrifice you have to make unless you personally want to. It could be quite soul destroying to read this stuff if you have a young child and are being told that you’re not a good mum if you get a partner. The “solution” of dating away from kids will probably only attract casual commitment phobes as mates - most people want a partner to share their lives with - not snatched dates here and there for fifteen years and never meeting their kids. There’s a woman on another thread who had a relationship like that, turned out her guy was married all along and people on there are saying to her how dumb she was and how it wasn’t a real relationship to begin with. Yet that sort of thing is what is being suggested.

Basically whether you decide to have kids with someone or introduce a new partner, you take a risk. Biological dads are not automatically “safe” due to the biology. Case in point Fred West and numerous other cretins who have killed or hurt their children over time, whether or not they are still together with the mother.

No it isn't.

I appreciate an academic research article looking at children killed by parents/step,parents over a 10 year period isnt going to be popular on a thread where assertion, prejudice and opinion dominates.

but here's a link to that article - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058981

Over the 10 year period in question, 6144 people were convicted of homicide. 297 were filicides (ie parents killing their children) and 45 cases were filicide-suicides (killing your children, then killing yourself). 195 (66%) perpetrators were fathers.

What I found of interest in light of posters' assertions that it's always the step father is that in 80% of cases the perpetrators are killing their biological child/children and not a stepchild/children.

Clearly it's the step parent killing the non biological children - even though in the minority - that is treated as being more newsworth.

"Biological and Step-parents
Two hundred and thirty-seven perpetrators (80%) killed a ‘biological’ child/children. Of the 60 perpetrators who killed a step-child, 1 (2%) was killed by a step-mother; 59 (98%) by a step-father; no adoptive parents committed filicide"

I think that the Fee case was highighted in the Scottish media for four reasons: there were three notorious child murders within a small area; secondly, in all three cases, Fife Social Work Dept was seen to have serious failings (though the dept tried to blame individual social workers rather than systemic failure); thirdly, the murderers tried to blame another one of their victims; finally, the fact that both murderers were women was highly unusual.

The case still appears in the Scottish media from time to time, but I notice that they focus on the stepmother and her supposed relationships in prison.

Yes you are right. It's always a male step or father.

Actually, the high incidence of step mothers in fairy tales is down to female mortality being much higher (especially in child birth) centuries ago. I remember a very interesting lecture about it.

Second response nailed it.

And yet, in folklore, it's always the wicked stepmother. Obviously there was a wicked stepmother in poor Sara's case but usually it's the stepfather.

Well, that’s an interesting take on it.

I feel sorry for her. Imagine having a mum who makes it her business to amplify negative stories as though they are typical behaviour for lesbians in order to provide cover for abusive men. Disproportionate negative focus on lesbians is typical of the media and you derail a thread about male violence to shout 'but what about lesbians?'.

Not to mention that you seem to believe that lesbians have male strength... typical homphobic trope to compare us to men.

My daughter is a lesbian so there are a few that I like.

Absolutely agree, we are suffering from ongoing onslaught of male violence.

That said, I find it abhorrent that some women will accept anything, just to have a man, including the torture and murder of their babies. How do they even look at themselves in a mirror. Scum bags

'lesbian lover' you mean 'girlfriend'

never seen a man referred to as a 'heterosexual male lover'

And no, lesbians are women.

We're not as dangerous as men... because we aren't as strong as them and don't have a male sexuality. Your comment isn't borne out by statistics.

There aren't many cases of lesbians harming children but any cases of it are sensationalised by the press, precisely because they are unusual cases. Men harming children is 'mundane' and not interesting. Many such cases are barely reported.

Your dislike lesbians is probably influencing your view of how intimidating lesbians are in general.

I've been single for 16yrs (not even a date) and tbh it hasn't even been the slightest problem. My dc's come first. Then my health and my job (basic PT office job, I'm not an MN career woman) .I never had the brain space for anyone else.

See, I would put Mum’s new lesbian lover in the same category as Mum ‘s new boyfriend. That woman looks as if she could snap us all like a twig.

Why would I be crying into my cereal because I'm a single mum? My DS's sperm donor fucked off to Shropshire (I'm in Cambs) and hasn't seen him since August. Meanwhile I'm doing alright by myself and glad I don't have a useless man littering the place (useless because I had to tell him how to change a nappy despite him having two kids. They're both adults and he was with their mum until they were adults, but I strongly suspect she did all the childcare!)
I'm taking the approach that I don't want a man to potentially harm my little boy, so I'm staying single until he's much much older.

Well aware of this statistic & if anything happened to DH, no other man is living under this roof while my kids live here.

I wonder if age is a factor. Im almost 40 and if I'm honest can go ages without sex. Perhaps it feels different if you are only early/mid twenties and the drive for a sexual partner is higher.

We ask this when we admit children to the ward as well. With full names and dates of birth.

Agreed. Ive just started a thread about this horrific case which I only heard about today.
In this case, and Ive only read the BBC articles, it would appear she was previously a good parent to her daughter, so in some ways she has less of an 'excuse' (for want of a better word) than him, he doesnt even look like he could tie his own shoe laces whereas she clearly knew what a good parent was and yet she allowed him to abuse and kill her.

They both should have got life sentences in my view

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2pg04jq50o

Tbf most people know their paid babysitters less well than that (having spent less time getting to know them socially). Some babysitters come with DRB checks, references and first aid certificates, but there will also be a lot of people informally getting a neighbour or local young person to cover for a few hours.

Correcting myself here. Reports at the time of the killing claimed that the mother was a GP. There's no hint of that in any of the reports that I can find now.

Craig Munro resigned after it came to light that social workers who did not have permission to do so had accessed Mikaeel Kular's file. He stated that the only reason for his resignation was his desire to follow his religious vocation.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-32392803

At around the same time as the case of the little girl who was murdered in Kelty, a female GP dumped the body of her little boy in woods in Kirkcaldy. Fife had 3 notorious murders around the same time. (The worst case was the Fee case in Thornton. The murderers tried to pin the murder on one of the other children in the house.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-36333032

In the end, the Director of Children's Services resigned, claiming that he was only doing so to follow his vocation as a pastor. (He was never a social worker - he was a secondary school teacher and Plymouth Brethren leader.)