How can a parent let their child be beaten by an OH

Yes, it was a narrow interpretation of that one sentence. Said in isolation by you. How strange of me not to spot the undertones.

My point about the training was exactly that you shoudl never have been told about a 'cycle of abuse' mentality during CP training so I would love to knwo where that little bit of bullshit came from?

Not read the whole thread, but I know of at least 1 woman whose confidence/self esteem was so low, and she didn't trust her own judgement, to the point where she didn't totally trust what she had seen with her own eyes.

The man would slap/hit her DC, push them around, and tell her that the DC needed discipline, that the DC knew what they had done was wrong, and the mother just didn't believe the DC when they said they hadn't done wrong. Of course children tell lies to evade punishment don't they?? I don't think the mother believed she was a good mother, and looked to her H, who was the stronger person in the relationship at the time, for the answers.

A lot of the violence towards the DC happened when the mother was not present, out at work.

If you are frightened to be without someone, if you are frightened to be alone, if you are frightened of your relationship ending, it is surprising to many how much a frightened person can and does justify to themselves.

Some of the justifications I have heard are:
If only the DC learnt how to behave/not piss him off, he wouldn't have to punish them like that.
It's H's upbringing, he had a rough time, he was picked on at school.
He is only trying to bring the DC up to be decent people.
He is good in other ways.
He buys them everything they want and they are so ungrateful.
The DC annoy me sometimes, but everyone deals with their anger in different ways.
I was disciplined physically as a child and it never did me any harm.

It seemed to be a combination of four things...DV being the biggest problem, but the reason she didn't leave is mainly because the mother was frightened of being on her own, she had a sexist attitude (against women) and she blamed violence on the victim, so lots of justifications going on. Not sure if part of this was a generational thing. As time goes on, we are realising more and more how victims were (and still are) blamed for the crimes perpetrated against them. I hope, as a society, we continue to move in the right direction wrt this attitude and continue to move towards blaming the perpetrator of the crime rather than the victim.

'And as a teacher you should have had plenty of trainign to tell you that this is not the case'

I've had training on child protection and spotting signs of abuse, rather than adult DV.

Interesting and narrow interpretation of my comments.
I was also including males who have grown up in an abusive and emotionally-stunted environment not knowing how to form non-abusive relationships with women and becoming abusers as adults.
Where do you think so many partner-abusers come from? Why do so many adolescent males struggle?

Dustinthewind Sat 04-Feb-12 08:22:49

Fuzzy, that's often why the cycle repeats. If that is your normality, it is frequently what you recreate as an adult in your own relationships.

This kind of opinion makes me want to scream.

This is exactly why the scale of abuse seems to be getting greater because people who suffered abuse as a child and are parents now are scared to say anything.

Please think before you speak.

And as a teacher you should have had plenty of trainign to tell you that this is not the case. Sometimes it repeats, soemtimes it doesn't, but OFTEN is bullshit.

Sunshine, thankyou for your post. I'm not offended. I understand that you are trying to say that we need to work out why our parents behaved in this awful way in order to prevent it happening again.

However, I disagree with you. I will never know why my parents behaved the way they did. Only they know that answer to that. But despite not knowing, I am NOT repeating their behaviour. I know how they made me feel and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, least of all my own DC's, so I don't behave the way they did. It's a conscious choice and decision about how I want to live my life.

So, understanding my parents is not necessary for me. And it's a futile exercise because I will NEVER understand how my dad could be so cruel and abusive and how my mother could stand and watch and do nothing. And how now they can forget and deny it all and believe they were wonderful parents. They are alien beings, as if from another planet, living in another reality of their own construction. I have walked away from their madness and it was the best thing I ever did.

Yes, but what's it got to do with this discussion?

This isn't about mothers who harm their DC's directly, it's about mothers who don't prevent the men they live with, from doing so

Most professionals that are involved in CP know that the man being of the scene, isn't going to be the end of it.

Unless the woman understands why DV is harmful to everyone in the household and is given self esteem buliding courses and confidence the likelyhood of her going on to another abusive relationshipis high. That is why attending victim groups are on the CP plan.

I recently had a situation where as soon as the family was de-planned (he was well out of the picture) , yet she let him babysit the children and sleep on the couch, even though he had been drinking and drink was a factor in their DV.

She was attacked the next day by him, but before that even happened she had put the children at risk by letting him be in the house drinking. This wasn't a woman who had no family for support or babysitting.

She knew that there was a possibilty of the children being removed but still went ahead, it isn't easy to make sense of.

She wasn't reliant on him in any way.

Basil I haven't suggested that statistically women are more likely to kill children than men are; I simply responded to the OP's phrase that it is always the boyfriend who kills the children. From a child protection point of view this is very dangerous thinking.

swallowed the OP may well not have been making a general statement that women never kill children, but that was not clear to me from her post. It is always surprising how many people (including professionals involved in CP) do believe that once a man is off the scene children are safe from physical threats within the home.

By no means did I intend to derail the thread, but I do think its important that people remember that for some children their mothers pose just as great a threat to their safety as their fathers (or their mother's partners) do. This is not about being anti-women or unfeminist, its is simply an horrific fact.

Actually, considering the amount of time women spend with children versus the amount of time men spend with children, women kill children far less often than men do per hour spent with children, IYSWIM.

yes she did say that, you're quite right nigella. think she was talking about those particular relationships where a woman gets together with an abusive man specifically rather than making a general statement that women never kill their children.

Yes swallowed I did read the OP and the phrase But its always the boyfriend who batters the baby to death suggests that its always the boyfriend who kills the children, all I am saying is that is not the case.

did you read the OP nigella? it was about women who witness their children abused by their partners/husbands and don't leave/stop the abuse. so clearly it wasn't going to be looking at women who kill their children.

Haven't had time to read the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been said; but it is not always the boyfriend who batters the baby to death, plenty of mothers beat and go on to kill their children.

I do think its important to debate why some women stay in relationships which put their children's lives at risk, but it is naive and unrealistic to think that only men are a danger to children. In fact it is exactly this sort of thinking that has lead to the deaths of some children (as SWs have believed that the children were safe once the father/boyfriend was off the scene only to find that the mother posed just as great a risk)

jasmin I'm a bit reluctant to post this because for you this is a deeply personal experience, while I'm discussing it from an uninvolved perspective. I hope it doesn't offend you as I really don't mean it to.

I think it's totally understandable that you have such anger toward your mother. A child cannot be expected to understand the social dynamics of patriarchy and domestic abuse. Even though you are now an adult and capable of looking back on your childhood with all the analytical skills being an adult brings, the fear, betrayal, hurt and anger you experienced as a child will be burned on your memory as it felt when you were little. You have the right to your own memory. No one else knows what it felt like for you.

But holding your father accountable for his abuse doesn't mean you have to forgive your mother. A child should be able to count on the love and protection of both parents and both parents failed you in that respect. Recognising that your father is ultimately responsible - as your mother would not have had to protect you from anything at all had your father not been abusive - does not make your mother innocent. So by asking you to consider the wider picture - about how it is the abuser that sets up a situation where the abused ends up becoming an abuser herself - no one is asking you to make excuses for your mother or to forgive her. They are simply pointing out that her behaviour needs to be set in context, and the context is one made by men. But it's hard to do that when it's a personal experience.

Your mother's continued denial must be awful. A real slap in the face after what you experienced as a child. But I suppose if she was the sort of person who could admit what she'd done was wrong, she'd probably have been capable of leaving her husband and protecting you when you were little. Why wasn't she? What was it about her own childhood/life/personality/society that made her unable to do this? It's a complicated question and one the child in you doesn't know the answer to. All you know is that it hurt. I get that and I'm loathe to dismiss your experiences in the name of discussion.

I don't really know what I'm trying to achieve with this post, other than to try to show that understanding how families go so badly wrong is not the same as saying that it's acceptable. Pointing out that abuse is always the responsibility of the abuser does not absolve those complicit in the abuse. But it's necessary to look at the source of such awful behaviour if we are going to prevent repeat experiences in the future I think.

and your father?

Yes, I stood up to my dad as a child, not my mother. I stood up for her instead of her standing up for me. And she quite happily let me do it as it meant she escaped a verbal beating whilst I bore the brunt. As I keep saying some women like my mother, are just weak and unfit to be a parent. The reasons for that don't interest me and perhaps it's not my mother's fault that she is weak and inadequate. But I cannot stand the fact that she refuses to accept her failures and insists on believing she was a brilliant mother and everything was my dad's fault. She's despicable and I have nothing but contempt for her. I have more courage and decency in my little finger than she has in her whole body.

She is a complete waste of space.

But that wasn't what you said or implied.

She probably wasn't as afraid as the child its safe to say.

Archemedes - so you think that someone who was beaten by their partner wasn't afraid of them?? Because she was "vocal", whatever that means. So she enjoyed being beaten did she or perhaps she was ambivalent about it or even welcomed it? How exactly did she feel about it?

Actually some of bobbledunks post is true,

I grew up with a girl who as young as 5 would stand in front of her mum to stop her violent/alcoholic father beat her , but her mum would quite happily let her take a beating for her. I have witnessed this first hand went on for years. She was a vocal lady who had no qualms about standing up to hiom on other matters so the 'terrifief victim' doesn't apply always.

Of course many women are I think also DV is often a very hidden crime and laso women are often cut off early from support networks so where would they go?

one example is that i can survive without external approval and therefore have had more freedom of choice. she cannot, therefore has not been able to have much authentic living and experience iyswim.

yep. and being treated, without evidence or reason to justify it, as a better, superior human being whose worth depends on being 'better' than others and having others put down and mistreated is not a good set up for life. it brings plenty of issues of it's own.

(and being the one badly treated can sometimes mean the luxury of actually seeing what a fucked up dysfunctional world that was rather than that blind, unquestioning following)

Oh yes, completely agree with that SaF

It's also v. difficult quite often for the "golden children" to see what was wrong with the scapegoat's childhood.

They start blabbering on about how they've all had the same childhood.

I'm always flabbergasted by how many people believe that old myth, that parents treat all their DC's the same.

Apart from anything else, if they did, they wouldn't be humans, they'd be robots.