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

though sometimes it helps to really look at the outcomes of the varying treatments. my sister and i were treated very differently and in the short term, immediate who was loved more, who was the winner, the favourite, the praised etc it was definitely my sister. but in the long term the way my sister was treated has effected her too, as it has me. both were dysfunctional and have had consequences. looking at the long ranging effects i would choose mine over hers i think - though maybe that's the 'better the devil you know' instinct.

the reality is even if they were the ones who were treated better relatively they still grew up in a fucked up dysfunctional world.

I think it must be much harder to come to terms with abuse when you can see that it was actually possible for your mother to function as a mother, with your other siblings.

With us, none of us got any proper mothering. All of us were abused, all of us emotionally neglected and deprived. My mother couldn't function as a mother to any of her children, unlike some mothers (like your's jasmine) who appear to be able to be motherly at least to some extent with at least one of their children. It's kind of easier to assume that she couldn't, rather than chose not to, if you see that all of you got the same abuse. Selective abuse is much harder to grapple with though.

And to add insult to injury, she blames me for our terrible relationship. Apparently I was difficult for her to talk to. What a b*tch. She's not a mother. She's a witch.

My mother was abused by her brother of 15 years senior. He used to throw her down the stairs. My mother was obsessed by my father and needed him to ,love her more than he loved us, so him hitting us suited her. She was still a victim though, still is.

Ohh. The [ key is next to the p key. Live and learn.

It's all very individual. My mother did not grow up in an abusive family. She was the pampered youngest child so perhaps never grew up or learned to stand on her own two feet. She was also a migrant to this country, but was well educated, a teacher in fact.

I know my mother well enough to know she did nothing to protect me because she was weak and scared. But if she was scared, I was petrified of my dad and have PTSD to this day.

My mother lacked the mothering instinct, the protective instinct, when it came to me anyway. She seemed to find it when it came to my sisters. She simply did not care about me and never bothered to pretend that she did.

I blame her for doing nothing to protect me. She could easily have asked her brothers for help. She has 3 lovely older brothers who would have helped in a heartbeat. But she was too weak, scared and stupid. And for that I have paid the price, through no fault of my own. And she takes no responsibility for her failures which is what gets me the most. She thinks she was a wonderful parent. She blames everything on my dad. She's a pathetic woman who didn't deserve to have me.

I agree about the weariness factor, and the irritation with the inability of others to see what you are saying, or that you know what you are talking about.
Which is why I sometimes don't contribute on Blue Badge threads, or Aggressive SN child should be excluded rants. Or other subjects I have personal experience of that can get me riled when discussed by the ignorant and uninformed and judgemental.
In my calmer moments, I realise that by knowing what I'm facing, I can make a better argument against their opinions, or sometimes that I can recognise a point or a concept that I hadn't thought of.
Which if I disregarded all comments I disapproved of, wouldn't ha[[en.

No I'm not.

Occasionally, it does get a bit wearing though.

'You know what, I am totally and completely ignorant of the basics of astro-physics.

So I don't post long perorations on the subject.

I wish people would follow a similar course when they know sweet Fanny Adams about DV. (And rape and breastfeeding and ooh, such a long list of subjects totally oblivious people feel the urge to talk about.)'

Lack of understanding of astrophysics doesn't have the same impact on my job as DV and the fallout Basil.
Are you saying that only those in the know, with direct experience should ever discuss certain subjects or ask questions?
Like all the stupid questions and assumptions that so many on here make about SN, disabilities and related issues that they feel affect them in RL situations?
Bit totalitarian and restrictive for me as a viewpoint.

I don't get this moral distinction between "weak" women and "strong" women.

My mother wasn't ground down by my father, she has already been ground down by her mother and father and the society within which they had their marriage. Violence and alcoholism were a normal part of life to her, you just expected that from marriage and you hoped that your husband wouldn't be into that, but if he were, then you just had to put up with it.

I don't blame her for putting up with the abuse; she was surrounded by a society which told her that abuse was normal. I also don't particularly blame her for being abusive herself; I used to, but I now realise that she actually didn't know how not to be, and still doesn't. Her childhood and marriage, which didn't take part in a vacuum, but in the context of a woman-hating catholic society, damaged her so much, that it's kind of pointless to blame her. Maybe that's wrong because it means that I don't expect her to take any responsibility for her actions or life, but I know that expecting her to do so, would be like expecting a cat to bark and then being annoyed that it didn't, because it's not a dog, it's a cat and it can't bark, it can only miaow.

That doesn't mean that I forgive her or absolve her; she was violent, unloving and she damaged all her children in some way or another and I long ago gave up expecting her to function as a mother and I don't love her. But I honestly believe that it is incredibly unrealistic to think she should have realised that her childhood had damaged her and she needed to seek help. When she became a wife and mother, the first refuge had not been set up, DV was still not talked aobut, the long term impact of an abusive childhood was not understood as well as it is now. Added to which, to be absolutely frank, she's not that bright. It is hard enough for intelligent, educated, capable people to realise they need help, for someone who is semi-literate, filled with shit about the saints and the possibility of hell if you do wrong, surrounded by a culture which told her that her upbringing was normal (added to which, she was an economic migrant so any differences she did notice with other women's marriages, she could put down to them being English, therefore doing things differently), is completely and totally unreasonable. Was she weak? Yes I suppose she was, but FGS in a society which educated her to be "weak", should I really expect her to have been strong?

I'm not saying that people who have been brought up in abusive childhoods have a get out clause on finding out how not to be abusive; just that in my mother's case, I suppose I've accepted that the odds were so loaded against her, that she didn't really have a snowball's chance in hell. I feel sorry for her more than anything, sad that she has never been able to experience what real joy in life is and what love is and that she has no insight whatsoever as to why all her children keep her at arm's length because we don't love her.

Well I totally blame my mother for doing NOTHING to stop the abuse. At least your mother has the decency and courage to face up to how badly she let you down as your parent. My mother thinks she was a wonderful parent. It hasn't even occurred to her that it was her job to protect me from being hurt as a child. She blames my dad completely and so conveniently absolves herself of any parental responsibility towards me. My mother is a weak, pathetic excuse for a mother. She was always weak, she wasn't gradually ground down by my dad over the years. She was weak to begin with. A strong woman can be ground down but will sooner or later find the strength to leave. A weak woman never will. And so my mother is still with my dad. I despise her completely and will never forgive her for the way she failed me so completely

Well as a victim of DV I don't get it either and I do blame my mother more than my father. This was my first calling to feminism, when dittany pointed out my terrible thinking.

the vast majority are being abused themselves they have slowly been worn down and live in fear. this happened to my mum and 20 years after leaving him she still fears my stepdad if you meet her you would think she is a strong independent women in many ways she is but got caught up in an extremely abusive cruel relationship it was not just about violence it was emotional abuse too which he also used on my grandparents

she had real reason to believe that he would kill both of us if she left him, he showed that he was capable many times we both have the scars to show that

for all those that want to blame the women remember my mum she is a broken woman she will never get over the guilt of what happened to me and how our lives were torn apart, how she lost her daughter and i lost my childhood and the effect it had on all our family but the blame lies with one person and that is him, he choose to abuse. and sadly there are thousands of women like her they need support not to be put down do you not think they ask themselves everyday how this could have happened

Hmm. If I can fit it in in between mumsnetting...

You know what, I am totally and completely ignorant of the basics of astro-physics.

So I don't post long perorations on the subject.

I wish people would follow a similar course when they know sweet Fanny Adams about DV. (And rape and breastfeeding and ooh, such a long list of subjects totally oblivious people feel the urge to talk about.)

I feel offended by your post, bobbledunk, on behalf of women in my family. While my mother's choices harmed me very much, she didn't make them out of malice. It's a kind of ignorance - a blindness - that has been quite well described in previous posts about the 'childlike' nature of some people (often women), about the cycle of violence and about Stockholm Syndrome. I have sisters and cousins who share this blindness and have allowed their children to be hit. They love their children.

If the human psyche were a matter of polarised Good and Bad, life would be a lot simpler. But it isn't. Pretending things are that straightforward will do nothing at all to resolve this ongoing problem. Understanding it - and blaming the violators rather than the victims - may help, if not for this generation then the next.

Any woman who says she loves the man who harms her child is a perpetrator - This is true. She is also a victim.

There is a huge difference between a terrified, vulnerable woman who genuinely can't get help because it isn't there or they don't know how, that sadly does happen, particularly with immigrants who may not speak the language or understand the legal system and are economically dependent on their abusers.

I don't believe that the majority of women in violent relationships are terrorised victims, while I have the greatest sympathy for those that are, the majority that I come across just love aggressive men and love the drama of violence. They are violent people themselves and generally speaking are just as sociopathic and manipulative as the men they are attracted to. They care more for their relationships than they do for their children.

I stopped a couple of friendships when I realised that they were never going to change, that their toxic behaviour would exist even without their violent partners because even if the violent partner left, he would soon be replaced by an equally vile individual. These women seemed to thrive on the drama of their 'bad boys' and any nice man would be rejected.

It is pure fallacy that women are so pathetic and stupid that we are incapable of evil and any bad behaviour must be evidence of victimhood. Women are just as capable of being sadistic, immoral, cruel, selfish and evil as men and people with those qualities are generally attracted to each other.

There are of course innocent women who genuinely fall victim to the charms of evil men, before they know who they are with they are trapped in fear and I think this obsession with labelling all women as victims and all violent relationships as non consensual, doesn't help those who really do suffer through no fault of their own.

Any woman who says she loves the man who harms her child is a perpetrator of violence and absolutely not a victim.

I know for a fact that since I had my baby I am more than capable of murder, nothing would stop me from protecting my child and I would kill or die to protect her. There would be hell to pay for anybody who tried to harm her. That instinct is what these women lack, they don't care because they don't love.

Vicar, my sisters are still in denial about it all. I don't see them anymore. But I've no doubt they are subconsciously repeating the patterns of our childhood.

I think the process of enlightenment and insight is evolutionary. Maybe your brothers' child and my sisters' children will be the one's to break the abusive cycle if our siblings do not evolve and develop insight themselves.

Neither you nor I can save the world. But we can save our DC's from our own experiences. And hopefully they in turn will have a positive influence on the people they touch in their lives, and so on.

But you are also helping in a positive way in your professional capacity which is brilliant, well done you. I'm not able to work right now (ill health, legacy of childhood abuse), but once I'm better I want to work for Refuge as a lawyer. (I'm a lawyer by profession).

me too jasmine. sadly, my half brother hasnt managed it though, and i think he continues to have problems with a dysfunctional relationship and sadly he has a child - i cannot be responsible for him though, and we are not in contact. He is not violent, as far as im aware (??) but his drug/alcohol addiction issues along with his ex wifes similar issues dont bode well for a happy ending for his child. I have no idea what the answer is.
My children dont really know much about my background, and have such a normal life - DS is going to uni soon and DD is a typical bright and beautiful teenage girl.

i am proud of that. I have come to accept that i cannot save the world.

Thanks garlic. If we all do our bit to ensure our DC's grow up emotionally healthy and strong I do believe the ripple effect will create a big change.

:) Good stuff, jasmine. That's something to be very proud of.

I agree that realistically to prevent DV in the first place would literally need a magic wand. Because the amount of money forthcoming from public funds is never going to be enough even if there was a will to take it seriously.

I have made a change though. I have broken the legacy of abuse in my family. And I am absolutely determined that my DC's will grow up with healthy self esteem, confidence, empathy, and appropriate boundaries. They will not become abusers or victims. I will educate them so they grow up having far too much knowledge to ever become either.