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

Um, I'm not trying to make a black and white polemic.

I'm pointing out that there is one (or two, in fact) that always go along with this argument:

Q: Why do women allow their children to be abused?

A1: Because abused women are too frightened to leave.

A2: Because they are selfish and letting their children down.

Every answer on the thread is saying pretty much one or the other.

My point is that either can be true, depending on the situation.

I'm not sure what is "black and white" about that. If not all women whose children are abused and fail to act are victims of abuse, the answer A1 is not sufficient.

Answer A2 has all sorts of other assumptions, misogynist and otherwise, that are worth unpacking - what part does culture play? to what extent are all women victims of patriarchal culture? is it reasonable to assume some level of abuse in any parent who doesn't protect their children? when should our responsibilities to protect our children override our learnt responses? Is there a greater burden placed on women to protect children than on men? how does that play itself out in society?

If that sounds like a black and white polemic to you, then ignore me.

The "man" is of course hateful...but he was what he was...I waste no time hating someone who is that damaged...he is formed and nothing will change him now....she on the other hand...as a Mother your job is plain and simple and she failed him. I would hate a Father more than his girlfriend if he allowed his child to be abused.

No swallowed I cannot. The woman was his Mum...his flesh and blood. He called her Mum and the man by name. Her job is/was to protect her child....why is she not more to blame than ANYONE?? She let this prick into his little life. He was hateful...damaged whatever...so why let him in?? She failed at the one thing she was meant to do and which could have stopped the damage.

I think the vilification thing is because we can't imagine abusing a child, but we can imagine the instinct to protect.
We put ourselves in the looker-on's shoes rather than the perpretrators'. It's outside our frame of reference.

but chas surely you can see the injustice of that - that you hated her more than the man actually doing it?

athinginyourlife - you seem to be making out that every point or factor that people say should be considered is being proposed as the truth for every woman or relationship which it is not. no one has argued that way - they have said that it is complicated and there are a lot of factors to be considered in why people behave in ways we can't ourselves imagine doing etc. i'm not sure why you keep trying to make a black and white polemic out of what is clearly a very complicated spectrum of factors.

i don't think either that anyone has talked about these reasons or complexities making anyone blameless.

Maresedotes-signed it too

Thanks Maresedotes - signed it :)

I saw a woman and her partner at a bus stop once. She and her partner were white and she had an older (7) mixed race son...and a white baby girl. The "man" was goading the little boy...pushing him lightly and repeatedly n the shoulder and putting him down for some infraction.

The "woman" just sat there looking gormless while her lovely little boy got more and more bullied and his little face has SUCH a look of hatred that I was devestated, I was young myself then....too young to say anything...but I wish I had...I wish I had. I hated that woman more than the man....for sitting there and watching her son get bullied llike that.

Thumbwitch - here's the campaign - www.redonline.co.uk/savealife

Dooin My mum used to say that the bruises would fade but the words would stay with her forever.I understand what she was saying, but as children both the words and the violence towards my mum have had long lasting affects on us.
Our neighbours heard the abuse too no-one called anyone or did anything.

SAF - you said "you also have to look at the advice that gets doled out here to women being treated badly and very unhappy in their marriages where everyone piles on to say that marriage takes work you don't just throw in the towel and they should train their man, change themselves, put up with it etc because god forbid they don't want to end up a single mum."

I don't know which threads you've been reading but the ones I've seen usually only have a very minor percentage of posters saying anything like that! If anything, MNers are usually criticised for the exact opposite - being "too quick" to say "leave the bastard".

I've posted this before but I'll post again. I know a woman who beaten by her husband, we suspect she was also prostitued by him. He emotionally and occassionally physically abused the children (never sexually).

She stayed because he told her if she left he would hunt her down and murder her and her children, if he could not find her he would kill her brother and elderly father. If she got him arrested he would get someone else to do it for him. She believed him.

The abuse stopped when his children grew up enough to fight back.

She's still with him. As a coping mechanisim she seems to have justified the abuse in her head and convinced herself it was not that bad because he also did x, y and z and wasn't bad all the time.

The mind games are worse and cause far more damage than the actual abuse. I don't know what the answer is or we can help these woman. I do know that in this case someone must have heard the abuse going on through the walls and no-one stepped in to help/called the police.

Sorry, just seen your post re society blaming women for not having relationships, having a "proper" family. I agree.

Does living in a society that stigmatises women for not being in/staying in relationships mean women are blameless if they prioritise the relationship over their child's safety?

I can see that it explains why they might, and offers some useful understanding for general situations, but I struggle with the idea that women have no responsibility to look out for their children's safety because of society.

It's a culture that fetishises women's caring role fir their children as much as it demands they always have a man around.

About the only "valid" reason for leaving is abuse (violence only).

I'm not sure you can put the blame for women staying entirely on a culture that valourises women who protect their children from violent men.

Even if you understand why some women privilege a relationship with a man over their children's safety, I don't think you can excuse it at the individual level.

Either women are full people, capable of making their own moral decisions (excluding victims of serious domestic abuse) or they are not.

The culture argument also excuses men who grew up in a society that condones male violence and control of women.

But SGM there are some women who aren't too frightened to leave, they just don't want to. They put having a relationship above the health and happiness of their DC.

The needs of the mother should not condone the continuing abuse of her children, and yes, both are victims.

I'm not denying that SGM, but the children should be taken out of the equation, even if the mother might need them to be with her. Their need to be emotionally and physically safe, or even alive should not be considered less important than keeping a mother with her children.

Isn't it similar to the other thread I see occasionally on here - who would you choose? Your dcs or your partner? Quite a few people say they would choose their partner over their dcs. I'm always when I read those comments as, at least imho, my child would always come first over any relationship I had with anyone else.

swallowed it was 20 years ago and the police showed no interest.
I would laugh if it wasn't so ridiculous, but dad stayed in a B&B, he dropped his dirty washing off in the porch in the morning and mum would wash and iron it for him to pick up from the porch in the evening!
You are right, if he had done that to any other person he would have been charged, but hey, it was only my mum, a domestic.

stickaforkin - see i find it shocking that your dad was free to move anywhere 4 days after having poured boiling water over another human being - he should have been in prison.

and we do have to consider that too - that if a man on the street beat a woman and child he would be in serious trouble but it gets treated differently still if it happens within the home or effectively if it was 'his' woman and

we need to lock these arseholes up and get through to them that society will not accept violence whether it is against a police officer or your wife .

i do think we have to consider the culture women are raised in that implies your success is marked by whether you keep the family together, whether you have a man, etc. obviously that really influences a lot of women. many, many women on here put their partners and marriage before their children in different ways. the women who send small children to boarding school for example so they can stay with their military husbands are choosing to be with their man rather than their children. i've heard them too make the point that their children won't always be there, their marriage will if they look after it.

you also have to look at the advice that gets doled out here to women being treated badly and very unhappy in their marriages where everyone piles on to say that marriage takes work you don't just throw in the towel and they should train their man, change themselves, put up with it etc because god forbid they don't want to end up a single mum.

then look at the way society as a whole treats and regards single parents and the obstacles that are put in their path to being able to be functioning members of society with access to a good quality of living.

no, personally these things wouldn't stop me putting my son and myself first, but obviously they do for a lot of women re: those who put up with serial adultery, their husbands repeatedly frequenting websites for nsa sex, their husbands doing nothing for the children or the home and treating them like an unpaid slave. it's all a continuum isn't it?

stick it's HPTUser, btw! :)