Is abuse and neglect par for the course now?

[Frequency]

Ever since my (now adult) children started secondary school, we've had a near-constant stream of their friends staying with us or needing help due to abuse or neglect.

It started when one of dd1's friends was taken into care. She stayed in care from the age of 11 until she aged out at 18. She had a lovely foster family, but unfortunately, they moved out of the area when she was 15, and she didn't want to move with them, so she ended up in a group home and spent weekends with us (with SS permission) to get a bit of a break.

While this was ongoing, we had another of dd1's friends spending a lot of time with us because his mum had an alcohol issue and he struggled to cope with her. He ended up living with us full-time when he was 16 for around a year after his mum was evicted and failed to find another house. He left us when he found his own place at 18 but he knows he always has a bed here.

We then had one of dd2's friends always needing to stay. His sister was in care, but he was still at home with his mum. Every time she got drunk (which was frequent), she would lock him out of the home. Sometimes she would also throw his clothes/electronics onto the street, and we'd have to drive to pick him up. SS were aware but didn't remove him. He's 18 now and moved in with his older sister.

There is currently a homeless 18-year-old camped out in DD2's room, waiting for the council to rehouse her after she was evicted from her supported living flat. She can't stay with her mum because her mum keeps getting high and sending her text messages threatening to stab her to death. She did go to her mum when she was first evicted, but left after they got into a physical altercation.

They don't have a massive friendship group and also have other friends in care/at risk who haven't needed to stay with us. It feels like 50% of their friends have some level of SS involvement due to abuse or neglect.

When I was young (in the 80s), no one I knew was in care or under SS. Do my children attract an unusually high number of waifs and strays, or is this now, sadly, the norm?

We do live in an area with a high level of poverty, lack of employment opportunities, and widespread drug use, which I am sure contributes to the issue, but it still feels like parenting is a lot poorer now than it was when I grew up (in the same town with the same issues)

We do live in an area with a high level of poverty, lack of employment opportunities, and widespread drug use

I'd say that explains it.

It does to some extent, but the town has had these issues since the coal mines and shipyards closed, and abuse wasn't as prevalent when I was a kid, nor was addiction or drug use. It feels like everything is 1000% worse now than it was in the 80s/early 90s.

You likely weren’t aware of it, or it was passed off as normal to assault children via hitting etc.

Those kids you knew in horrible circumstances are now parents themselves - with no idea how to parent, trauma and damage from their parents' addictions and behaviours.

Add to that you're good people and you're going to actually be asked for help because you

a. Can actually help and
b. Aren't an external authority.

Just be aware of only giving what you can afford emotionally as well as practically.

I think that caring and empathetic people attract those in need of help and support. Your DCs sound wonderful, you should be very proud of them, and yourself. I grew up in care, and people like your family make me remember that the world can be a beautiful place. You’re making such a difference. x

^ this. Plenty of the families I knew as a child were abusive, but covered it up and hitting etc was ‘normal’

I think this is a bit a consequence of social conditions where you live and who your dc are friends with.

I definitely don’t see this with my secondary age dd. I mean, there are definitely some pretty troubled children in the school, but they aren’t people she is friends with.

That said, in secondary school in the 90s, very nice independent school (boarding), and there were a lot of wayward ones. 😂 Lots of drugs, hidden pregnancies, one friend lived in a drug den with her toddler for awhile, another friends boyfriend ran away from home and ended up being hidden at our house from his parents and the police. I think it’s very much the company you keep, including if your dc tend to be the sorts to take in the strays. I mean that in the kindest way, but some people do see out people to ‘save’.

Me, too. I'd add that your daughters and you must be people whom others feel they can trust and confide in, OP. Good for you.

Support services have really got much worse over the past 15 years, so a lot more people are falling through holes in the safety net. There may well have been as many messed-up families before; the help they could've received is no longer available.

Abuse likely was prevalent when you were a kid. The big change is less secrecy and less social acceptance of it.

My parents were incredibly abusive and neglectful. They were drug addicts and alcoholics. One of the social work files I've seen documents a meeting where the discussions were about the fact I needed 8 teeth removed (from neglect), my brother had a second broken arm in a year from a "heated argument" with my father and my other brother had rocked up to school with a black eye because of another "heated argument". I was 3. My siblings were 12 and 10. The outcome of that meeting was that my father was warned "robustly" to get his temper in check and that the social worker would check in with us once a month...

We were essentially snatched by my grandparents when I was 7 (with the help of my HT) after my brother was burned with an iron and the social worker said she'd arrange a meeting.

The concept of what constitutes abuse and neglect has widened over time but the statutory help available hasn't.

There are a lot more single parents now which excacberates stress and poverty. Communities have broken down including extended families, which would have offered more support.

Unfortunately there is a lot of this about. Those young people were lucky to know you and your family as it's so easy for them to fall through the cracks when their own families are dysfunctional messes.

You are a good person op to help those children out ♥️

I don’t have an answer but just wanted to say that I’m glad these kids have your family to turn to. You and your children sound like wonderful people.

My mum was always taking kids in... back in the 80's / 90s's. There was a lot of abuse and neglect going on.
Maybe you just weren't at the heart of it like you are now.

Single parent families rates have been pretty stable since 2001 so that's not it.

Not normal in my world, no, I have never experienced any of that with 3 (now adult) DC. We live in quite a MC bubble area.

Thanks for helping those kids in need.

I was talking about the 80s/90s in comparison to now.

In terms of not giving more than we can afford, they've all been lovely kids, all polite and quiet, and in some cases, helped out with chores. When they were younger, I cooked a lot, and stretching a meal out to feed one more mouth didn't cost a lot more, and now they are older, they have their own income via SS/work/benefits, so finances aren't an issue. We probably use more of the basics that I provide, e.g, loo roll, toiletries, gas, electric, etc, but not enough more that it is massively noticeable.

The only issue we've ever had is drunk/high mothers threatening to turn up to fight and/or stab people but as I said to dd when she was concerned in order to stab anyone they've first got to find the house (our street is very dark, delivery drivers always struggle), if they manage that they've got a locked door, a rottweiller and me to get past before they even make it to the stairs. The last line of defence is a feral cat and a demonic chihuahua, and honestly, I'd put my money on the cat and the demon dog over a drunken addict, and they've got limited time to manage this because obviously we would have called the police and drunk/high people are not known for having brilliant problem solving skills or co-ordination. I'm not worried.

I grew up in a neglectful and abusive home. Nowadays I’m sure there would be ss involvement. I can recall several times when the police were called due to dv. I think (thankfully) that ss get involved a bit more these days.

That's disgraceful. I would install a video doorbell (Eufy do a good one) for piece of mind and perhaps give out the Hollie Guard app https://hollieguard.com/ to the children being threatened if they're worried about safety.

There's also the Blue Sky DV app where they can record threats and abuse, should they need evidence and it has safety advice:
www.hestia.org/brightsky

No one has ever made it to the house, fortunately, and the latest threats have been reported to the police. The woman making the threats is known to them, and they believe it is nothing more than empty threats, but they have spoken to her, and our address has "been flagged" so they know to attend asap if we need to call them or if they get any silent calls from us.

I will mention those apps to the kids, though.

Peace of mind.

The decimation of early childhood/family services hasn't helped, nor has the demonising of people who are in genuine need of help (UC sanctions, etc.) Schools are on their knees providing services for children and families that used to be available elsewhere, while local abd national government cancel services and charge ever more for doing less and less.

There were many young people in the care system in the past. You probably just did not come across them. I remember being discouraged from mixing with “the home children”

There were also many young people in abusive home situations. Violence against women and children was the norm. Marital rape was not illegal. Women were ashamed to talk about this and many suffered behind closed doors.

In recent decades there has been a break down in those traditional family structures. Divorce, separation and single parenthood have been destigmatised.
The social benefit system has facilitated this to a degree as women and young people who are being mistreated are actually able to leave abusive situations. In the past they were pretty much stuck.

The practical result though is that many more single parents (usually women) and their children live in poverty. There are also some perverse incentives within the benefit system for some young girls (incapable of running their own lives) to have a baby in the expectation that they will be allocated independent accommodation. In the past there would have been pressure on them to place any healthy white infants for adoption with the life long issues that this created.

I think there is a lot more drug abuse than there was forty years ago mainly because of the increased availabilty of drugs. But I am not convinced that there are more abused and neglected children - probably significantly fewer.

The real issue is poverty. And an empathetic person living in an area of high social deprivation is indeed likely to attract waifs and strays. They are lucky they have you.