To feel a bit sorry for women who cannot protect their own children ?

[notmeagain0]

Don't get me wrong I could never let my children come to any harm but after watching moorside I can't help feel a bit sorry for Karen. She obviously should have protected poor Shannon but I think women like this can be so brainwashed by their boyfriends/ husbands and end up thinking what they are doing is ok. I obviously have no sympathy for the person who commits any crime to a child so don't want this post to appear that I do, just the mother who has been forced into it all

I do feel pity for them but I think id rather feel sorry for the child who does not have a mother that can protect them.

I see your sentiment though and I half agree. I expect you're going to get many others coming along saying Karen Matthews was vile and evil and deserved everything she got.

I understand your point but wasn't Karen Mathews very much involved in the abuse / neglect? I don't think it's that she couldn't protect her kids but that she chose not to. I'm happy to be corrected however as I am in no way an expert.

You don't need aY chromosome to be a cunt

There is no evidence to say that Matthews was coerced unless I missed something. Her lack of emotion when Shannon was found after not seeing her for 3 weeks speaks volumes.

No sympathy for women who allow their DC to be abused at all in response to your OP.

^ what she said
No I don't feel sorry for them, pending truly exceptional circumstances where there are miraculously no red flags whatsoever.
There are always other options than letting your child be abused.

Ok Karen was a bad example but it was watching moorside which made me think this. Of course I feel a million times more sadness for the child!

It's not a case of can not. It's a case of choose not to. Most people know right from wrong. They may be in difficult circumstances, circumstances where it would be scary to seek help, but as mother that is your duty.
Inevitably the women have been through hard times, and that's sad. But the children had no choice in their circumstances and no power to protect themselves.
I know what you mean - the women need support too, and it is sad they are in that position, but I'm fairly sure if they seek help they will be offered support as well as their children.

Uh-huh. You couldn't even say she wanted to protect her children. She was instrumental in their abuse.

Sorry but becoming a mother doesn't make you some sort of saint.

Some women are abusive, but it seems there are those that would forgive them or have sympathy for them just by virtue of them being a mother.

I absolutely agree not all mothers are innocent

Karen neglected and abused her kids for years. They needed protection from her as well as her poor choice in boyfriends. She is not the victim. I would get this thread deleted it's very badly phrased. She was behind the kidnap. The things her kids experienced were horrible, you do know Shannon was drugged for 20 months?

I haven't watched it, so don't know if she was coerced, but how do you know it wasn't the other way around - perhaps she coerced him to become involved? Men can be coerced by women as well as women by men, you know.

She was not coerced.

I feel very frustrated with these women. I have sympathy to a certain degree because they are damaged themselves but to keep making the same mistakes over and over and going back to the same abuser or type of man knowing the risk to themselves and their children is just selfish. I admit my view is coloured by my sister getting back together this week with the man who locked her teeth out and stamped on her while she was on the floor. Yes she might think she loves him but her children hate him and don't want him on the house. It's so unfair on the kids. She's free to make whatever choices she likes but her kids are suffering and she doesn't care.

I think it might be better to say that someone with such low iq was always going to need a lot more support.

Her children suffered terribly and Karen herself had a terrible life and had very low levels of empathy.

Anyone bandying round 'evil' is just an idiot

OP would you have sympathy if it was the father rather than the mother if he had done what Karen did?

She is scum, no sympathy whatsoever

She neglected her child, went on tv for pity and money and lied to her friends and family, no matter what your going through nothing is bad enough to make you do that. I have no pity for anyone who could do something like that. All the children who go missing and hardly get any publicity or mention and there is people like that in the world who are wasting peoples time that could of been used on genuine cases. Disgusting.

Shannon experienced horrendous abuse for at least 20 months, if not longer. Her mother knew and actually was active in abusing her. I do have some sympathy for some mothers - but not Karen Matthews or her ilk.

I do have sympathy for women who are in abusive relationships and are powerless to stop their partner/husband abusing the children. I've worked with victims of dv, who have tried but failed, and I feel every sympathy for them, including women who have given up their children for adoption rather than have them grow up in an abusive household. Of course, I feel even sorrier for the kids, but I do feel sorry for women who have been brainwashed and abused so much that they stay in abusive relationships, at the detriment to their child.

The women I cannot feel sorry for are women like Karen Matthews, Tracey Connelly or any other woman who actively abuses her child. Being too scared to stop the abuse is bad enough, and is one thing - to actively abuse your child is another.

Some people seem to think any time a woman does something wrong a man must be to blame somewhere. They don't seem to like the fact that being a horrid person isn't gender specific

Being too scared to stop the abuse is bad enough, and is one thing - to actively abuse your child is another.

Totally this^

Not much no. I reserve my sympathy for the children. I despair of the wider issue of someone who has been abused by men in the past, and has no skills to gain any real independence of her own, and is a crap role-model to those same children...

Some people seem to think any time a woman does something wrong a man must be to blame somewhere. They don't seem to like the fact that being a horrid person isn't gender specific

^ this

No. The children were abused and neglected for many years, they were on and off the "at risk" list and three of them weren't living with her. Many, many people with little money or education do well by their kids, love them and take care of them Besides, she was not poor in any real sense; it was a house with TVs and laptops, she never worked, but she could afford to smoke and drink while not feeding her kids. And before I get accused of being a mumsnet pearl clutcher, I've been a single mother myself and grew up in a working-class neighbourhood. It's a terrible thing to expect so little from people.

Yes I'd feel sorry for a woman who was truly powerless when it came to being able to protect their children, but honestly I wouldn't say that Karen Matthews wasn't one of them.
She had many, many opportunities to protect not only Shannon, but her other children. Around the time of it all coming out, wasn't it in the papers that she had social services involved because she was neglectful? Also, I'm fairly certain that I read Shannon had been drugged in the months before her abduction.
I just don't feel that Karen is deserving of much sympathy. any sympathy felt about the situation is in my belief to be solely for her children. The most basic expectation from a child is to have a mother who will care for and protect them from the evils of this world.