To think that men who are violent to their children's mothers should forfeit the right to the child?

[Butamiunreasonable]

Somebody I know vaguely through somebody else has just come out of prison for savagely attacking the mother of his then-toddler daughter, not one week after being released he's playing father of the year on social media with their daughter.

(Mother is no longer with him I must add)

I'm prepared to be told I'm being unreasonable but I just don't see how any man who has it in him to attack women at all, let alone the mother of their child, can be considered a good role model or somebody worth having in a child's life.

I appreciate the family courts don't agree with my stance (unfortunately) but AIBU?

I think they should forfeit the right to unsupervised contact. Either they were violently abusive through choice or they lost control-either way, not ok to have access to a child.

I totally agree.

And hello @MrsWooster, I seem to be your aunt by marriage ..?!

I agree with you

I agree, OP
another factor is that abusive men will use contact to continue abusing the woman

Yanbu.

Yabu, because it's not about the fathers right to see the child, it's about the child's right to see the father.

We don't use children as punishment.

I dont know. For me it's about the child and I'm not sure if it's worse for a child to have no bond with one parent or to facilitate bonding with a parent that nearly murdered the other parent. I'm inclined to think the latter but I could be wrong.

Contact should always be supervised. Too many of these arseholes hurt the kid to get back at the mother, it should never be risked if hes proven himself to be violent.

Forever? I can’t get on board with that. I would support supervised contact where there has been a conviction.

Why don't the courts agree? I'm not questioning that they don't, but I'm wondering why they don't. Is it a 'best interests of the child' argument?

Oops X post

100% agree.
This is really important.
A victim can escape from a relationship with a violent man, only to realize she has to hand the children over to the bastard for unsupervised contact. It’s atrocious.
Many many abusive men make suicide threats after the victim decides to leave.
Horrendous the feeling of strapping your kids in the car for a weekend with their dad who has no self control and is suicidal to boot.

It’s not about it being used as a punishment. It’s simply about stating that the influence of a violent person in close contact with a child isn’t a good thing.

I have a no contact court order with my kids dad. He is not allowed direct or indirect contact with the children. There is no right outcome. They either see an abusive person or they don't have their father. Both are damaging

The majority of abusive men will always be abusive. It does not matter what type of abuse they use they will continue.
I left an abusive man over two decades ago and he is still doing the same things. He has not learned that I don't tolerate his abuse or his flying monkeys.

I am divorced because of DV and no I do not agree OP, children have a right to see their Father if they so wish albeit under supervision. My dd is now an adult but has a pretty good relationship with her Dad as that's what she wanted and we do not punish children for their Father's behaviour.

It depends on the individual situation.

I grew up in a home with a lot of physical domestic violence, my Dad left my Mum when I was in my early teens but the police returned my sister and I. She told SS and the police that our Dad was manipulating us to lie and pretend she had been abusive, as a result we then became the focus of her violence. My sister was eventually removed and allowed to live with my Dad, I wasn’t as SS felt a boy didn’t need as much protection from physical violence so I was trapped there until I was 16.

My sister has awful mental health, serious drug issues and all of her children have been placed in care. She is regularly physically violent, including with her own children before they were removed, one being a very small baby.

I have fairly poor (but well managed) mental health, I had an eating disorder for about seven years and I will take virtually unlimited amounts of shit off someone in a relationship. I also find it very hard not to settle problems with my fists, and regularly did in my early twenties.

If we didn’t grow up in an abusive home then it is likely that we wouldn’t have the above issues.

If a parent is violent access must be supervised until it is clear that they are safe to be around their children. All children need to feel safe, the parents feelings shouldn’t matter in the slightest.

I agree op, my ex was violent towards me, I know how easily he can lose his temper and we all know toddlers test you so I could never ever trust him to not lose his temper with ds, this is why he only has supervised contact and he's lucky to even get that.

Yanbu.

Yabu, because it's not about the fathers right to see the child, it's about the child's right to see the father.

And if the child has seen or heard the father attacking their mother, what do you suppose that contact does to them?

Its not about punishing the child for the behaviour of the father but keeping the child safe emotionally and physically

Refused to see my dad after I was seven on that basis. Saw him three times as an adult to see if he had changed. He was totally undetectable. Refused to see him on his deathbed after a request via his step-daughter.

I think it’s easy to assume that whenever women leave a perpetrator of domestic abuse/violence , it’s because the abuse was directed at the woman alone. But often (really quite often) it’s because children have reached a difficult age (new baby, toddler , teen) and the stress level in the household brings out the abuser behind the mask. A man like this may insist that the woman ‘disciplines’ or ‘punishes’ the children.
Her lack of cooperation in being complicit in the abuse of her own children is the sticking point.
Think of the man that insists the breastfed baby is ‘spoilt’ or the man that thinks his teenager should be hit to ‘teach him a lesson’.
A house with domestic violence is not always one where violence is directed at the mother.
It can be as simple as the man that smashes up the house in rage if he loses his favourite jeans, with the whole family hiding upstairs. There are numerous victims of course, it’s not simply the mother. But this stuff is rarely reported, and if it is there are very few convictions for it.
Then we just have to hand the kids over, because that wouldn’t really stand up in court as a crime worthy of supervised access only.

In the case of my OP the father got several years for a very nasty attack where the mother genuinely thought he was going to kill her.

As both a mother and somebody who has been subject to DV (pre children) I can't imagine the anguish she must feel handing over the most precious thing in her life to somebody she knows is capable of suxh depravity.

I'm not sure if the contact is supervised but I'm assuming so.

Either way I find it gut wrenching.

I really do feel for mothers who are forced to comply with court ordered contact when there is a history of abuse

Horrendous

I'd agree that the basic premise of this is wrong. No parent has a right to see their child.