"Stepfathers" in the media for all the wrong reasons

[JoanThursday1972]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11937439/Mother-monster-boyfriend-guilty-death-two-year-old-girl.html#reader-comments

This story made my blood boil.

What also makes my blood boil is the reference to him being "stepfather". It's a random the woman met on Facebook, moved him in after a few DAYS and then 16 WEEKS LATER the child is dead.

I absolutely HATE the media calling these creatures stepfathers.

Yep, I'm in a ltr but kids haven't met partner, I'm happy to keep these two parts of my life separate. Not sure why people are so keen to get everyone moved in together all the time.

Sure, because no bio father ever hurt his child ...

Staying with an abusive man is just as dangerous to the child as inviting a cocklodger stepfather into their home. A marriage licence is no protection against abuse.

@shieldmaiden7

It's much rarer to hear of a bio father and bio mother who are together

She helped though. She's not blameless. It's not feminist to portray women as blank victims completely unable to do anything.

She made the choice to move a total stranger in to her home and with her child. Her stupidity and neglect allowed him to do what he did.

Absolutely. That is my point. The word Step(parent) is bandied about too freely nowadays, the media being the main culprit. It's an insult to the victims to allow these people to be called step-parents.

There was that Craig Meehan, who moved in with Karen Matthews and was called Shannon's stepfather. That creature Emma Tustin who lived with Arthur Labinjo-Hughes' father was called his stepmother. And these are a few examples only. Media, just STOP IT.

Stepmother/father is a title that has to be earned. You don't get it by chatting someone up on Facebook and moving in before you've changed your underpants.

No, a woman’s neglect is not a green light to a man to beat a child to death. It’s nothing to do with feminism, it’s to do with logic. The man made the decision to be violent. She could have been neglectful and he could have remained non violent. He choose violence

Let's ignore that you can marry a abuser and that most abuse starts at point of marriage or having a child.

In your world no one could leave a abusive relationship because they had children with a abuser.

Let's not pretend that mum and dad staying together stops abuse or death of a child. Wasn't there a women in Brighton who had all her children taken away from her and she stayed with her hubby and they both killed the new baby 😵‍💫

That said this guy wasn't a step father. Living together for one day doesn't make him one

Agree with everything you say but I think this man was living with the mother and child for several months before he killed the child.

Around 70% of children in the UK live with both of their biological parents so not sure how you reckon it's rare to hear of a biological father and biological mother living together.

Biological fathers are just as likely to be violent - 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse and the majority of the perpetrators will be male.

The problem here is male violence, lack of protections for women and children, and lack of intervention services to help women leave abusive relationships and enable them to stay out of that trap. The system failed that little girl, there should have been safeguarding interventions all over that family and there weren't.

@girlfriend44 www.theargus.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/23356791.amp/

So rare 🙄

@Eyerollcentral you know I think it's the first time me and you have every agreed 🤣

Still moving in for a few months doesn't make him a step father.

It was the same when that news of the "stepmum" who killed here DSC with their dad. She also was undeserving of the title and had know the children a v short period.

This all really upsets me tbh.

That's an issue of reporting/perception - it's declining but still typical

https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-half-of-uk-children-now-growing-up-outside-traditional-family-says-review-12686586

"Nearly half of UK children now grow up outside a traditional nuclear family, according to a major study.

"It found 44% of those born at the start of the century didn't live with both biological parents their entire childhood - a marked change from 21% for children born in 1970."

16 weeks tops.

We’re in this position with my idiot sister. Moves guy in after one week. She has a two year daughter. She’s also 3 months pregnant to the latest boyfriend who was not long before released from prison for being involved in a drive by shooting and is addicted to cocaine. Social services not interested because they are all washed and have a clean house.

This is a horrendous crime. He moved in quickly due to lockdown 2020 and the abuse started very soon after. I have no doubt this is yet another horrible outcome of the systems shutting down in March 2020. Poor little mite.

The state of the mother smoking outside the court and the killer looking 61 instead of 31

Here comes the classism… Did you have a step father/do your children have a step father?

The state of its house as well totally unfit to parent.

I won't read the the whole story, the headline is enough.

Did the mother get charged with anything?

Stop blaming women for male violence.

But the blame IS on her too!

She foolishly moved a strange man in with her 2yo girl. It beggars belief what possessed her to do that - and she ignored various risks, including the fact he was violent, she has a history of being a DV victim, his exMIL warner her about him and he refused to give her his DOB so she could do a Claire’s Law enquiry.

I am absolutely blaming this woman for not protecting her baby. FFS. Can we STOP being so busy worrying about what we call women and start realising that some women pose a huge risk to their children.

Her neglect led directly to facilitating his violence.

Why do some MNers have such a hard time believing women can be bad people?!

She neglected her child. That doesn’t mean the man is bound to kill the child. Plenty of women are neglectful mothers and their partners still don’t murder their infant children or physically abuse them. This man choose to be violent. I completely agree with you far too many women move men in far too quickly, there is at least one posting on this site every night. That doesn’t mean a man is entitled to batter a child to death. Stop letting men off the hook.

I get where you're coming from, OP: a 'stepfather' means a man who is married to a child's mother but is not the child's biological/adoptive father. It does NOT mean 'the mum's boyfriend' - whether the relationship has been going on for a day, a month, a year, whatever. To become a step parent, you marry the biological parent. Technically speaking, anyway.

I suppose there must be the occasional woman who literally marries a guy she barely knows and thus makes him a stepfather. But I'm guessing most of these evil child-murdering monsters referred to as 'stepfather' by the media aren't actually married to the mother.

I don’t think that at all. She is a dreadful mother. There are a good many children who should be given up for adoption at birth but social services have to support the parent to keep the child. The woman still is not responsible for a man beating her child to death. Only he is responsible for that.