How deprived do you have to be to move in a man into your home a day of ‘knowing’ him on Facebook? *[Content warning: concerns child abuse]

My read of the article is that James was extremely damaged and probably has a low IQ. The fact that authorities had had to tell her not to move adults into her home says a lot. I’m not absolving her at all though.

I also fail to understand the friend not making a police report and social services making a “multi-agency” referral but nothing happening?

The “partner” is an absolute monster. His mother must be so ashamed. She should also have called the police and ambulance 30 minutes before she did.

Does anyone think that the MN hive mind needs to take this into account when saying "LTB"? I've seen LTB over all sorts of things which are potentially fixable. I don't mean abuse or cheating, I mean the partner, for instance, not pulling his weight domestically.

Every time you say LTB for a relationship involving biological children that is not abusive (including obviously to the children), you increase the chance that the poster's children will be abused by a step father. Food for thought?

Or if you are going to say LTB, make it clear that implicit in that is that you should remain single until your children are adults once you've done it.

That's an extreme example, but on any given day, right here on Mumsnet, you can find an absolute shitshow of abysmal choices in relationship, conception, and parenting. We need to licence for parenthood.

Does anyone think that the MN hive mind needs to take this into account when saying "LTB"? I've seen LTB over all sorts of things which are potentially fixable. I don't mean abuse or cheating, I mean the partner, for instance, not pulling his weight domestically.

Every time you say LTB for a relationship involving biological children that is not abusive (including obviously to the children), you increase the chance that the poster's children will be abused by a step father. Food for thought?

Or if you are going to say LTB, make it clear that implicit in that is that you should remain single until your children are adults once you've done it.

I agree. Sick of reading thread after thread of women in awful relationships who then throw in at the end 'and I'm heavily pregnant'. Usually with a second or third. But they are validated on here so there's no reason for them to expect more for themselves, let alone their poor children, who didn't choose any of this

Does anyone think that the MN hive mind needs to take this into account when saying "LTB"? I've seen LTB over all sorts of things which are potentially fixable. I don't mean abuse or cheating, I mean the partner, for instance, not pulling his weight domestically.

Every time you say LTB for a relationship involving biological children that is not abusive (including obviously to the children), you increase the chance that the poster's children will be abused by a step father. Food for thought?

Or if you are going to say LTB, make it clear that implicit in that is that you should remain single until your children are adults once you've done it.

I’m a mother of adult children in their twenties. I was left by their father when I was pregnant with the youngest. I was very young when I had them (20 with the youngest) When I was a young mum I also used to be one of these mums that was quick to move in with a new partner. I wouldn’t say I was prioritising my genitals or worshipping men particularly I just honestly felt I couldn’t cope alone as a single parent (I had no family support at all as I was also born to a young single mother who had issues) she was only 39 when I made her a grandmother. Anyway as the kids got older I stopped the behaviour. I’ve been happily single for years now, I’m really not even genuinely interested in dating men per se (and probably never was) I was just desperate and vulnerable and couldn’t see any other way of creating additional adult support into my situation. I felt the only option was to try and engineer a nuclear family. Needless to say because of my desperation and hidden motives and because the men involved had their own interests at heart that weren’t aligned with mine, these partnerships would fall flat. I did try groups and socialising but the friends I made tended to be other working class young mums who although sympathetic and friendly weren’t able to provide any practical support as they had enough on their own plates. I realise this was all terrible judgement on my part. I look back and shudder. My kids remember this, they do judge for me it and rightly so. I wouldn’t make these choices with the maturity and wisdom I have now I would exhaust every other possible avenue. Actually with the maturity I have now I wouldn’t think becoming a young mum with no life skills or experience or anything to offer children was a particularly good idea but hindsight is 20 20 :( I was muddling through with my mistakes. In my mid twenties I had absolute clarity that I had become a parent prematurely and had been Ill equip for the role, I went on long term contraception and never had any more children. I had my iud removed in the last few years because I wasn’t sexually active anyway and it was causing issues. I’m peri menopausal now. I feel sad and guilty about my past but I also realise I would do better if I knew better. My mum also followed a similar relationship pattern when I was young, she married my “step father” when I was 3 months old. Nobody called me out at the time either. I’m not justifying any of this rather offering an alternative viewpoint of why some vulnerable single mothers cling to men and move them in quickly apart from the obvious purely selfish reasons. I also don’t know how unusual my younger self (as in the admittedly shockingly misguided reasons for wanting to move a partner in) was/is today

You see this narrative in true life stories in Take a Break and the like all the time. “Our eyes met over the frozen chips in Tesco and within a week he’d moved in”.

I remember Baby P Tracey Connolly not only had her bf move in but his brother his 16 year old gf and his children. She walked in on his brother raping her 2 year old and just shut the door. I’m afraid it is a race to the bottom I had to work for the dwp in lockdown there is no proper support no decent housing there is a complete underclass that just exist in squalor and deprivation. No aspirations no education that any amount of support will fix the children suffer but grow up to repeat the pattern. The social workers that I have met in my previous time as a fosterer are inept at best

I come from a family with generational trauma and MH issues. Also from a very deprived area like Lola on this story.

My mum was low IQ, had personality disorders and was incapable of having a job, only left the house to do a food shop. She had 6 kids when she was aged 16 - 35. She was incapable of making sound decisions to better her life. All hope and fight had gone from here after years of domestic abuse from her first husband and crushing poverty with a mentally ill mother (my grandmother). Her only saving grace was not having a partner after the relationship with my dad broke down. He was an absent father after the split.

Half my siblings have gone on to continue the cycle. Ones been in and out of jail with kids by multiple women, another has severe learning disabilities with kids with two women, with the older children being shoved in Foster care due to "not getting on with a step dad". Not as bad as beaten and murdered children but I know for a fact that both of them carried out sexual abuse in their teen years. It wouldn't surprise me if they were abused themselves as kids (they're much older than me but I know they were beaten which luckily I never was).

The other half of us look functioning in society but all have the scars of our chaotic upbringing.
I can't tell you why half of us turned out "OK" and the other half didn't. I count myself very lucky that I have above average intelligence and never fell in with a bad crowd. Why is half my family capable of making sound decisions and the other half isn't? I'll never know.

I won't have kids and I feel strongly that not everyone deserves to be parents. However forced sterilisation is bordering on eugenics and is impractical. I find it a cruel irony of biology that almost anyone can have sex and give birth to a child but not everyone is granted the mental capacity to raise children well. I wish I knew the answer to prevent cases like Lola's.

Until you work in health, social care or education you have no idea the scale of this problem.

It's easy to assume that most people live like you. Do the best for their children and families and have similar values, with a few outliers.

Unfortunately the more time I spend around people the more I see the way so many families live. Despite sitting through safeguarding training every day it's heartbreaking to know how many children you come into contact with "do not meet the threshold" because the system is overwhelmed.

If you knew how much time your child's head teacher spends in child in need meetings and how many times a day they have to rearrange their diaries because of urgent child protection conferences it would make your hair curl.

I really don't know what the answer is, but far too many children are being raised in abusive, neglectful and trauma filled homes and there is an absolute epidemic of domestic violence. It's horrific.