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]

In the entirety of human history nobody has found a way to stop men being violent.

I'd love to live in that utopia but it's not going to happen anytime soon and I don't think we should leave tens of thousands of children in abusive homes while we try to figure out how to change that.

I agree @Nepmarthiturn it just makes me so angry that women are held accountable for mens actions all the time.

But I also don’t understand women letting men they barely know around their kids. It’s such a common theme. Even among some of my friends. Sensible, professional women in their late thirties who are on the whole really excellent mothers. Yet see nothing wrong with moving a man in within a couple of months and leaving him to baby sit etc. It’s very strange to me.

It's obvious that social services remove some children too quicky while failing to remove other children that really need it.

I think sometimes we don't understand what a difficult job child protection is.

It's very hard to know sometimes what the best course of action is.

It's easy for us to judge as people who aren't social workers.

Upthread someone suggested that the child should have been removed the first time she moved a violent man in.

But that's not how it works. Women are given chances to split from violent partners. And many women successfully manage to leave abusive relationships and put their children first.

I think some single mothers feel that they failed their children by being a single mother and are desperately trying to provide them a father figure.

So much money is wasted. Yes lots on defence and stuff like HS2, also eye-watering amounts on absurd nonsense projects which are never going to achieve anything. "Levelling up funds" consisted of Councils bidding for money for ridiculous projects like making roundabouts look prettier or whatever. So much money wasted in healthcare by inefficient procurement, useless IT, layers of management and duplication. In education there is also huge duplication in workload across schools all teaching the same National Curriculum yet planning things separately, trying to reinvent the wheel. Pensions in the UK are a ponzi scheme and would not be a drain on tax revenues had they been set up as funded schemes properly from the start and would also then not cause problems when there are demographic shifts. That issue has been known about for decades but nothing done about it. Brexit is costing around £50bn per year in tax revenue now, that would fund children's services very well: that's nearly the entire state education budget. The whole of North Sea oil revenue was wasted instead of invested like Norway did. We waste money on pointless means testing in the tax system which has been shown to cost more than it saves and actively harm productivity by discouraging people from working more by imposing insane bottlenecks of sky high effective tax rates at certain earnings thresholds. We are a country surrounded by coastline yet import hydro power from Norway. I could go on, but anybody saying that the only way to fund protecting vulnerable children in the UK is to raise taxes even more is having a laugh. The problem is complete mismanagement of the economy and vast, vast sums of money being wasted and Government policies actively preventing productivity growth.

And quite frankly, protecting two year olds from people who may batter them to death should be top of the list of spending priorities.

It's horrific and utterly irresponsible. I am also baffled by it. I am a lone parent and would not dream of letting an unrelated man near my children. I think this really needs to become a complete taboo.

It used to be taboo because it was often said a man interested in a lone mother was truly interested in her children; let's remember that many men are not keen even on their own children to judge from this site.

The idea of a man you barely know as a father figure is crazy. A mother with any kind of sanity will know the risk.

Harringay council knew that baby ps siblings had been sexually and physically abused but refused to take them into care as there were 6/7 of them and at £3k per week per child it was seen as too costly.
This was 16 years ago the social worker who whistle blew was subsequently investigated for unfounded child neglect - a common occurrence - social services will deflect onto a whistle blower which I wouldn’t believe had it not happened to me and a foster placement

@Parsley1234

There were 4 children I thought?

@Merryoldgoat i think there were more but I could be wrong

@Merryoldgoat 4 children plus 3 of Jason owens too n mb any sbd in the safe guarding fact find it said the social worker did get best but the managers we too keen to accept unacceptable standards

@Parsley1234

I’ve found the story. The whistleblower didn’t cite the Baby P case but a different case with 6 children (plus others).

It’s a fucking travesty.

My MIL was a child protection social worker and consistently was challenged for wanting to start proceedings. She felt the threshold for intervention was way way too high.

She has rarely talked about her work. She found it harrowing at times.

I read she had learned at that point not to cry as no one ever came.

@Nepmarthiturn “And quite frankly, protecting two year olds from people who may batter them to death should be top of the list of spending priorities”

or much, much better education and intervention at an earlier stage to prevent them being born in the first place.

You are still twisting what I am saying. I am not talking about people like Lola's mother. Or the man who killed her. I am inclined to agree they are far beyond help, and were years before this happened. And more should have been done to protect Lola.

But lack of skills, lack of opportunity, lack of normal emotional development, inability to cope with their feelings, not having coping mechanisms, lack of resources, lack of education, drugs, untreated mental illness, below average intelligence these things all contribute to the likelihood of someone not being able to cope as a parent (DISCLAIMER!! I'm not saying everyone in those situations become bad parents). That can result in neglect, emotional abuse or even physical violence/ abuse. If you improve or remove those factors, the likelihood of at least some of those people become awful parents is be reduced. You are helping them before they can become bad parents and abuse their children- so they are not bad parents yet and the children never get abused in the first place so need removal. (and i've already noted that some people are just fucking monsters and nothing can help them, which is why of course you also see abuse from people who don't have any of those risk factors)

It's common sense re prevention, not just "cure". I suspect this would be much more efficient and lead to much better outcomes than going around taking away children once they have already been abused to some extent. For the children, for the parents and for the state.

@TwoManyKids , heartbreakingly , I read that as well , she didn’t cry , because she had been left alone before, and she knew no one would come .

"it just makes me so angry that women are held accountable for mens actions all the time."

She's not being held accoutnable for his actions. She's been held accountable for her actions - letting the abuse happen and not taking steps to protect her children. She's not guiltly be mere association, there will have been evidence to support this.

I agree, all too often women introduce new men into their children's lives without thinking of the risk. They are stupid and I agree with a pp about lacking the fundamental protective streak you should feel for your children.

I know, who does this?? Tbh, she doesn’t look like the sharpest tool in the shed.

I worked for an advice charity.
I had a client that came in with her new boyfriend.

She had been with him for 6 months. He had moved in straight away.

She came in for advice as her 5 children had been removed from her care that day.

She said her boyfriend was lovely with the kids. But had kicked off at the kid's school and been banned. Said social services had been involved but she refused to interact with them. From memory it went from a child in need to a child protection order. Then the police came and took the kids.

He told me that he had 7 children that had previously been taken into care but was completely innocent and was a great Dad. Apparently it was his Ex that had a grudge.

She was so so convinced that he was a victim. Totally put him before her children.

I just can't understand women like this.

I've thought for many years that this is another consequence of how men are at a disadvantage in terms of social care or housing.

Women with children are giving priority understandably. But there are thousands upon thousands of young single men who have been in care, drug users, victims of abuse, mentally ill, neurodevelopmental disorders, involved with the criminal justice system etc not able to get work or not employable who are last on the list for any type of social care or housing.

It's not just 'why would she move someone in that she barely knows?'. It's also why would he do that?

So what happens? They (men) meet someone who is just as troubled as they are but has a flat they're willing to let them move into. Whereas they are otherwise homeless/sofa surfing.

So shitty dysfunctional relationships with both parties having mental health/drug/other problems. He won't want to leave because he has nowhere to go and she won't want to kick him out because he has nowhere to go (or feels manipulated by him saying that).

So men with psychological/mental/drugs problems who won't be in a position to get adequate help for them are suddenly acting as a 'parent' to a child they have no connection to, probably don't want to have a connection to and can't/don't want to care for.

And domestic and child abuse happens. I'm not excusing the perpetrators in any way but when someone is in 'survival mode' and there is little or no alternative for them having a roof over their head, these are the tragic consequences.

I agree. We can pretend these people are "just" born evil monsters all we like, but there is a reason that this sort of thing happens much more in some elements of society than others.... And if we recognise (or, theforbidden word, understand) that, we can do things to prevent those abuses happening in the first place.

I worked at a refuge 30 years ago when I still had belief in change being possible when one woman’s bf was held on remand who knows what for. She decided to run what can only be described as a dating agency she was taking other women on VOS to meet other men on remand with their children from the refuge 🤯

But lack of skills, lack of opportunity, lack of normal emotional development, inability to cope with their feelings, not having coping mechanisms, lack of resources, lack of education, drugs, untreated mental illness, below average intelligence these things all contribute to the likelihood of someone not being able to cope as a parent... If you improve or remove those factors, the likelihood of at least some of those people become awful parents is be reduced.

It's common sense re prevention, not just "cure". I suspect this would be much more efficient and lead to much better outcomes than going around taking away children once they have already been abused to some extent. For the children, for the parents and for the state.

Right, ok. So, in your view, let the children who are at huge risk right now continue to live where they are. Don't remove them. Too late for them, tough. Just focus on "removing or improving" the "factors" you listed because then allegedly other people won't also become abusive and neglectful parents.

So, how exactly to you plan to give people with low IQs higher IQs? How are you going to turn sociopaths/ psychopaths into normal, empathetic and balance human beings with "normal emotional development"? Convince drug addicts not to take drugs? Convince people who have never had any intention of engaging with education and come from families where nobody does so to suddenly change their mind and study and get qualifications and careers so that they have more "resources"? Clearly you are a public policy genius, sounds like a really effective plan that can be implemented immediately and then we won't even need child protection social workers anymore. 🙄 I look forward to the utopia populated solely with well-balanced, intelligent, responsible and well-educated people, providing for and caring for all of their children and giving them wonderful, enriching and secure childhoods.

Back in the real world, children need to be safeguarded from people incapable of even sorting their own lives out let alone providing for and caring for a child adequately and who will never be capable of doing so.

@Itsbytheby I just wanted to say that as a victim of an abusive childhood you haven't said anything to offend me personally. You are right in that understanding is crucial. You are also right in that the generational cycle of abuse is very real and those coming from such families are far more likely (but as you pointed out, not destined) to perpetuate this cycle.

Also, it irritates me when people say 'well, I had an abusive childhood and I would never do such a thing.' Every single 'abusive childhood' is unique. In fact, I would say even my own sibling had a different childhood to me. Yes there are common themes but there are so many factors, big and small, that dictate outcome and differentiate one child's experience from another's. How old was the child at onset of abuse? Was there at least one adult the child could safely attach to, a grandparent for example? Did the environment outside of the immediate family provide safety or more abuse? What are the intelligence levels of the parents? What is the intelligence level of the child? What was the relationship of the abuser to the child (father, step-father, family friend etc)? Was the abuse known about and acknowledged or covered up? Was the child believed if they spoke out or disbelieved or even blamed? Were substances involved? Mental illness? And on and on and on even before we get to individual personalities and socio-economic factors.....endless possibilities to cause terrible damage, each in their own particular way.

People have mentioned Baby P. Here is a harrowing article about the family and the generational layer upon layer of violence, deprivation and neglect that he was born into:
Baby P: born into a nightmare of abuse, violence and despair, he never stood a chance | Baby P | The Guardian