Identity of Baby P's Mother To Be Revealed Tonight.

[Nancy66]

Along with that of her boyfriend.

I'm loathe to defend or protect her but that can't possibly lead to anything good can it?

The names have been fairly easy to find online for quite a while but there's a hell of a difference between having to actively look for them and having her picture splashed across the front page of The Sun as it undoubtedly will be.

Oh FFS more useless misdirection. Just stop competitively pooing yourselves with outrage and start coming up with ideas to help prevent people living such fucking miserable lives. If Peter Connolly had survived his childhood but not had any benevolent intervention, the odds were very good he would have become either a drug addict with a long history of self harm and spells in a locked ward, or would have gone on to abuse other people. All this witless vengefulness: coming up with more and more horrible things to do to or say about the adults in this case, is a kind of superstitious ritual. If you can shout it loudly enough that only fat ugly unemployed chavs harm their children, then you can carry on disapproving of any 'politically correct' type intervention such as funding social workers better, addressing the economic inequalities that make for generation upon generation of wasted, brutalized lives and being smugly convinced that this sort of thing doesn;t happen among people you know and that the chav classes don't deserve any help because they are all child-beating smelly unattractive inbred scum.

You are contradicting yourself SGB -- if we are not allowed to assume that this doesn't happen among people we know, then how are we to recognise the inequalities that lead to it.

Sorry, but your outrage is no more than anyone else's and no ideas that anyone comes up with here are going to do anyone any good at all, let's be honest.

There are only a few responses that have been vindictive and most people have good hearts and good intentions and feel horrified, not just at the crime but at the awful conditions and experiences of those involved.

It's not inevitable that such conditions have the effects they have in this case. Perhaps it would be more productive to examine what makes the difference between those who perpetuate the abuse and those who find a way out.

A number of people have said it is possible, and rather than spluttering in fury at what you imagine to be smug disapproval, wouldn't it be more forward looking to try to understand how they made that transition.

What SGB said.

I think genetic research is already indicating that happiness and resilience are inherited traits. Some people will survive no matter what is thrown at them. But some people will suffer greater problems, the more horrible, chaotic and disruptive their life becomes.

I don't think there is any great mystery to it.

I would be interested to know more about the point john hemmings made that scandanavian countries do it better. Is it simply because they tax more and spend more money? Or is a combination of other and different factors?

I think the problem in this country is we have too many short term well intentioned but poorly thought thru schemes which do not end up being much use to those at whom they are aimed.

No great mystery? So what's the point then?

You are contradicting yourself too, if you are interested in the Scandi outcomes.

How about if there was intervention at a key time? How about if there was a teacher or family friend who took an interest? How about if social work failure played a part? How about if there was no decent school in the area? How about maternity and health visitor care? How about parenting programmes?

There may be some who will just pull through, whatever. What is it that makes them tougher? Could counselling programmes help others in the same way? What about a moral code, or a sense of belonging, being instilled by someone other than a parent?

If people are like that whatever their circumstances then we should all throw our skirts over our heads and give up.

I think the scandinavian countries do things in a different way. I also think they treat their citizens with greater individual respect.

"I have always been of the stance that abuse victims who go onto become abusers essentially make their own minds up to continue the pain they knew as a child,"

Define what you mean by "make their minds up" I question that.

My father was DV towards my mother, often in front of us. After the worst incident we left. Depressed Mum quickly met new man who then 6 months in started sexually abusing me from the age of 10 until 18. Mum knew nothing and threw me out at 18 anyway. I ended up at centrepoint, where a third of homeless teens were running away from D and S abuse. We traded abuse stories for fun.

At 19 I became seriously depressed, lost, and wanted to end it all. I had made friends with this lovely guy and fell into a relationship. Sex was initally a massive, difficult hurdle. But later I began to rely on sex to make me feel safe. My self esteem was non-existent. I had 3 kids with a man who basically just wanted sex.

Whenever he raised his voice or became upset I was terrified he would hit me and would feel physically sick with fear, despite the fact that he was'nt that sort of man.

Each time I was pregnant I prayed I wouldn't have a girl, because I didn't want to be reminded of myself and I was very afraid I'd be abusive towards her. Luckily I had 3 boys.

I can say from experience, that Counselling services aren't up to scratch on the NHS. There are long waiting times and some counsellors just aren't trained in how to deal with those from Very Abusive backgrounds. I have been through 3 counsellors, and it has been disappointing each time.

School teachers never had a clue, because actually I was extremely bright which of course equalled decent family life. That is the problem with the ED part. They are only concerned with academic success not overall child welfare.

The care system is terrible. Its intitutional in it's response to idividual children. That is also the problem with SS to a degree. Fragile mental and emotional problems simply cannot be dealt with through a business like entity.

Children have to find a way to cope when abuse is happening/has happened. I would go outside myself when it was happening, and read tons of books to mentally escape afterwards. But some do start to identify with the perpetrator and copy their behaviour. Some start to confuse sex with love if thatis the only way through which mummy or daddy shows 'love' to them. Which is why I understand Baby Ps mums obsession with sex.

People are made into people who do wicked things. There is always a reason. Given the choice NO ONE would chooose to be so damaged.

The main thing that makes abused children survive and thrive or at least break the cycle of cruelty and distress is the presence at some point in their early lives of someone who shows them not just kindness but some genuine fondness; someone who sees something valuable in them and lets them know. Sometimes it's a teacher, sometimes it's a relative or a foster carer, sometimes a neighbour.
But right now social work is a despised profession and a badly paid one, in need of a thorough reorganisation.
What is also important, the most important of all, is to address inequality. While women are still not-quite-fully-human, paid less than men and told time after time that it is only by 'catching' a man that they prove their worth you will get more Tracey Connollys: people who are fucked up and desperate and will put up with litereally anything to keep a partner. WHile the constantly-widening gap between rich and poor means that some people have no hope at all, no educstion, no available work, live in shitty housing and therefore gain the impression that no one gives a toss about them and no one ever will, misery and substance abuse will increase and so will cruetly. if no one cares about you, you can't care about anyone else.

No stuffillam. i think you are missing the point.

What I was trying to say is that some people are tough and will always survive. Some people are very weak and will always go under.

The majority of us are in the middle and will sink and swim depending on, as others have said, if we have at least someone who genuinely loved us and cared for us, made sure we were fed, sent us to school etc, etc. etc.

The issue is that so many people grow up in this country in chaos, squalour, filth and fear. How do we stop this when no one is starving, everyone is given money and a house. Maybe not a very nice house, but I don't see families in tent villages over here, as I have done in the US.

So I remain interested in what other countries are doing. Bring back the workhouses? Stop paying benefits to support insupportable lifestyles?

I am genuinely interested as things don't seem to be working here.

The interesting part of a debate in a house of commons committee came from a barrister who was himself raised in care.

He made the point that children in care need love. That is not the same as material things.

Our system tends to ignore this aspect.

I meant a committee room not a select committee.

"The main thing that makes abused children survive and thrive or at least break the cycle of cruelty and distress is the presence at some point in their early lives of someone who shows them not just kindness but some genuine fondness; someone who sees something valuable in them and lets them know."

Completely agree. I do think we have got into a culture of pointing fingers and blame. Also we're so individualist a society nowadays. Few people see any responisbility towards the children of other people. There is no "it takes villiage" mentality these days. I remember a case where a child was tortured to death by her parents. The neighboours next door and underneath had heard the child screaming, but never intervened/checked it out.

Perhaps we are all furiously agreeing.

I have no experience of this but I agree that there must be some feature, some person, at some point to show love, respect, fondness, interest, affection.

Material issues, the deprivation issue, is pertinent but there are echoes of the very wealthy but emotionally repressed family which will carry this down generations too.

johnhemmings, i've been looking at this organisation for work. www.mellowparenting.org

from what the woman who created the programme says, and the practitioners who conduct the groups say, many of the mothers (and dads and grans etc) just Do Not have a clue what it's like to be a good parent. it's not innate, they need tools, support and most crucially, INSIGHT.

and women who 'survive' in the way that TC did, in squalour and abusive circumstances, don't tend to reflect on what has brought them there.

the programme's been evaluated, child-parent interaction goes up and stays up after it, and most astonishingly of all, a year or so after the programme the average IQ jump for the kids is 8-9 points, thanks to that interaction.

it's hard core, not an ongoing support thing. more like a 'how were you parented, how did you learn about sex, how do you want your kids to learn about it' thing. 23% of the volunteers for it have been abused, 70% have a hostile parent etc.

apparently, much as these things are on Jeremy Kyle etc all the time, these women genuinely do not realise that their experience is not worthy of them. HUGE increases in confidence when they realise that it's not good enough and that they can do better for their next kids.

it's a preferred govt trainer at teh moment but there's every chance it'll lose it's contract in march 09 thanks to the way things work.

The sad thing is the amount of money spent on damaging interventions rather than supportive approaches.

(Damaging to children and parents)

Aitch, Mellow Parenting does sound marvellous but why didn't it work for TC? Too little intervention too late maybe?

God it is all so very sad.

ah, well i know the answer to that actually, from the horse's mouth. she lied her arse off. and the pretty shit thing is that they take videos of family interaction and her interaction with her dd was apparently fine. so she did know how to do it. she is not the normal case on those courses, i mean face it, she's not at all normal iykwim? so not much point offering her as evidence, because these things can't work for everyone.

johnhemmings, i'm interested in kinship care as a policy. i know it's the least expensive option but if we take the 'i blame the parents' line to any degree then we must also look carefully at the grandparents etc. (such as in connolly's case, her mother is a right loop the loop). but had baby p not been killed, she'd have been his carer. or another family member, perhaps someone from the islington side of the family.

do you think there's a fundamental problem with kinship care in that if one third of people from abusive homes go on to have abusive relationships etc, then you may well be bouncing babies back to the root of the problem?

agree about shocking waste of money. at least this course has been solidly evaluated.

oh, and she attended only 9 out of the 14 days. she manipulated them, basically.

(mp not the same thing as on the recent panorama, btw. that was more about looking forwards. mp very rooted in looking backwards first, very basically.)

Thanks Aitch. Really awful that she knew how to parent responsibly but couldn't be bothered in RL. I wonder if that was something she had learned growing up? If she had seen her own mother hoodwink authority time and time again?

I do feel desperately sorry for TC the little girl I must say, it sits very uneasy with me as does the thought of what Peter may have become and produced as a parent himself. There are lessons to learn from all this, and I for one am glad that it is being talked about.

All the best with your piece.

that's exactly what the mp thing seeks to address, ninks, what got people to where they aare today and whether they want their kids and grandkids to be in the same shitstorm etc.

actually, though, my impression was that a MAJOR part of the therapeutic value longer term comes from the group element, that they've shared these ghastly truths about themselves and are now bonded. prior to the classes 60% say they haven't a soul in the world to confide in about anything, but when they leave they've got real mates who they can talk to. (classes all held locally so women live nearby).

they're the ones who have come up with the solutions to each others' parenting difficulties anyway (the practitioner is req'd to butt out as much as poss) so they continue in those roles when the class ends. just realising you're not alone is MAJOR. as anyone who made pals in their ante-natal/nct classes can tell you. or anyone who uses MN as well.

on that note, TC does seem to have been unusual in that she had no literacy problems. that's another major barrier for these women. imagine, no books, leaflets, MN etc. gawd.

but yes, TC could turn it on, that's why i don't mind a wee bit of demonisation of her. she could do it for the cameras.

please don't dismiss it as just some other shite to waste money on, johnhemmings.

I can understand that. TC had chances and wrecked them.

What of the special study that she was involved in? It was the subject of a Panorama programme. All to do apparently, () with the supporting of the abused abuser. TC was interviewed and mentioned the "step-dad" but there was no follow-up.

It breaks my bloody heart that in the days before the child was killed his mother had police charges dropped due to SS advice AND then instructed her SW that she didn't want to see anyone for at least a couple of months.

The moronic BF presumably thought it was safe to commence the attacks which took Peter's life given such leeway. Charges dropped, no SW visits, why not? Sickening.

but if johnhemmings figures are right, the pressure on the sw not to move the boy must have been considerably. not in an individual sense, but across the population. that must be the nightmare of local govt, close enough to meet the people, while having to budget them out.

and if she's able to play along, as we know she was, expertly, then why wouldn't the sw want to concentrate on other cases where parents aren't able to fake it?

But I could be seen to be doing everything right when SS pay a visit because DD is covered in soft-flesh bruises, (medical condition). She does look shocking in summer clothes and although I ensure that every adult who comes into contact with her knows about it for CP purposes, I expect the knock to come one day and will be heartened yet terrified by it.

My house is clean if a bit untidy and strewn with toys and books. Cupboards and fridge full, nice bedding upstairs, laundry done daily. How can someone play at being a good parent if their house is a shit-tip?

I can only think that SS felt responsible for TC and their failure to protect or support her. In turn she must have had the sense to realise that and to maximise her position. Many MNers have wondered why / how it was that she was allowed so much when stories about SS removing children are rife. Knowing that TC was part of the Islington abuse ring goes a long way to explain

Actually I think that SS were probably scared that TC, fairly literate and craftily intelligent would have her say r.e Islington and allowed her special treatment because of that.