Notanotter I have made it clear in almost all of my posts that it is not the case that all children who are abused will go on to abuse their own children. I have difficulty understanding why people don't accept this.
For a start how would social workers (or anyone else for that matter ) know when abused children made good mothers, because sws only know about the children who are abused and all I have said that in my experience all the children I have been involved with had parents who had been abused or neglected themselves.
I have also been at pains to point out that some abused children have someone in the family (granny, aunt, cousing, parent of friend etc) who is nurturing to wards them, and when old enough use this as a "bolt hole" to get away from the trauma at home. Also some children are more resilient than others, and will grow up and make sure that their children have safe and happy lives. I know about this because for the past 5 years of my social work career I was assessing prospective foster carers and adoptors, and they would b very nice people with well cared for children, but would sometimes give an account of an abusive/neglectful childhood and would talk about the things that helped them recover sufficiently, and sometimes it was because of having a bolt hole in the family, One woman described how she always got on the bus to her granny when things got tough, and granny made sure she had a supply of money so that she could get to her house and avoid what was going on at home. A lot of children also witness domestic violence and the effect of this on a child can be horrendous. Again some women will make sure that their own children won't witness this, while others sadly repeat the pattern, as their self esteem is very low and they will be looking for love, and maybe get together with a man who has violent tendencies.
I can well understand that these courageous women who have managed to be caring parents to their own children but had suffered some kind of trauma in their childhood, find it distressing and hurtful that people think they will go on to abuse or neglect their own children.