Kimberley - who is watching?

[Ewe]

Interesting premise, looking forward to seeing how unbiased the doc is.

She did come across as aggressive self obsessed and just not in a good place to look after children.Sad but really the little boy was seeing things he shouldn't and will grow up normalising violence and aggression.getting pregnant again was irresponsible but I think she liked the attention.

Chipkid - I fully understand the cycle of abuse and how it works. Baby P's mother also had a deprived and dysfunctional childhood - it is tragic but once that child becomes a parent then the concern has to switch to the offspring. It's too late to save the mother/father but you can spare the child.

Kimberley displayed classic signs of being an abuser. The obsessive: 'do you love me?'; 'how much do you love me?'; 'say thank you mummy'; 'say "sorry mummy, I love you mummy"' - are typical markers.

The fim-maker was Harvey's godmother, wasn't she? Doesn't she therefore have some responsibility (if only morally) to look out for him?? I was very confused by her role in all of it. Why would she expose her "friend"'s shortcomings on national telly?? Was this really the best way for her to help her godson??

I think the documentary maker met Kimberley when making the first film and was struck by her spirit. I am only half-remembering this, so may be wrong. I get the impression that the film maker stayed in her life as a sort of concerned bystander. Not so much a friend but a person concerned for how Kimberley would turn out. I very much had the impression from the commentary that the film maker had concerns for Kimberley, can see how things will turn out, wants to help but sees that Kimberley doesn't exactly help herself. The conversation about the letter from Social Services in which Kimberley was trying to justify her own violence was pretty telling, I thought.

Nancy -- I am also v. hot on dc saying "thank you, mummy" when they've been passed something, or i've done something for them. I don't think that's a sign of being a needy or abusive parent, just one who wants the dc to have nice manners.

Agree re the constant 'do you love me' business, tho.

nancy66, is it necessarily better for Kim's children to be taken from her and taken into care?

nancy? i say how much do you love mummy to my son. the usual response is a million cars or a million sausages. and i make sure DS says sorry mummy and thank you mummy. and sorry and thank you to anyone come to that when its appropriate.

am i showing classic markers of being an abuser then?

blueshoes - when Baby P wasn't removed from his mother the cry that went out from the whole country was 'why the hell didn't social workers step in - they knew what the family was like.' If anything happened to Harvey it would be the same story.

We know that Kimberley is aggressive and violent and that she lets unsuitable men into the lives of her children.

She openly calls her son a 'fucking shit' and admits that she smacks him. Did you see the bruises on that child's body?

Her kids are young, good looking and white - they'd get adopted easily - so, yes, I believe they would be better off elsewhere.

Me too, mankymummy. My parents never said "I love you" so I say it an awful lot to my DS. I often tickle him and say "do you love your mummy?" because I then say "because mummy loves you lots and lots."

I do it because I want him to understand the meaning of the word. He is 2. I think it is a difficult concept for a toddler and I want it to be a word to hears a lot and that he understands that mummy and daddy loves him.

I am pretty shocked that this marks me out as a potential abuser.

manky - there's a difference between saying it with affection and demanding it from a child you treat badly.

Oh FGS - stop taking things out of context...
although, personally, i do think it's very needy and weird when parents constantly ask their kids whether they love them.

Good for you.

Not read all the thread as meant to be doing OU assignment sorry if repeating...

I think she was doing the best with the limited capabilites she had. She was articulate and knew what was right/wrong but didn't have the self esteem, confidence to do what she knows she should. She loves the child and he loves her but it all seemed to come out in a mixed up jumble. It's so sad that she is so needy but with her background (rape at 12? doesn't seem to have support from her family) I'm not surprised.

I would;
Love her to have some sort of 'mentor mummy' who she is supported by in terms of help to look after her ds and also childcare for her to get some qualificaitions/a job. She could still go to college/job even if he were ill given the adequate support.

I would help her to learn how to channel her anger and how to manage her ds as she just shouts louder when she wants him to do something, he knows this and is used to it and carries on what he's doing. It's a circle as that's how he'll be in his friendships/relationships just as she was (probably)

Food seemed to be a constant supply but of the wrong kind. Stuff that fills you up short term but does no long term good if that's all you eat. Though is cheap.

The key to lift her out of where she is is education + qualifications = higher self esteem/aims and aspirations = a possible job + opportunities. She then leads by example and her son and daughter may follow suit.

I am not standing in judgement till I've walked a mile in her shoes. There for the grace of God go I as far as I can see...

But the fim-maker seemed ideally placed to be the "mentor mummy" - it was mentioned at one stage that she has children too. I do wonder if she has taken on any role other than making a film about it, and quite what she thought the purpose of the film would be. Was she pointing up Kimberley as an unusual case, or suggesting that her circumstances are widespread?? I just couldn't get what it was all for (other than possibly to further enhance the profile of the film-maker).

"film-maker" obviously!

she needs home-start

then i think the film-maker was misplaced in what she was doing. She should have helped Kim rather than filming and standing in the background commenting on her mistakes.

e.g he was filthy in a lot of the film (her son) so why not have stopped filming for 10 mins and stuck him in the bath??

as for her swearing, I've heard many parents swear at their children from all different walks of life -remember the f*cking fullfords?? (a programme about how 1 upper class family was trying to keep their estate going) the father's language was terrible towards the children but that was deemed acceptable and even 'eccentric' as they were of a, perceived, higher class?

I have worked in a school where many parents were just like Kimberly and the problems came from many different sources.

Some of the parents were illiterate/English as a second language.
Some were scared of schools after their own schooling
Some were special needs themselves
Some were addicts
Some were aggressive /defensive/ embarrassed
Some just didn't care!

No quick fix but if you work with them rather stand in judgement things do, slowly, change.

I felt sad for her and her children. She has had a bad start in life and has made some bad choices. She says she loves her children but she has no benefits of the middle classes. She also needs to work on her self esteem, anger issues and do parenting classes. She looks like she has been with some bad men.
I am beginning to wonder about those bruises though.

Exactly - the film-maker kept showing us the bruises - trying to keep us focused on them so that we would come to doubt Kimberley's explanations?? Was she giving her "friend" a platform to show how she copes with her difficult life, or was she just, gently, systematically and rather two-facedly stitching her up??? Dunno. All very weird.

christ my son has bruises all over him too, well on his legs. because he launches himself a hundred miles an hour at anything. i think if i had been kimberleys "friend" and been responsible for the narrative of the documentary i would have asked her about the bruises. showing them without any explanation seemed sinister.

true, my second son has just found the stairs -well the first 2 anyway- and fell off them. He has a large bruise on his forehead and a bruise down his cheek quite high to his eye which came out as a black eye...

Nothing sinister, he's just crap at climbing. Ds 1 has bruises all over his legs.

The film maker should have addressed these at least if nothing than giving Kim a right to reply on assumptions that would be made.

manky - the film maker did comment on the bruises and Kimberley said he was clumsy and always falling over. Now, of course, toddlers DO fall over a lot but he had a hell of a lot of bruises down his arms and around his back - not to mention a huge one on his cheek and one under his eye.

The mum also seemed to have a penchant for hitting people in the face.

I got the impression that kimberley was offered help and had declined it - she said something about 'yeah, they keep on at me to go to anger managment' which suggests she isn't going.

The thing that shone out for me was what a lovely kid Harvey seemed to be and also bright.

Muppergirl - they did discuss the bruising at the beginning of the film and Kim said that it was due to him falling over.

I agree that while it's normal to sympathise with anyone who gets a crap upbringing like Kimberly obviously did, once they have kids the concern has to shift to them.

I also agree that it is bizarre that on one hand, we were all up in arms that Baby P wasn't removed earlier from his mother, yet here we have a mother who has clear anger/ violence issues, and who brings violent men into her children's lives, yet we're focusing on sympathy for her.

I felt desperately sorry for her too - especially when she described being raped but not pressing charges as she loved the guy. She's such a damaged person. But that doesn't give her the right to damage others.

I would also say, that generally on here, it is believed that once a man has been violent, that's it - no more second chances. He's uncurable and will just go on to abuse others all his life. But here was a woman openly admitting that she was violent and abusive to her current partner (did anybody else notice his fading black eye in the last interview) but again, we find excuses for her behaviour and want her to keep her kids.

There are no easy answers - kids in care do badly too, and god knows how Kimberly would cope if her children were taken from her. But I do hope that social services keep very closely involved with her, for the sake of her own welfare and the safety of her kids.

Perhaps what this film illustrates so well is that there are no black and white areas in child welfare, and that it gets much harder to judge a parent once you've heard their background and had a chance to empathise with them. Nobody's perfect, but maybe nobody's purely bad either.