How can a parent let their child be beaten by an OH

[JugsyMalone]

I just don't get this. I am a single parent to 2 boys.

I would never be with a partner for one second who hurt my kids. I would batter the bloke back and be straight down the police station. Even if I was mortally afraid I would be out of the house with my kids at the corner shop or anywhere public asap.

But it's always the boyfriend who batters the baby to death. Yes, he's the nutter. But what is wrong with the mother?

All schools have a disciplinary and behaviour policy that includes responses to sexual harassment. If it is reported, then it must be followed through by the adults involved in implementing the policy.
If my DS groped or verbally abused a girl at school, he'd have been facing disciplinary consequences, as several of the boys did in his Y9 and 10 year groups.
The fact that it happens is not in question, but it is not condoned in schools.

'And in sex education lessons, PHSE, etc., rape myths are still being perpetrated. Bullshit like girls leading boys on and therefore inviiting rape, is still being tolerated without proper challenge.'

Any school who is teaching a PSHCE curriculum based on those attitudes is failing its pupils and would be failed by OFSTED.

'But it's not asked of fathers, in situations like ithaka was in. It is down teh mother mother to sort it all out, no-one looks towards the father'.

You know nothing about my situation except a few scant details I posted which you have used to make an incorrect and baseless assumption.

I actually moved in with my father (and his lovely wife). Sorry, that doesn't fit in with your argument, but that is facts for you.

This survey?
news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7811000/7811468.stm

It's not officially condoned, no.

But it's not punished.

Just like Domestic Violence.

If it were punished, there would be a lot more exclusions from school.

And a third of all girls would not have sexual assault to look forward to as a fairly standard part of their school lives.

BasilRathbone - I don't know which school you work in/have been observing lessons in (must be one or the other, given the detailed level of knowledge you appear to have about what appears to be happening in at least one school) but what leads you to think that what happens in this one school is widespread across the UK?

Certainly in the school I teach in, all of the situations you mention would result in vigorous investigation by the SMT resulting in disciplinary consequences.

And our PSHE curriculum bears no relation to the one you describe. Perhaps you need to take it up with the school concerned since it seems to have some very outdated policies.

It's not one school.

If it were, one third of all secondary school aged girls would not have been sexually assaulted.

You can pretend all you like that there isn't a problem.

But I believe that 1/3 of all secondary school aged girls being sexually assaulted in our schools, is a problem. If you don't see it as a major problem, that's your choice, but I disagree with you.

"But it's not asked of fathers, in situations like ithaka was in. It is down teh mother mother to sort it all out, no-one looks towards the father'."

LIKE in situations LIKE. Obviously I don't know about your personal situation, but when bad things happen to children people always ask where the mother was, not where the father was.

You must know this, surely, from reading the papers and threads on here?

The serious debate and reporting about Nadine Dorries plans to introduce a message of abstinence in schools for girls only, shows something about this area, surely? The fact that she felt able to propose it in the first place, and people in the media and on here debated it very seriously. How did that even happen?

I think this is getting into some tricky territory because there are some on the thread who see systemic oppression of women in our society and some who don't, and those people are never going to see eye to eye.

It's always the people who don't believe in systemic oppression of women in our society who focus on women's actions when anything goes wrong as well.

If people opened their eyes they would be asking what make some men abuse children, why they get away with it, what can be done. But that's not as interesting or relevant, apparently, as finding a woman in the picture somewhere and saying it's all her fault.

I wasn't referring to the statistic about sexual assault which - if true (link?) - is of course a huge problem. I was referring to what must be, if you are indeed talking about more than one school, the sweeping generalisations about discipline policies and PSHE curriculums.

Thank Maude my daughters went to an all girls school, as did I.

In the boy's school my son is going to in Sept they have a year 11 room with a TV that has music videos on and, yes, it shows scantily clad women objectified.

Most young boys have seen their first pornographic movie by 11. And it's not the 'good' stuff either.

FGS.

A third of girls are sexually assaulted at school and you're more worried about "sweeping generalisations" to do with PHSE and discipline?

Sweeping generalisations are merited in this case.

If they weren't a third of all secondary school girls would not be sexually assaulted at school

SQ, I haven't read the whole thread as its topic is just too close to home. I think you made a strong point that people who don't believe in systemic oppression of women in our society focus on women's actions when anything goes wrong.

I can offer a view on your last paragraph from my own experience. What makes some men abuse women and children? The fact that they were abused. It becomes part of your world-view; just a thing that men do. It should be obvious that this goes deep into the psyche: the accepting child, witnessing and suffering abuse, learns that such is the normal run of life. This can be so hard to shift in adulthood that abusers literally don't hear what others say about living without abuse. To them, it is impossible.

What made my mother tolerate my father's violence? Brainwashing, yes, "learned helplessness" and this ability to deny what doesn't fit the template. Even today, years after his death, she idolises my father while recognising the harm he did. She holds two different realities in her mind - they're incompatible, but she never attempts to reconcile them. Splitting is a well-known psychological reaction to emotional torment. It makes the intolerable acceptable.

When both my sister and I went on to relationships with violent men, her advice focussed on love and the desirability of keeping a marriage together. She didn't really register that we were in pain: she couldn't, because that would mean tearing down her complicated, self-protective, cognitive structure. I've discussed all this with her, but never ask her to see the reality as I see it; that would be unforgivably cruel.

I don't know how you would address this syndrome if dealing with abusive parents face-to-face. I can see a strong argument for removing the children - before they've fully internalised an abusive life template - but it would be nicer to find ways of normalising the parents' perceptions.

1 in 3 is a shocking statistic and shows that schools are doing little to stop this, and may even be promoting it.

And stuff you Nadine Dorries.

SardineQueenSun 05-Feb-12 15:25:34

"But it's not asked of fathers, in situations like ithaka was in. It is down teh mother mother to sort it all out, no-one looks towards the father'."

LIKE in situations LIKE. Obviously I don't know about your personal situation, but when bad things happen to children people always ask where the mother was, not where the father was.

Well, that is nothing LIKE my situation, where I moved in with my father. So why use my name/situation when it is nothing LIKE a situation when a father doesn't step up to plate? Because you made an assumption about my situation (that my dad was useless) that fitted with your world view which is incorrect.

Because you gave an example of a situation on the thread. In situations like yours, in society and in the media, people do not tend to look to the fathers. They just don't. It is there in the news every day.

Here

"I agree with both of those posts saf.

Shows hoe deeply ingrained these ideas are that it didn't occur to me to ask where Ithaka's father was in all of this. Of course he may have moved heaven and earth but the point is people just don't imagine that men will step up when it comes to children, that's why that question is so rarely asked."

From miles up the thread.

But we are discussing how mothers can let their children be abused by their new boyfriend. Why don't you engage with that issue instead of trying to focus it on your perception of fathers' failings?

Yet another reason for single sex schools where girls always do so very much better anyway.

There are loads of suggestions on here as to why some mothers allow their children to be abused by their new boyfriend. I am not sure how often that happens compared to women who don't know / have been with their partner for enough time to be ground down. I don't know anyone like this so it is hard to say from a personal perspective.

Xenia you are so right.

And see smacking thread too because English law still allows you to use violence against a child (as lont as it doesn't leave marks) in a way that is not allowed against a wife, servant, employee. We hvae never thought much of children in the UK and give much more to animal than children's charities sadly.

Although it was something of a side discussion on the thread, for those interested, there does seem to be an escalation of sexual bullying of girls (and homophobic bullying of boys and girls,) despite most schools having some form of policy in place against bullying (although not always sexual bullying.)

Three years ago, this was highlighted in a Panorama Documentary (results of the Young Voices survey that went with it here

The figure of 1 in 3 girls experiencing sexual harassment in schools comes from a YouGov survey commissioned by the End Violence Against Women (you can download the poll results in a word doc about 3/4 way down this page.

More than 10 years ago, the Association of American University Women Educational Foundation published a report on the prevalence of sexual harassment and violence in American High Schools.

It's certainly worth looking at this summary of findings from Dr Nancy Lombard's research into children's attitudes to violence against women. Although I don't think it's in the summary, she went back to some of the schools where she conducted the interviews to feed back findings to the staff. Everyone from teachers to dinner ladies were surprised at how tolerant the children were of male violence and gendered bullying and taken aback that their "casual approach" to dealing with it potentially contributed to children internalising the message that it was "natural."

Commonly, children regarded one boy hitting another or boys fighting as "real violence," because it was usually broken up by teachers or others and often someone got punished for it. If a boy was taunting a girl or trying to touch her, pull her hair, pull her clothes, etc., it was more often ignored or (and this made me want to scream,) told "he pesters you because he likes you."

Damnedest thing, but I honestly think that early message about why boys tease and taunt girls stays with us, somewhere in the back of our brains at least, telling us that a man being unpleasant to us is a sign of affection, a sign of devotion, a sign of love.

I agree, KRITIQ, and I link it directly to the question in the OP.

"Well, at least he's interested." Giggle.
"He's just a bit clumsy with words, he loves you really."
"He's just a bit clumsy with his fists, he loves you really."
"You're the only woman I've hit, I'm just so passionate about you."
"He doesn't mean it."
Gah!

Your post describes beautifully how we are socialised into accepting the unacceptable. As does this one about rape. Same process ... nice girls don't complain. Then, when something happens, everybody goes "Why didn't you complain??"!

i have direct experience of this issue - my mother married an abuser when i was 7.

i believe she stayed with the man who broke my bones and landed me in hospital for a number of reasons.

she was from a family of dysfunction, and often cycles of abuse simply continue.

she rejected me at birth and so had no bond with me, no mothering instinct. When my step father beat me, she did not get in his way. i believe that she was in her own way scared of him despite him never having laid a hand on her while i was there - however he did in later years beat her too, after both i and my sibling had left home.

I also believe that she was in denial. She had fashioned herself her very own happy ending, getting married after having a child out of wedlock (me) and to have faced up to the reality of my abuse would have shattered her own delusions of happiness.

she turned a blind eye. what other reason can there be? She went on to have my half sibling who also seemed to get treated very badly despite being my stepfathers birth son. I left at 15, and was homeless for a while. My half sibling met the same fate, but became an addict and lived rough for years. He is too messed up to have any relationship with - i tried recently. it didnt work.

i have no contact with my mother these days. i have not had contact for about 12 years. she never said sorry, never took any responsibility for her own actions in being complicit to abuse. She did try to contact me recently via facebook, but i ignored her message. My step father died a few years ago. (he was an angry little man and died young from a heart attack)

I on the other hand made a go of it, happily married for 21 years with 2 lovely kids - and if anyone ever laid hands on them, i would have done time, but then i believe i have a normal and healthy relationship with my two, and they are loved and wanted. I am not like my mother, though im not sure why. I can only attribute that to my very first years in the care of my grandparents prior to her meeting my step father, and my early years, while very unconventional, were loving until she removed me to live with her and her new partner at the age of 7. The only thing i have to thank her for is a very high pain threshold.

i have no idea how any mother can stand by and watch her child be abused. but sadly i come across it often now in my work. It always makes me laugh when the kids i come across tell me ive no idea what their life is like....

i am a police officer now. Funny how things pan out.