Story from the West Australian. (H/T Andrew)
Excerpt:
Mothers are more likely than fathers to neglect and emotionally and physically abuse their children, information obtained under freedom of information laws reveals.
But figures from the WA Department for Child Protection show substantiated cases of child sexual abuse against fathers still far outnumber those against mothers.
The data shows that parents were the perpetrators in almost 39 per cent of the 1505 substantiated cases of child abuse in 2007-08. Of the 582 cases of abuse by parents, mothers were responsible for 73 per cent, while fathers committed 27 per cent.
Mothers were more than 17 times more likely than fathers to neglect their children, while fathers were responsible for 85 per cent of sex abuse cases against children.
Mothers carried out almost 68 per cent of cases of emotional and psychological abuse committed by parents, about 53 per cent of physical abuse and more than 94 per cent of neglect cases.
I wonder if data like this might help advocates of shared parenting (joint custody)?
WINTERY KNIGHT 
I read elsewhere that children are a lot more likely to be physically abused/ neglected/ verbally abused in single parent homes than in 2 biological parent homes, because the strain of parenting is much harder on a parent without a partnering parent. The overwhelming majority of kids in single-parent homes live with mothers. That’s not only because of divorce, but also because some women never marry the fathers.
It would be good to correlate numbers like those you mention with the amount of single mothers vs. single fathers who are primary caregivers, and how many(few) of those kids come from a two-parent home where the mother, not the father, is abusive.
If those numbers are considered with all the relevant other numbers, they can be useful in custody cases.
(On a related topic, I read that a study claimed 29% of adult children of gay parents claim to have been molested by a parent – and 0,6% of adult children by a straight parent. If that is even remotely close to true, that also needs to be considered in custody cases.) http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/DaileyGayAdopt.php
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Children in homes without a biological father are far more likely to be abused.
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Mothers more likely to engage in neglect, verbal abuse and physical abuse. I strongly disagree with that statement. I am a stepfather of two wonderful children. I’ve seen fathers verbally abuse their children way to often and have fault to end it. My wife is a very loving mother. I witness first hand verbal abuse by men. So how does one say that mothers is more likely to verbal abuse their children when all I’ve seen in my 41 years of life is men verbally and sexually abusing their children.
Many Thanks Rodney
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What would you suggest a child to do if they are in a home with a verbally abusive single-parent mother?
I’m 15, and my mom has three kids (my eighteen yr old sister has moved out and lives with her boyfriend and his family, my 21 yr old brother lives with us) and three mentally-retarded consumers.
She is a foster care provider, meaning that she takes care of the consumers while they live in our home as if they were her children, only she sees them as paychecks, not as people basically. I understand that the job is EXTREMELY stressful, seeing that she has to take care of their hygiene, handle their medications, tube-feed one of them, take them to their frequent doctor, dental, etc. appointments, do paperwork on all activities for the month, etc. So I understand that this is one of the main contributors to her stress, hence taking her anger out on me and my sister mainly (when she lived here), but not so much with my brother.
My dad is in prison and has been since a couple of months before I was born, leaving her to take care of me and my sister (brother had a different dad.) I’ve heard from family members and my mom that he was a cheater, so obviously there won’t be any “rekindling” of the old flame when he gets out on parole (hopefully some time later this year, around Oct or Nov maybe.) He was sentenced to 30 years (15 w/ parole if having good behavior) for assisted homicide when him, my uncle, and some of their friends were at a party on New Years and got into a fight with some other guys and a guy ended up getting stabbed. The times that she *used* to take me to visit him at his unit, he was always so nice and funny. He’s pretty conceited too hahah, so it adds to the funniness. He loves his kids (me, my sister, another girl [I think 17] he had whom I have no other familial connection with other than through him and whom I’ve never met, and another boy [21] who I used to see occasionally that used to live with his grandma growing up, but he called her mom). I also understand that by my dad being in prison, my mom has had to take care of my sister and I by herself, adding to her stress yada yada yada.
My brother (the one that lives with me) has a dad but he was also a cheater I think, so him and my mom didn’t stay together long. I don’t know how he was back then, but I do remember the times when my brother would go over to his house. Everything about it was annoying. When my mom would drop him off, they’d bicker. Practically everytime they talked, they’d bicker. I understand that part, seeing as how he’s immature, whiny, irresponsible (he’d have my brother babysit his two other kids when they’d be having a party with alcohol in the same house), and many other things. My brother was born when my mom was 17, so you can only imagine the pressure she felt, along with many other things. So she basically had it pretty messed up from the beginning.
Basically, my mom is stressed.
She takes it out on her kids.
Now, it’s pretty much just me that she’s verbally abusive towards.
I’m a teenager.
I’m so smart.
Street-smart, book-smart. Really smart.
I’m mature.
I could basically live on my own (if I had a car and job, but I’m only 15 so I cant work yet)
A while back, I started looking online for something, anything, that could help me or explain what’s going on.
That’s when I found things like verbal abuse and all of these other terms, and I realized it wasn’t normal how she treated me.
She calls me names (stupid bitch, piece of shit, etc. sorry for my language btw)
She yells so that I won’t be able to talk when we’re arguing
Always stares at me when I come into the same room as her and looks at me as if she’s judging me
If we’re in the car and we’re arguing and I start to cry (because I get so annoyed or angry) she’ll look at me (so I look put the window to avoid her cold eyes) and say in a RUDE tone “why are you crying? theres nothing to cry about, stop overreacting. youre so sensitive.”
she never tries to see anything from my perspective, and when she tells me “No” to something (always in a violent, snappy tone) I ask her why she says that, all she’ll ever say is “because I said so” or some other made up or irrational reason and she’ll try to change the subject. when I try to bring it up again, she’ll get angry and annoyed and start yelling, never letting me try to say what I want to say without interrupting me
She has isolated my siblings, herself and I from our distant family except for my grandma and uncle (both from her side of the family)
One of the worst things about this situation is that she’s smart about it. she knows how to act in front of other people. she’s nice, can make conversation, and just seems like a good person and mom (aside from when she isn’t really paying attention and lets her now-natural frown show along with her judgmental expression) so no one would ever expect that she is how she truly is
So now I’m left with mental problems (I’m not sure which ones exactly because I haven’t seen a professional) but I have a strong feeling that I’m either depressed, bipolar, or dysthymic (dysthymia)
I’ve tried getting her to take me to see someone but she always said she never has time or that she cant pay for it (because I have no insurance whatsoever)
Recently however I finally got her to make an appointment to see a therapist (and soon, a psychologist to diagnose me and send me to a psychiatrist to get medication, which I’m really looking forward to) but she’s still the same way
she’s still abusive
there are some other things that I haven’t mentioned here because I can only imagine the length of this
I changed my question from the beginning of this though
Will she get in trouble if I tell the therapist she verbally abuses me? Will her work company find out? Will the consumers be taken away? If so, what job would she get? (she only has her high school diploma, no college, she worked in the military for like 2 or 3years I think until she had me)
(This is just me talking to myself now)
When I get medication and I’ve been with the therapist for a while, and I get better, I wonder what kind of person I will be like.
Because on the websites I’ve seen, it says people who are depressed think that the way that they are (suicidal, negative-thinking, slow brain-function, antisocial,etc) is normal for them, as if thats who they are. And that’s true. I truly believe that this is who I am, but apparently not..
I’m a good person
I’m nice
I dont judge people who dont deserve it (the ones who do deserve it, in my opinion, are the people that are truly bad. like abusers of animals or people, bullies, people who are rude, etc.)
I’m vegan (I really love animals and believe that they shouldn’t be tortured their whole lives. it makes me sad when I watch the inside videos of factory farms and see all of the things that they have to helplessly endure)
I’m caring yada yada
I just hope that when I’m “happy” or whatever else I turn out to be, it won’t change all of the good things about me
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