"Filicides by stepparents were disproportionatly common and likely to involve ongoing abuse and death by beating."

My question to this statement is did the biological parent not realize there was ongoing abuse going on? Who in their right mind would allow their child to be beaten? The key word here is "right mind". I am really interested to see how many cases in stepparent filicide involve a stepFATHER rather than a stepMOTHER. I know everyone here says that it is rare for a biofather to be given custody and I would assume ongoing abuse would more than likely take place in a custodial household. I also know that everyone here says if a mother loses or renders custody it is normally because of "mental illness".

Is a mother more likely to stay mute when someone is abusing her child than a father or is it simply the mothers are the ones most likely to have custody so the numbers just appear to lean that way because of the lack of custodial fathers? Are women more susceptable to mental illnes or low self esteem issues making them more likely to be abusers or turn a blind eye to abuse? I'm interested on viewpoints on this. I have no real opinion either way. I just know the general theory is that women tend to be more "emotional". Any thoughts? Any studies of male vs. female in mental illness or child abuse out there in web land? Let's see what we come up with.

This article goes along with the theory that mothers are more likely to be the abuser because they pend more time with the child. They refer to this as "time at risk" in the article.

Causes and Effects of Child Abuse - Abusive Mothers

A national survey in the United Kingdom of the childhood experiences of young adults ages eighteen to twenty-four found that mothers were more likely than other household members to be violent toward their children. Child Maltreatment in the United KingdomA Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect (Pat Cawson, Corinne Wattam, Sue Brooker, and Graham Kelly, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, London, England, November 20, 2000) was the most comprehensive report of childhood maltreatment ever conducted in that country, involving 2,869 interviews about young people's childhood experiences. Of the 11% of respondents who reported physical abuse, nearly half (49%) indicated that their mothers were the perpetrators of violence. Violence took the forms of knocking down the child, burning, threatening with a knife or a gun, kicking hard, shaking, or hitting with a fist or a hard implement. Another 40% of the respondents identified their attackers as their fathers.

Some Experts Say Social Factors Cause Abuse by Mothers
Straus and Smith, in "Family Patterns and Child Abuse," found that women are as likely, if not more likely, as men to abuse their children. The authors believed child abuse by women could be explained in terms of social factors rather than psychological factors. Women are more likely to abuse their children because they are more likely to have much greater responsibility for raising the children, which means that they are more exposed to the trials and frustrations of child rearing.

Women spend more "time at risk" while tending to their children. "Time at risk" refers to the time a potential abuser spends with the victim. This would apply to any form of domestic violence, such as spousal abuse and elder abuse. For example, elderly people are more likely to experience abuse from each other, not from a caregiver, if one is present. This is not because elderly couples are more violent than caregivers, but because they spend more time with each other.

Risk Factors and Chronic Child Maltreatment by Mothers

To determine the connection between psychological risk factors for child maltreatment and chronic maltreatment, researchers conducted interviews and tests of a group of abusive mothers in Quebec, Canada, on three separate occasions: during the initial recruitment for an intervention program, two years later at the end of the program, and four years after the initial recruitment as a follow-up (Louise S. Ethier, Germain Couture, and Carl Lacharité, "Risk Factors Associated with the Chronicity of High Potential for Child Abuse and Neglect," Journal of Family Violence, vol. 19, no. 1, February 2004). Fifty-six mothers were evaluated: twenty-one mothers whose files at the social agencies had been closed for at least four months (transitory problems group) and thirty-five mothers who were still abusive (chronic group). The risk factors were categorized into two general groups: the mother's history and her characteristics as an adult. The mother's history included placement in foster care, childhood sexual abuse, running away from home in her teens, break-ups with parental relationships, parental unavailability, neglect, and physical violence. The mother's adult characteristics included family unemployment, limited social support, past intimate partner violence, low level of intellectual functioning, low level of education, and high numbers of children and partners.

Ethier et al. found that mothers who reported a history of childhood sexual abuse, placement in foster care, and running away from home during adolescence were more likely to have chronic problems of child maltreatment. Overall, mothers exhibiting more than eight risk factors had about four times the risk for chronic child maltreatment. Those with a history of childhood sexual abuse had 3.75 times more risk of having chronic child maltreatment than those without this risk factor. The risk for chronic child maltreatment was 3.57 times for a childhood history of placement in foster care and 3.02 times for a history of running away from home in adolescence. The study also found that the following risk factors predispose mothers to chronic child maltreatment: childhood neglect (0.58 times more likely than those without this risk factor), physical violence (0.69 times), and unavailability of and break-up with parental figures (0.92 and 1.54 times, respectively). The authors concluded that traumatic experiences of childhood sexual abuse (77.8% of mothers in the study), placement in foster care (80%), and running away from home during adolescence (77.3%) had adverse effects on the mothers' ability to parent their children.

Results also showed that mothers with a low level of intelligence were 2.75 times more at risk for chronic child maltreatment. A total of 78.6% of the mothers showed such risk. However, the researchers cautioned that some studies have found that unless a parent's IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is below sixty, his or her low level of intelligence does not impair parenting abilities. Still other studies say IQ has nothing to do with parental competence. Mothers with a large family were found to have 3.13 times more risk for chronic maltreatment, with 80% of the sample displaying such risk.

Here's the link:
Causes and Effects of Child Abuse - Abusive Mothers
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I am not sure what is the question in your thread. Of course there are plenty of criminals, abusers, psychos, sociopath, mentally ill, additcs, evil people with no morals out there.
i am not sure what do you want people to comment on? Just general comment or something specific?

I am more concerned with the mental, emotional and verbal abuses. We, as a society, don't understand what we are doing to our kids!

Who, in this day-in-age, would want to raise a daughter to be dependent, frightened, quiet and indecisive??

All of you out there who have daughters.......would you want your daughter(s) to be unable to make decisions? Would you want your daughter(s) to just take whatever someone says or does to her and never do anything about it or defend herself? Would you want your daughter(s) to be dependent on others (maybe men?) for her happiness, security, shelter, money, or whatever?

I can tell you the answer my mother would've given....and that would be a resounding NO to all of the above. She raised me and my sister to be independent, decisive and self-sufficient. We are to be a "bonus" to our mate; not a burden. We are to be able to defend ourselves so our children learn how to defend theirselves instead of waiting for someone to come to their defense. Don't you agree that you'd want the same for your daughter(s)?

The only reason a mother would raise her daughter to be dependent, frightened, quiet and indecisive is because she isn't thinking of her daughter at all. She's trying to satisfy her own selfish need for control. And the daughter is dealt a severe injustice because she feels like she can never leave the mother due to her unpreparedness for the real world. This is most definitely abuse and I feel like it's an epidemic larger than the grotesque things we hear on television or the news.

And just for the record, I married a mamma's-boy. The abuse is the same and has caused an epidemic of weak men.

who is raising who to be dependent and frightened? I guess I missed something. Is it from the other thread? Which one?

FD - no one on this forum. I'm basically talking about people I know who are like that: my friend would be considered a "victim" of this, my other friend would be considered the "abuser" to her 7 year old daughter, and of course BM. I have seen it in others as well.

I'm raising a son, which is vastly different than raising a daughter. So I was just wondering if most mothers want their daughters to be self-sufficient, independent and able to stand up for themselves.

The statement was made on another post that Mothers are rarely the ones who abuse or kill children but the statistics are just the opposite. Mothers are THE most likely to abuse and kill children and these articles are just a few I found on the subject. The one thing that seems to contribute the most to the statistics is the fact that mothers tend to spend the most time with the children making them more likely to become overwhelmed or stress filled. The studies also found that in almost every case in which a biological mother abused or killed a child mental illness was involved. Infants are the HIGHEST at risk because of post partum. When fathers abuse or murder children there is almost always marital discord involved. The step parent reports were "disproportionate" to the other cases...meaning the number of step parents killing or beating a step child on record were not near as many. People posting were trying to say the number for step parent/stepchild mistreatment would be higher than bio parent/bio child mistreatment and the opposite is true.

The thoery is that step parents can LEAVE when they get overwhelmed or tired of dealing with the step children but the parents do not have the luxury to walk away making the bio parents higher risk to have stress related episodes relating in injuries to the child.

I just thought the findings were interesting and wanted to share. There is no point to prove really. The numbers say it all.

Doodleboo, there are some problems with this theory. In your first post you only posted the introduction to that article which would clearly contradict the arguement you are trying to make. And I would link the article if I could, but you need a username and password to login to read it.

But basically when a child is killed or abused, the person who killed the child is only listed as mother or father. Criminologists did not actively acknowledge steps in information gathering. The first article you quoted is one of the first studies to go back and find out if it was a step or bio. This would explain why the second article you quoted is inaccurate, there is no way to tell the ratio's between step and bio's there since it is not noted in findings or studies.

But anyway, there are dozens and dozens of studies and theories exploring biological ties and non-biological ties to children. I have not seen one state that a biological is more likely to abuse or kill than a step. However, things do get gray because you can't quite accurately gauge a bio's responsibility in choosing a partner that is abusive.

And NO, I'm not saying that steps are automatically abusive. Here is a good article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,33855,00.html?iid=digg_share

"Stepparents commit filicide at higher rates than do genetic parents. According to M. Daly and M. I. Wilson (1994), motivational differences generate differences in the methods by which stepparents and genetic parents kill a child. Using Canadian and British national-level databases, Daly and Wilson (1994) found that stepfathers were more likely than genetic fathers to commit filicide by beating and bludgeoning, arguably revealing stepparental feelings of bitterness and resentment not present to the same degree in genetic fathers. Genetic fathers, in contrast, were more likely than stepfathers to commit filicide by shooting or asphyxiation, methods which often produce a relatively quick and painless death. We sought to replicate and extend these findings using a United States national-level database of over 400,000 homicides. Results replicate those of Daly and Wilson (1994) for genetic fathers and stepfathers. In addition, we identified similar differences in the methods by which stepmothers and genetic mothers committed filicide. Discussion addresses stepparental psychology in light of the current research, limitations of the current study, and future directions for research on this topic."

Here is another article I can't link you to (by the same researchers in the TIME article), but you can read the abstract.

It's an interesting subject Doodle but I do not think it is nearly as clear cut as you were posting. Most studies just use Mom or Dad and did not introduce step in the mix.

And again, I'm not step bashing. It is what it is and gosh darnit does it make me think that people do need to be evaluated to have children or to expand on the "License to Breed" thread and have stepparents be licensed too.

The articles did both distinguish bio from step parent. This was the entire point of these specific studies. I do realize that on normal criminology reports it may not be specified but these two studies were specifically conducted to see why Bio Mothers have such a high precentage in the child abuse/murder cases. That's why I chose them. In the first article (I apologize that you need a password to read it) there is even a percentage "Pie" chart that shows the percentages for bio father, bio mother, step mother, step father related incidents. Bio Mother was the highest at 47% followed by bio father then step father and lastly step mother.

I agree with this statement you made

"However, things do get gray because you can't quite accurately gauge a bio's responsibility in choosing a partner that is abusive."

I believe Bio parents should be at the very least charged with negligence when a child is abused, neglected or murdered by step parents or bf's/gf's. I think it is the bio's responsibility to pick and choose what kindof people their children are exposed to.

Thanks for the article link...I will have to go read it.

"And again, I'm not step bashing. It is what it is and gosh darnit does it make me think that people do need to be evaluated to have children or to expand on the "License to Breed" thread and have stepparents be licensed too"

I am TOTALLY with you on this:)

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