Mothers, don’t trust your boyfriend with your children

By Carolyn Yeager

In a national news story, cases of single mothers whose live-in lovers’ abusive behavior ended in death for their child brings us face to face with a growing problem. In today’s society, where so many women are “on the loose,” living alone with one or more children, often disassociated from the child’s father and even their own original family, women easily “hook up” with men who they do not know well. For these women it is enough to be attracted to a man and to be getting some of her needs met, to justify that her children’s best interests can come second.

The news story tells of an Hispanic six-year old who was beaten to death by a live-in boyfriend and then buried – with the mother helping her ex-con killer boyfriend with the burial and cover-up. This weak and immoral mother, who says she was also abused by her boyfriend, is facing charges, but is also getting too much sympathy and understanding from friends, relatives and the justice system. This couple should both be put to death in a swift manner. That would send the right message to the community.

A two-year old white boy was drowned in an apartment complex swimming pool, a pre-meditated murder committed because the boyfriend felt him to be an obstacle to his on-again, off-again relationship with the boy’s mother.

Another two-year old was thrown 9 feet across a room because he “balked at going to bed,” and died from his injuries. (This is the child whose motorcycle mama is in the picture above.)

Notice that these are all male children. Men seem to be most jealous of the male children of their partners, resenting the love and attention that she devotes to them. These are psychologically damaged human beings who demand to be the only love interest in their lover’s life. Others can be just plain selfish, sociopathic, and with little ability to connect with children.

The article states that many scholars and case-workers see “the abusive-boyfriend syndrome as part of a broader trend that deeply worries them.”  Risk of abuse is “markedly higher” in homes without both biological parents.  “Cohabitation has become quite common, and most people think, 'What's the harm?' The harm is we're increasing a pattern of relationships that's not good for children," says Brad Wilcox, a Sociology Professor at the University of Virginia.

A 2005 federal survey on child maltreatment tallied nearly 900,000 reported abuse incidents, but didn’t determine parent’s marital status or the makeup of the household (nor race, which I’m sure they don’t want to reveal). It is believed that roughly 1500 child abuse fatalities occur yearly in the United States, 500 or so being caused by overt physical force rather than neglect. Other studies, taken together, present a negative picture of unrelated adults and children living together.

• Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological parents, according to a study of Missouri abuse reports published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2005.
• Children living in stepfamilies or with single parents are at higher risk of physical or sexual assault than children living with two biological or adoptive parents, according to several studies co-authored by David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.
• Girls whose parents divorce are at significantly higher risk of sexual assault, whether they live with their mother or their father, according to several studies co-authored by David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.

While thirty years ago, nearly 80 percent of America's children lived with both parents, now only two-thirds of them do. Twenty-nine percent of all families with children are now one-parent families, up from 17 percent in 1977.

“(In the) many cases of physical and sexual abuse that (I’ve seen) with boyfriends, stepparents,” said Eliana Gil, clinical director for Childhelp, “their primary interest is really the adult partner, and they may find themselves more irritated when there’s a problem with the children.”

According to Susan Orr, one of the top child-welfare specialists in the Department of Health and Human Services, "The risk (of abuse) to children outside a two-parent household is greater."

A comprehensive federal survey, the National Incidence Study, will be completed next year. The previous version of this particular study, released in 1996, concluded that children of single parents had a 77 percent greater risk of being harmed by physical abuse than children living with both parents. But the new version will try to delve much deeper into the specifics of family structure and cohabitation.

My Comment: What makes marriages fail? Many, many break up simply because of impatience and the ever-present "other option". By this I mean, as societal wealth (visible as government welfare programs) increases, females feel empowered to walk away and males feel less responsibility.

The only effective answer is to be far more hard-line in discouraging pregnancy by unmarried women, and also divorce, but this is exactly what those politically correct sociologists and case workers are afraid to say. In our cultural atmosphere of freedom and “anything goes,” we don’t believe in putting any restraints on women’s sexual freedom, and “right” to have as many children, whether married or unmarried, as they wish. The state is left to pay the bills and deal with the results in state child-care institutions and the criminal justice system. Their answer to unmarried pregnancies is to hand out more condoms.

We also need to emphasize the importance of genetic continuity and the nuclear family. Freely mixing with all kinds of people who are genetically and ethnically unlike us is a recipe for disaster in relationships. Modern liberal social teachings have added to the problem, such as "free love" (an oxymoron); the belief that everyone is the same (which makes it okay to substitute one for another); equal rights for women, which is fine except when it’s interpreted as promiscuity and the “right” of personal fulfillment, which conflicts with women's nature-given role of mother and primary care-giver. These and more I could come up with, argue for the importance of blood connections in families and lower expectations of "happiness" for both men and women.

Read the Associated Press article at  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071118/ap_on_re_us/child_abuse