Vent about how people always blame the mom (History of Feminism group)

[gollygee]

There's a story I read about online this morning about how a dad had his kids for a weekend and got drunk and drove them around, and the kids texted 911 (which is an option where they live) and the police arrested the dad.

So I read the comments - always a mistake but I did anyway - and people are blaming the mom! Instead of blaming the dad for drinking and driving his kids around, they blame the mom because she shouldn't have let her kids go with him. As if she had a choice! Do they know nothing about how divorces and child custody work?

This happened the other day too. A man was arrested for sexually abusing the kid (from the story it sounded like it was probably by the dad but they don't give that detail to protect the kid's identity) and again, people blamed the mom for allowing the child to be with a child molester. Most people weren't blaming the child molester, they were blaming the mom! They said she should go to prison too for allowing the child to be with a child molester! I guess they want the kid in foster care?

This just makes me so angry! Why would people blame the mom when kids are in danger or hurt but not by or around the mom? Are we supposed to become superhuman when we become moms?

[apcalc]

1. Ticks me off too...

Like these irresponsible dolts get a free pass....KMA

[mercuryblues]

2. there are

plenty of states that have laws to arrest the victim in these cases. Do they really think abused women will come forward if they can be arrested? The same with them losing their apartments and jobs. Punish the woman for the man's actions.

No one knows how many women have suffered a fate like Lindley’s, but looking back over the past decade, BuzzFeed News identified 28 mothers in 11 states sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for failing to prevent their partners from harming their children. In every one of these cases, there was evidence the mother herself had been battered by the man.

Almost half, 13 mothers, were given 20 years or more. In one case, the mother was given a life sentence for failing to protect her son, just like the man who murdered the infant boy. In another, the sentences were effectively the same: The killer got life, and the mother got 75 years, of which she must serve at least 63 years and nine months. In yet another, the mother got a longer sentence than the man who raped her son. In one more, a father fractured an infant girl’s toe, femur, and seven ribs and was sentenced to two years; for failing to intervene, the mother got 30.

At least 29 states have laws that explicitly criminalize parents’ failure to protect their children from abuse. In Texas, where Lindley lives, the crime is known as injury to a child “by omission.” In other states, it goes by “permitting child abuse” or “enabling child abuse.” In addition, prosecutors in at least 19 states can use other, more general laws against criminal negligence in the care of a child, or placing a child in a dangerous situation.

These laws make parents responsible for what they did not do. Typically, people cannot be prosecuted for failing to thwart a murder; they had to have actually helped carry it out. But child abuse is an exception, and the logic behind these laws is simple: Parents and caregivers bear a solemn duty to protect their children

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexcampbell/how-the-law-turns-battered-women-into-criminals#.jqdLPMbkl

[seabeyond]

8. I wonder how many fathers have bee prosecuted by this law, when the mother abuses. Nt

[lostnfound]

3. 24-7 responsibility for everything that goes wrong

Constant struggle to balance work and parenting, advice but no help from relatives, rebellion from the teens, and society's blaming the mom for everything wrong with the kid s mirrored by the kids blame for the mom for everything that's not easy in their lives.

If you want to say "screw it" and escape for a day or a week or a month, there is no escape. If you feel like you're losing your sanity, or your health because the stress is eating you up, just buck up and move on.

[dr60omg]

4. No there is no help and the welfare bill made this worse

I remember when the welfare bill went through I was waiting for a plane and I saw mothers getting on buses in the middle of the night to go to work leaving their children at home. I was shaking because I left my own child who was a bit older but I had to go to a meeting because of my career. And, it always has been a damned if you do and damned if you don't balancing act. I am so disgusted with all of this that the same things I was speaking out about in the 80's and 90's still exist but in an intensified more draconian fashion

[mopinko]

5. i have 3 daughters.

none of them want kids.
one is already past that, and another has so many health problems she would have a tough time.

i have done my job. i dont recommend having kids for any woman any more.

recently left a 30+ year marriage to a man who was there but not there. the kids all have issues. but they all are accepting "the prodigal dad" back in their lives, while they all still hate on me for the problems of their childhood.

yep, shit runs downhill, and mom is always at the bottom of the hill.

[ismnotwasm]

6. The blame the woman mentality is very strong

Just like blaming the victim in cases of rape. Up here, recently a woman was brutally murdered by a date she had found on an on-line dating site. Guess what was said most often? Yup. "Why was she dating a stranger she met on the Internet"

I could cry.

[Phentex]

7. How many times do we hear...

"Where was the mother?" whenever something happens to a child. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "Where was the father?"

We hear: "Did your mother raise you that way? Did your mother teach you to talk with that mouth?" etc.

Don't even get me started on divorce issues.