Abusegate and Children
1/26/2010 By Janice Shaw Crouse Concerned Women for America
Sadly the mother’s boyfriends are most often the perpetrators of abuse deaths
and mothers are more often responsible for the neglect fatalities.
The month of January is devoted to shining the light of truth on so-called “domestic violence” issues. Instead of “spousal abuse,” the broader term “domestic violence” provides cover for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to spawn widespread distortion of data that is used for political ammunition to hold taxpayers hostage to the VAWA Mafia — all those bureaucrats and social workers whose existence depends upon convincing the public that husbands are dangerous to their wives and children. In fact, the mother’s boyfriends are most often the perpetrators of abuse deaths and mothers are more often responsible for the neglect fatalities.
Edward E. Bartlett, Ph.D., a leading researcher on VAWA and a spokesman for Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting (RADAR), reports, “The domestic violence industry has been hard at work pushing its slanted message for two decades; the VAWA Mafia seeks to destroy the traditional family and shred the Constitution.”
Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to refer to the “VAWA Mafia” because the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) does little to protect women or children; instead, it wastes money (over $1 billion a year) and propagates false information.
Let’s be clear, violence against women and children are heinous acts. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that every year in the United States there are over 3 million referrals of child abuse that involve “the alleged maltreatment of approximately 6 million children.” Who does not recoil when innocence is stolen, whether in one awful trauma or through persistent, unrelenting acts of neglect, anger, sexual dominance or vengeance?
However, what is often overlooked is the central role that family structure plays when it comes to incidents of violence against women and children. While the majority of American children move through the stages of childhood in a secure environment where they are both loved and protected, increasing numbers of children live in household arrangements where they are neglected and abused rather than cherished. Millions of children learn early that they rate a distant second or third in priority behind drugs and/or their mother’s boyfriends.
Little wonder many children live in fear of what might happen to them next when there is a rotating cycle of boyfriends moving in with their mothers. Their family instability, lack of supervision and desperate conditions keep them from having the happy childhood that we would wish for all children; worse, their childhood mistreatment threatens their future, indeed, their health and life. At the same time that our nation has improved so many living conditions for Americans across the board, we have produced a culture that is injurious to our women and children. It is virtually impossible for society to protect our nation’s children from the conditions resulting from the sexual revolution and the breakdown of the family.
The sad reality is that we are spinning our wheels as a nation in trying to keep up with the problems of children who are denied the presence and protection of mature, concerned fathers. The latest figures show that federal spending on children is now 15.4 percent of total federal domestic spending; yet UNICEF ranks the United States 20th in children’s well-being among the 21 rich democracies in the world. How many more children will be abused before we acknowledge that the investment America needs to make for the nation’s children is to encourage marriage? A married father-mother home is the safest and most nurturing place for the nation’s children.
The latest National Incidence of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-3) study reveals a 67 percent increase in the incidence of child maltreatment since 1986 and a 149 percent increase since 1980. The NIS-3 reports, not surprisingly, that children of single parents were “overrepresented” compared to their counterparts living with both parents. While predators may target any child, the data is overwhelming: the safest place for a child is with his or her married mother and father; all other household arrangements carry a higher risk of abuse and neglect.
- Abuse is 6 times higher in stepfamilies than in intact families.
- Abuse is 14 times higher in a single-mother family than in intact families.
- Abuse is 20 times higher with cohabiting parents than in an intact family.
- Abuse is 33 times higher with cohabiting partners than in an intact family.
These unstable cohabiting households are dangerous places for children. The United States leads the developed nations in the number of child maltreatment deaths. The child abuse death rate for American children is three times higher than Canada’s, is higher than Japan’s, Germany’s, France’s, the United Kingdom’s, and 11 times higher than Italy’s.
Households that are poor owing to patterns of dysfunctional behavior (particularly where alcohol and drugs are abused) are dangerous places for children. Doubtless this finding is influenced by the fact that more than three out of five poor families with children are headed by single-women, and when they cohabit their children are at risk by the presence of an adult male with whom they have no biological relationship but with whom the child competes for the mother’s time and affection. Abuse, however, can occur across the economic and social spectrum; it is not limited to the poorest families.
Herbert Ward pithily said, “Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.” During this month of January, we all need to shine the light of truth into the shadows. We need to work to bring dads back into families so that the nation’s children will be protected now and, equally important, be enabled to realize their potential as they move forward toward a bright future.
This article is based on a chapter in Janice Crouse’s just-released book, Children At Risk.
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