Why Is An Abusive Mother Given More Of A Pass For Her Crimes?

[dangermom]

@Frylock

The mom gets an almost complete pass from me.

It is clear in the video that she is attempting to make the most that she believes she can for her daughter out of the situation. She takes the belt away from him, she refuses to give it back, she hits the girl as little as possible while retaining plausibility with the dad, she tries to code encouragement into her exhortations (“take it like a woman” etc is her attempt to encourage her daughter to be strong) and so on. The woman believes she has no hope of ending the situation, so she does the best she (thinks she) can with what she (thinks she) is forced to deal with when it comes to the abuse of her daughter.

…

I read another woman’s post that that’s exactly what she used to do with her children. She would try to soften the abuse by taking over from her husband and making him feel that he had won, so he could quit. Then she would do as little as possible herself. At the time she felt that it was the best she could do, but now a while later (after having gotten out) she realizes how twisted the whole thing was and has a lot of remorse and guilt.

But it’s really hard to recognize when you’re in it.

An old friend of mine described once how she and her siblings would do something similar; if Mom was going to beat one of them, they’d ‘help’ by getting the least-painful belt and so on, but there was also an element of buying in to the whole thing. Of course, they were children, and they don’t bear the same kind of responsibility, but she had similar guilt over it.

[blindboyard]

Women are at least as likely to initiate violence between partners as men and rather more likely to initiate child abuse. In this case she’s violent herself, in that the bare minimum of violence would have been not hitting the child, and wasd quite happy to watch the child beaten and do nothing about it as well.

[miamouse]

She released the video after 7-8 years. Is there a statute of limitations on child abuse? It may have been her way of outing him without putting him in jail.

No one seems to have brought up the fact that as a family court judge he made decisions to take children away from their parents while perpetrating the same behavior. This fact alone probably tempered the mom’s ability to make a sane decision with regards to leaving. In effect her thinking may have been: ‘Judges are powerful people with powerful friends, even if they believe me, he can just pull a few strings…’

[Grrr]

If the daughter has forgiven, who am I not to?

I hope the OP doesn’t mind, but I’d like for us to NOT confine this topic to the asshole judge.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard of stories where the mother is abusive or strung out on drugs. Custody is awarded to the responsible father.

Mother goes to rehab and gets her shit together. Then goes back to court and gets custody of the kids.

Want to talk about horse shit, THAT’S horse shit!

[Azeotrope]

@MPB_in_Salt_Lake

Anywhere would be better than staying in that home.

But that’s just a non-answer that’s easy to say, not so easy to do.

Obviously I hardly know jack about the mother in the TX judge thing, so let’s consider the victim of a “classic” abuser, who has spent ages isolating the victim from their friends, family, and keeps tabs on their whereabouts at all times.

If the victim doesn’t work outside the home, they won’t have their own money, nor will they if the abuser insists on holding the purse strings.

Unless they’re willing to leave just with the clothes on their backs, I’d think trying to pack up on the sly would be a logistical nightmare.

If there’s a safe place (shelter, family member or whatever) how are they supposed to get there unless they have their own car? Cabs and buses cost money they might not have.

Children will make the move exponentially difficult, since you’d have to pack up their own clothes, diapers (if applicable) and whatnot. Also they’re being taken from a scary, confusing abusive home situation to a scary, confusing unknown.

Finally, and this is the biggest hurdle of all, will the victim have the juice to actually make a run for it? Thinking they’re no good, knowing full well the abuser is liable to come after them and put their lives and the lives of those sheltering them at risk? To tell people what’s been happening, when the police, their families, or whoever might not believe them or tell them to suck it up to keep the peace?

Just considering it as an intellectual exercise, never having been in that situation, it seems daunting.

The mother doesn’t get a complete pass in this case, but I can’t not feel a little sympathy for her .

[miamouse]

@Rigamarole

Because she’s a woman. In Straight Dope Fantasyworld, the same expectations are placed upon women and men. But in real life, society expects less from women. I’m reminded of a recent thread asking about “cowardice” in women - there’s no such thing as cowardice in women, because women aren’t expected to be brave. They’re not expected to strong (physically or mentally/emotionally). They’re not really even expected to be “honorable” and take personal responsibility for their actions to the extent that men are. And while they are typically expected not to beat their children, when they do transgress the social mores it’s easier to forgive because, well, they’re women. They’re weak*.

*I note that this isn’t my view, but it’s society’s, so you shouldn’t act all surprised when you see it in action.

I realize this isn’t your view, but speaking as a woman (and unless I’m being wooshed), this is almost the exact opposite of my experience. I say almost because woman are expected to do everything quickly and efficiently without praise b/c that’s their job, and any failing is a result of being a weak woman. So in effect women are strong enough until you overload them, them if they can’t deliver, ‘they’re weak’ :: off to read the cowardice thread::

[Azeotrope]

@miamouse

She released the video after 7-8 years. Is there a statute of limitations on child abuse? It may have been her way of outing him without putting him in jail.

In the pit thread, I think the conclusion is the statue of limitations has run out, but she allegedly released the video to protect a younger sister.

(Theory B is that she’s trying to get revenge on her father for reposessing her car and cutting off her trust fund. The whole ugly mess just keeps getting uglier.)

[Rachellelogram]

@Frylock

Is she an abhorrent spineless coward, or is she an unfortunate who lacks the right education concerning the relevant facts?

She is both. It’s not like a person can only be exclusively ignorant or exclusively blind/stupid. As I already said upthread, it’s an uncomfortably murky gray area.

[SciFiSam]

So there’s a video of two people beating their daughter. One of them doles out much less abuse, expresses remorse for her actions, and is not a judge (his job is the only reason this video is news rather than torture porn), and you think that the reason she’s getting less criticism is because of her gender?

@Freudian_Slit

Really? It seems in general that it’s quite the opposite – that moms are heavily scrutinized/blamed for things going wrong with their kids, whereas dads get a pass for just showing up. In the OP’s example, it seems like the dad was the one doing most of the abuse, so it’s natural he would be the one coming under fire.

Yeah. I don’t think abusive women get easier treatment at all - quite the opposite, because they’re supposed to be nurturers. However, women who abuse (no cite - just my impression from what friends have said about their parents) tend to do it in more subtle ways that are less easy to classify.

[RickJay]

@Der_Trihs

No they aren’t; in domestic abuse both genders give and take roughly equally; men may be stronger, but that just means women go for weapons more often.

I’m sure you can support this with some evidence. I, for one, do not believe it. Prove it.

[wonky]

I don’t think she’s being given “more of a pass” when she does the same things, I think that people just don’t see her crimes as the same things.

Women who leave abusive spouses are likely to end up dead. When weighing “We’re getting beaten by a violent unstable man but we’re still alive” versus “We might get away entirely but might be dead tomorrow” I don’t know if it’s such a slam-dunk to say the latter is the only conceivable choice.

Obviously, the best choice is not to date/marry/reproduce with an abusive person. There’s no doubt that’s the choice that benefits everyone the most. But once you’ve done it, what then? If she leaves and doesn’t take the kids, she’s abandoning them and at severe risk for being killed. If she leaves and does take the kids, she’s putting herself AND the kids at severe risk for being killed. If she stays, they all get beaten (at some frequency we don’t know about) but if it’s been going on for years the risk that they will all die at his hands seems lower.

Throw in his being a judge and the odds had to have looked even worse from the mom’s perspective.

[Frylock]

@rachelellogram

She is both. It’s not like a person can only be exclusively ignorant or exclusively blind/stupid. As I already said upthread, it’s an uncomfortably murky gray area.

That something is an “uncomfortably murky gray area” doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility to have a clear and well thought out view about the matter if we’re going to think about it at all. I had two other questions in my post, for example, which would probably help in the expression of such a view, to wit:

If sticking around means a woman is abhorrent and spineless, why bother to educate her concerning the relevant facts? She’s abhorrent and spineless. The facts will be irrelevant to her.

If sticking around means she’s not educated concerning the relevant facts, then on what basis do you call her abhorrent and spineless? We do not in most contexts equate honest ignorance with cowardice.

[SnakesCatLady]

I don’t give the mom a pass for one reason. Dad had left the room (to get another belt) and Mom proceeded to hit the girl herself. He wasn’t in the room. She could have hit the bed if she wanted him to think she was hitting the girl.

Both Mom and Daughter say they were abused for years. I don’t disbelieve their story. Why didn’t they leave? There may have been a bit of “he makes $90 thou a year and supports me in the style I like; it’s not so bad”.

My high school best friend’s mother told her, after stepdad threw her through a sliding glass door: “I know he’s a little rough on you, but he supports us very well”.

[Rachellelogram]

@Frylock

That something is an “uncomfortably murky gray area” doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility to have a clear and well thought out view about the matter if we’re going to think about it at all.

You’re saying that we shouldn’t think about abuse at all if we can’t approach it from a strictly logical standpoint? Well shit, then nobody can think about abuse, ever, anymore, unless they’re a fucking Vulcan. You cannot approach emotional abuse from a strictly logical standpoint. It is not perpetrated logically by abusers. It is not received logically by victims. And onlookers do not have a logical reaction when they are revolted by it. This shit is purely emotional.

As a child of abuse myself, I can’t really do any better than to tell you that the whole situation is murky and shitty, and this woman (and my own mother, and likely all battered mothers) are pitiable victims, and incredibly fucking stupid at the same time. It does not have to be one or the other.

Of course, I suspect that you don’t really care what I think on the issue, and are just trying to get me to entrap myself with your leading questions. I don’t plan to play into that. A good first step would be for you to realize that abuse is not logical, and applying logic to analysis of it is very difficult.

[MPB_in_Salt_Lake]

@Kolga

So? I’m not expecting a person who grew up under that kind of abuse to be all holy and pure. Unlike Hollywood, horrific abuse doesn’t always make one a better person.

Did someone suggest that?

I would imagine that in many, many cases, being abused makes people worse, certainly not better.

I have no problem if the girl has been blackmailing her Father out of everything she can get for the past 8 years, as a man like that deserves to be taken advantage of, and he wont get ANY sympathy from me if he goes to jail, loses his job or ends up mopping up floors in the “private booths” at local redneck Teadance Parlor, but his Daughter, (the victim) claimed that she ONLY went forward to get Daddy Dearest “Help and Healing” and to try and ensure that her younger Sister is safe.

If the Judge’s claims are indeed true, and he had recently cut off financial support to the Daughter that he was taped brutalizing, that DOES NOT make her less of a victim, but it does make her disingenuous (a big word for “liar”) about her motives for coming forward at this point in time.

[Kobal2]

@Kolga

I doubt that you’ll agree, but I’ll try to explain why she DOESN’T get a “pass” from me, but perhaps gets a bit more…understanding? Softness? Something.

At the time of the video, the girl in question was 16. That’s 16 years, minimum, that the mother has been living with this man. We don’t know through video evidence what she herself had been dealing with, but in the interviews with both her and the daughter (Hillary) since the video surfaced, both of them have said that the abuse was going on for years prior.

When you are beaten enough, you begin to believe you deserve it. The abuser tells you you do. You believe him or her.

An abusive relationship doesn’t start out with being belted across the face on a first date. The abuse tends to build up slowly, over months or years, with the abuser wearing you down emotionally, psychologically, spirituality. By the time the hitting starts, the victim often feels it’s just a natural process.

Leaving an abuser is actually the time in which women and children are in most danger. Most murder-suicides involving domestic violence perpetrators and their victims occur after separations, divorce papers, or restraining orders have been initiated. Sometimes, it can feel as if it’s safer to stay.

The Judge in question here is a FAMILY COURT JUDGE, in a small rural Texas town. You really can’t see how a woman married to such a man might feel that there’s no way for her to safely leave and take the children with her? I can certainly imagine that in that atmosphere, with so much of the town legal system connected to your abuser, that you might feel that staying is safer not only for you but also for your children.

All of this is very true… but it also flew right out the window when she started verbally abusing her daughter in the exact same tone as Judge Asshole, and hitting her in the exact same way. At this point, her victim-hood becomes utterly meaningless to me. I could have accepted if she just stood and stared powerless while her husband went to town. But she didn’t. She became an abuser herself.

As a coping mechanism ? In a weird and thoroughly misguided attempt to protect her daughter ? To protect herself ? To be able to tell herself that her own abuse was meaningful, or normal ? Who cares, and why should we ? I’m sure Judge Asshole himself had to get fucked in the head quite thoroughly through his own childhood in order to become Judge Asshole in the first place.
But you don’t see him getting any sympathy, much less a pass.

[Frylock]

@rachelellogram

You’re saying that we shouldn’t think about abuse at all if we can’t approach it from a strictly logical standpoint?

Not quite, but I’d say that’s close.

People should not have opinions about things that matter unless their opinions are well thought out. I’d take that to be axiomatic.

As a child of abuse myself, I can’t really do any better than to tell you that the whole situation is murky and shitty, and this woman (and my own mother, and likely all battered mothers) are pitiable victims, and incredibly fucking stupid at the same time. It does not have to be one or the other.

I don’t see any tension at all between being a pitiable victim and being incredibly fucking stupid. There’s no reason to think someone couldn’t be both of these things.

But it is extremely difficult to see how sticking around could constitute someone as an abhorrent coward and at the same time, sticking around could constitute that person as being unacquainted with the facts relevant to her situation. A coward is someone who, even when appraised of the relevant facts, does what it takes to save her own skin even at the expense of her companions. If sticking around, on the other hand, constitutes her as unacquainted with the relevant facts, then she has not had any opportunity to show whether she is a coward or not. We would need to know what she would do once acquainted with the facts about how to escape etc. (and we’d need to know those facts are ourselves) before we were in a position to judge her as a coward.

Of course, I suspect that you don’t really care what I think on the issue, and are just trying to get me to entrap myself with your leading questions.

Depending on how things play out, I may be highlighting a tension in your thought, or I may be outright pointing out a contradiction.

[Frylock]

@Kobal2

But you don’t see him getting any sympathy, much less a pass.

I don’t know much at all about him, but I’m inclined to think he deserves a lot of sympathy as well. (I’m inclined to think Hitler deserves a lot of sympathy, though, so you may want to take what I say on the matter with a chunk of salt…)

Also, jail.

Does the mom deserve jail? The motivations and background can be mitigating factors. A lot more of those factors seem to be at play for her than for him.

[rhubarbarin]

Having kids with someone who is abusive is a clusterfuck for the better parent. It’s not as simple as ‘taking the kids and leaving’ for a lot of people, especially if the other parent is the breadwinner.

My mom abused us and my dad (a sweet, gentle man who loved his kids and only spanked me once in my life) was a bystander who occasionally a] tried to calm her down or b]was pressured into participating in my mom’s raging ‘discipline’ sessions. While I don’t give him a ‘free pass’, and I believe there is no way in hell I would ever tolerate a similar situation as a parent, his crimes were in no way equal to my mom’s, and my resentment towards him doesn’t compare. He was just… weak. And he was in love with my mom, who is really quite charming most of the time towards most people.

If he had tried to ‘take us’ and divorce her, I believe my mother would have fought dirty to retain full custody anyway. And she most likely would have gotten it, unless the judge asked us kids who we wanted to live with (we weren’t at all shy to express a strong preference for our dad at all times, which I’m sure didn’t help mom’s resentment towards us and desire to control/minimize dad’s influence).

[Kolga]

@MPB_in_Salt_Lake

Did someone suggest that?

Sorry, I gathered from your posting that you were insinuating something about her character in relation to the timing of the release of the video.

Oh, wait.

@MPB_in_Salt_Lake

If the Judge’s claims are indeed true, and he had recently cut off financial support to the Daughter that he was taped brutalizing, that DOES NOT make her less of a victim, but it does make her disingenuous (a big word for “liar”) about her motives for coming forward at this point in time.

You were insinuating something about her character in relation to the timing of the release of the video.

I was merely commenting on the insinuation.

And certainly, we can all have our opinions about the characters of everyone involved, but it’s interesting to me how many people (not just here) are focusing on the timing of the release of the video, and the motivations behind the release of the video.

@Kobal2

All of this is very true… but it also flew right out the window when she started verbally abusing her daughter in the exact same tone as Judge Asshole, and hitting her in the exact same way. At this point, her victim-hood becomes utterly meaningless to me. I could have accepted if she just stood and stared powerless while her husband went to town. But she didn’t. She became an abuser herself.

As a coping mechanism ? In a weird and thoroughly misguided attempt to protect her daughter ? To protect herself ? To be able to tell herself that her own abuse was meaningful, or normal ? Who cares, and why should we ? I’m sure Judge Asshole himself had to get fucked in the head quite thoroughly through his own childhood in order to become Judge Asshole in the first place.
But you don’t see him getting any sympathy, much less a pass.

I get that, and I don’t disagree that she’s participating. And at the same time, I can hold in my head the idea that the mother has been sucked into the violence. For me, it’s not an either/or proposition (not saying it’s that way for you, either).

Also, the mother has since apologized to the girl and expressed (and continues to express) remorse, whereas the judge continues to deny that it was “that bad” and blame the girl herself. I think that certainly might be contributing to the lack of sympathy for him.