Child Abuse

Note

The point of this page is to combat the false notion that fathers abuse children more than mothers, not to suggest that mothers should not have equal parental rights after a divorce.

Contrary to public perception, "the most likely physical abuser of a young child will be that child's mother, not a male in the household" ⁴

Mothers abuse children twice as often as fathers: 40% of child victims were maltreated by their mother acting alone, vs 19% percent by their father acting alone.⁵

Mothers accounted for 55% of child murders, whereas fathers were responsible for only a relatively tiny percentage.³

Women ages twenty to forty-nine are almost twice as likely as men to be perpetrators of child maltreatment: ". . . almost twothirds [of child abusers] were females". Given that male perpetrators are not necessarily fathers but more likely to be boyfriends and stepfathers, fathers emerge as the least likely child abusers.¹

Research found that children are as much as thirty-three times more likely to be abused when a live-in boyfriend or stepfather is present.²

Judges error on the dangerous side by giving children to mothers and not fathers.

From the father's perspective, it appears that the real abusers have removed him from the family so they can abuse his children with impunity.

Recent cases in the news:

Mother cuts off infants arms - CNN
Mother locks son in trunk during party - CNN
Mother locks daughters in storage shed - WashingtonPost

1 US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1998a, xi-xii
2 Robert Whelan, 1993, 29
3 Justice Department, BJS 1994
4 Patrick Fagan and Dorothy Hanks of the Heritage Foundation, 1997, 16
5 U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, reference