Broadening constructions of family violence: mothers’ perspectives of aggression from their children

Child and Family Social Work 2003, 8, pp 321–329

©

2003 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

321

Blackwell Science, Ltd

Oxford, UK

CFSChild and Family Social Work

1365-2206Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2003

November 2003

8

4

321329

Original Article

Mothers’ perspectives of aggression from their children

D Jackson

Correspondence:

Debra Jackson,School of Nursing, Family and Community Health,College of Social and Health Sciences,University of Western Sydney,Parramatta Campus, Building ER,Locked Bag 1797,Penrith South DC NSW 1797,AustraliaE-mail: [email protected]

Keywords:

adolescence, child-to-mother violence, family violence, mothering, women’s health

Accepted for publication:

July 2003

Broadening constructions of family violence: mothers’ perspectives of aggression from their children

Debra Jackson

Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Family and Community Health, College of Social and Health Sciences, University of

Western Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study used feminist insights to explore experientialaspects of the phenomenon of child-to-mother violence from theperspectives of six women survivors. Participants took part in con-versational style audiotaped interviews lasting between two and fourhours. Feminist analysis revealed that fear and violence had becomea feature of mothering for these women. Three themes were identi-fied:

It was only a matter of time:

feeling intimidated and underthreat;

He just punched me:

physical violence from child to mother;and

Other men in the house:

violence directed to the mothers byfriends and associates of their children. Currently the literature over-whelmingly constructs family violence as elder abuse, spousal/part-ner violence, or child abuse, and generally fails to acknowledge, oraddress, violence from children to parents. However, findings fromthis study suggest that the discourse about family violence needs tobe broadened to include child-to-mother violence. Implications ofthis study for practice and research are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Violence is recognized as a major social problem, andrepresents a growing challenge to health and socialservice providers. However, aspects of violenceremain poorly understood. Family violence is increas-ingly common (McAllister 2000) and, though itundoubtedly has an extensive history, is a relativelynew area of interest to researchers, a fact that reflectsthe lack of recognition (until recently) of the homeand family as areas of social and historical significance(Family Violence Educational Taskforce (FVET)1991). Though the word ‘family’ is becoming increas-ingly contested, in Western cultures it most oftenmeans a heterosexual two-generational nuclear family,and is characterized by a deep-seated sense of privacyin the home, and intimate emotional attachmentsbetween children and their parents (FVET 1991,p. 42).

Harbin & Madden (1979, p. 1288) first identified‘battered parents syndrome’ as a distinct form of fam-

ily violence. They described it as comprising ‘actualphysical assaults or verbal and non-verbal threats ofphysical harm’ (Harbin & Madden 1979, p. 1288).Parental abuse is even more hidden and invisible thanother forms of family violence (Pelletier & Coutu1992), and because of the hidden nature of the phe-nomenon it is difficult to determine incidence or fre-quency with any degree of certainty. Estimates vary,with Pelletier & Coutu (1992) suggesting it affects upto 18% of two-parent families, while the incidence insingle-parent families is said to be as high as 29%(Livingston 1985). Sheehan (1997) presents a sampleof 60 families living with adolescent violence; of the60, 25 were single-parent families, 25 were two-parentfamilies, nine were in stepfamilies and one was livingwith grandparents.

Using National Survey of Youth data collected in1972, Agnew & Huguley (1989) estimated thatbetween 9.2 and 11.7% of all adolescents hadassaulted their parents at least once in a previousthree-year period. Data gathered in the late 1970s


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suggested that severe violence (to parents) was perpe-trated by 3% of all adolescents (Cornell & Gelles1982). In using the term ‘severe violence’ Cornell &Gelles (1982) were referring to kicking, punching,hitting with an object, beating up, or threatening with,or use of, a knife or gun.

Despite the difficulty in obtaining precise figuresabout incidence and prevalence of child-to-parentviolence, it is clear from the available evidence that itis a feature of family life for a significant number ofpeople, yet the literature also suggests that publishedfigures do not reflect actual incidences (Emery 1989).The evidence indicates that families themselves act tokeep this problem hidden. Charles (1986) stated thateven when asked directly, there is often an initialdenial from parents concerning abuse from children,and Pelletier & Coutu (1992, p. 6) asserted that ‘mostassaulted parents will go to considerable efforts tohide the problem’.

The silence that surrounds the issue generally isalso seen in the literature. Adolescent violence has notattracted the same level of researcher interest as otherforms of family violence, which has been overwhelm-ingly constructed as elder abuse, violence betweenadult partners/spouses, or child abuse. The literaturetends to position adolescent violence under the rubricof delinquency rather than family violence. Downey(1997) suggests that this effectively means that child-to-parent or adolescent violence towards parents isless likely to be subject to feminist or other scrutinythan it would be were it located within the discourseof family violence. Furthermore, this positioningmeans that any interventions are situated in the legal/justice system, with little support available to familiesthrough health and social services.

It is also noteworthy that the extant literature looksat violence from children to their parents, rather thanto mothers specifically. Thus child-to-mother violenceremains ill recognized and poorly understood. Asearch of the literature reveals a gap in terms of theexperiential aspects of adolescent child-to-motherviolence and abuse.

THE STUDY

This paper is drawn from a larger study that aimedto: develop understandings of experiential aspectsof motherhood; develop holistic understandings ofwomen’s perceptions of the influence of their moth-ering role on their own lives and health; and exploreaspects of motherhood that were experienced bywomen as being particularly challenging and stressful.

In the primary study, 20 women with children aged17 years and over were recruited using snowball sam-pling, and took part in conversational-style interviews.Researcher interest in the phenomenon of child-to-mother violence was sparked when analysis of the datarevealed that six of the 20 participants reported expe-riencing some level of violence from their adolescentchildren. Though recruits were not asked about familyviolence specifically, it became apparent that it was adistressing aspect of mothering for these six partici-pants, and it is these women whose narrative is thefocus of this paper.

This paper aims to explore the phenomenon ofchild-to-mother violence from the perspectives of thesix participants who raised it as an issue. The specificobjectives of this paper are to:

1

Present insights into mothers’ lived experiences ofchild-to-mother violence.

2

Describe the types of child-to-mother violenceexperienced by these women.

3

Extend knowledge to help raise awareness aboutchild-to-mother violence.

4

Provide directions for further research.

METHODS

Philosophical underpinnings of the study

Because of its focus on the concerns and experiencesof a group of women, this exploratory–descriptivestudy was informed by feminist insights. Feminismhas a central concern with recognizing the inherentvalue of women’s ways of being, thinking and doing(Reinharz 1992; Tong 1998). Feminist research prin-ciples identified by Cook & Fonow (1986) helped toguide the project. These incorporate the need for con-tinuous recognition of gender as basic to all social life(including the conduct of research); recognition ofconsciousness-raising as an integral aspect of method-ology; acceptance of inter-subjectivity and personalknowing as legitimate sources of knowledge; acknowl-edgement of ethical responsibilities in research; andunderstanding of the transformative and empoweringaspects of feminist research (Cook & Fonow 1986).

Recruitment and procedure

Snowball sampling was used to recruit women intothe primary study. This is a process where initial infor-mants are recruited, and then are asked to use theirnetworks to recruit additional participants (Jackson

et al

. 2003). In this study three initial informants were


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recruited through circulation of study information toe-mail networks and notice boards in health facilities.These three informants then assisted in recruitmentthrough their own social networks.

Following recruitment into the study, procedures ofinformed consent and the collection of basic demo-graphic data, women were given a triggering state-ment: ‘Can you think back over your years as a motherand tell me some stories about the most challenging,as well as the most positive, aspects of your motheringjourney?’ This statement proved to be effective ingenerating discussion, and though a series of addi-tional triggers were prepared, these were not generallynecessary. Each of the conversational-style interviewslasted for between two and four hours, with themajority being 150–180 minutes in duration. Follow-ing the interview, participants were asked if theywould be willing to take part in a process of memberchecking (Webb 1992; Sandelowski 1993) and threewomen indicated they would be interested in checkingemerging understandings at a later date. These threewere followed up, but one was not available to partic-ipate at this time so subsequently two of the womentook part in member checking procedures.

The interviews were audiotaped and transcribedverbatim. Following transcription, tapes were listenedto again, while closely reading the transcripts, thusensuring narrative–transcription accuracy. Narrativewas included in this particular aspect of the study ifit revealed any experiences of child-to-mother vio-lence, and if it identified maternal fear of her childas an issue that had impinged on the mother/childrelationship.

Analysis of data

Narrative analysis was informed by the work ofAnderson & Jack (1991), who advise against superfi-cial listening, because doing so reduces the likelihoodof seeing things in new ways, therefore limiting inter-pretive potential. Rather, they suggest three ways oflistening that can guide the analytical process. Theseare:

∑

attention to moral self-evaluative statements, whichmake the relationships between self-concept andaccepted cultural norms visible;

∑

attention to meta-statements, or points in the inter-view where the participant makes some sort ofreflective statement; and

∑

attention to the logic, internal consistency and theinter-relationship of themes in the narrative(Anderson & Jack 1991).

Using these as a guide, narrative was analysed andclustered into themes which characterized the experi-ence for the participants.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was granted by the University ofWestern Sydney Institutional Ethics Committee.Pseudonyms are used to ensure participantconfidentiality.

Participants

Of the six participants in this part of the study, fourwere Australian-born and two were born in Britain.They were well educated, with three holding Bache-lors degrees, two holding technical qualifications andone holding a trade certificate. At the time of thestudy five of the women were engaged in either parttime or full time employment outside the home, andthe remaining participant was engaged in full timehousehold duties. Two of the women were sole par-ents, and four were still married to the father of theirchildren. Of the sole parents, both had at one timebeen married to the father of their children. Of themarried women, one reported that her husbandresided away from the family home for long periods.Thus, he was often not available to give immediatesupport to her. The participant women were mothersof two or three children, who ranged in age from 18to 24 years. Five of the women had female as well asmale children, while one woman had male childrenonly. Five of the participants still had at least one childliving with them at the time of the study. All womenwere resident in Australia at the time of the study.

FINDINGS

The interviews revealed that fear and violence hadbecome a feature of mothering for these women. Allthe young people who perpetrated the violence weremale children. They were aged between 14 and 16when the hostility became overt and threatening, andat the time all were children who were grappling withsubstance abuse issues. The women felt that the phys-ical size of their sons meant that they were ineffectualin dealing with acts of violence from these children.There were long-standing issues related to family vio-lence in one of the five families – the children of thatmarriage had grown up frequently witnessing actsof hostility and violence between their parents. Theother five participants reported that they had not


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experienced any family violence before the childbecoming violent in the home.

At least initially, all participants had kept theirexperiences of violence hidden, and expressed feel-ings of shame and distress which precluded themfrom disclosing to relatives or friends. Two of thewomen did eventually actively seek out assistance andsupport from their extended families which culmi-nated in the young person being accommodated out-side the family home; however, both these womenhad experienced considerable distress before takingthis step. Though the women in partnered relation-ships disclosed to partners, they were unable to getadequate support within the family unit, eitherbecause of the partner’s lengthy absences from thefamily home or because the family were unable toeffectively modify the young person’s behaviour. Inhindsight, all the women felt they could have bene-fited from supportive professional intervention, butthey stated that they had not known where or how togo about getting help. They were unprepared for thistype of violence and hadn’t heard of it before experi-encing it themselves.

The violence uncovered in the narratives can begrouped into three themes. These are:

It was only a mat-ter of time:

feeling intimidated and under threat;

He justpunched me:

physical violence from child to mother;and


violence directed to themothers by friends and associates of their children.Detailed findings are presented under these themes.

It was only a matter of time:

feeling intimidated and under threat

This theme describes the mothers becoming aware offeeling fearful and concerned about their personalsafety. This fear and concern was generated by thechanges in the relationships they had with one of theirchildren. The women described the nature of theirrelationships with their children shifting from theirpreviously affectionate and relatively uncomplicatedstates to becoming strained, fragile and fraught withtension.

All of the women found this new dimension totheir mothering frightening and unexpected. Ginaand Anita were sole parents and both described feel-ing particularly vulnerable when dealing with theirsons when they were aggressive, because they didn’thave the immediate moral support of a male partner.They felt that they needed to create a safe and pri-vate place for themselves within their homes. Bothdisclosed that they took steps to secure their bed-

rooms as a safe space. Anita said that she didn’t feelsafe in her bed unless she was physically locked inher room.

‘It was only a matter of time before he hit me. I could feel it

building up. I had started locking myself into my room at

night. He was very big and intimidating. I got scared that I

would wake up one night and find him and his friends stand-

ing over me for money. So I started locking myself in my

bedroom [pause] and I didn’t like living like that.’ (Anita)

Increasing attempts at parental control and disci-pline were also associated with the fear and intimida-tion that the women described. All agreed that thediscipline of children had become increasingly diffi-cult as the children grew older, and one participantdescribed it as a daily battle to get her son to go toschool and stay out of trouble. Participants describedthe difficulties associated with maintaining disciplineand administering punishment for unacceptablebehaviour.

‘He used to steal my car. I grounded him. But I’d go to the

shop for a loaf of bread and he’d disappear. and how do you

deal with that? You can’t lock them in their rooms, and he was

six foot tall and very strong.’ (Gina)

The women raised the physical size and strength ofthese sons as factors in their attempts at discipline.The clear subtext was that they felt they could notexert any real control over these adolescents. Thesesix mothers all described feeling frightened of theiradolescent children and they used words such as

men-acing

,

threatening

,

intimidating

,

belligerent

,

hostile

and

abusive

to describe their children at certain times.

‘He’s hostile and aggressive. When he wants money he comes

and demands it and won’t take no for an answer. He is over

six foot tall and he frightens me. He is very threatening. He

doesn’t need to say anything threatening – his whole attitude

is threatening.’ (Lilian)

Concern that they could not let the violence esca-late further to become physical led two of the partic-ipants to relinquish the care of their sons to otherrelatives. Anita was a sole parent, and she felt unableto continue to live with her son while she felt so fearfulof him. After an 18-month period in which the rela-tionship had become more and more fraught, Anitatook the difficult step of relinquishment.

‘It couldn’t go on like that. I knew that if he crossed that line

and hurt me physically [pause] I knew that our relationship

would be broken beyond repair and I knew he would wind up

hating himself. So I had to make sure that it didn’t happen.’

(Anita)


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He just punched me:

physical violence from child to mother

For four of the mothers, this non-physical intimida-tion escalated and became physically abusive. Of thesix participants, two (Lilian and Gina) also reportedtheir sons being physically abusive to other familymembers. The nature of the abuse varied from push-ing and shoving through to striking and punching.Jacqui noticed her son becoming uncaring and gener-ally rougher towards her.

‘It was his change in personality, it made him incredibly angry

and he was very tough to have around. He never actually

punched me . . . but when he was angry he would push me

and shove me and generally be physically rough with me. He

would do things like elbow me out of the way if I walked past

him, whereas before he would have moved aside for me.’

(Jacqui)

Participants linked the physical violence to thechild’s drug use. Incidents such as refusing to give thechild money or attempts to keep them in the homewere considered by the women to be precipitatingfactors in the episodes of violence. Narelle felt thather son didn’t intend to perpetrate violence towardsher. Rather, she felt he couldn’t control his anger. Sheidentified his pattern of substance misuse as harmfulto him, and believed that it had impaired his problem-solving faculties:

‘When he doesn’t get his own way or when he doesn’t like

something he has these outbursts. He’s got no impulse con-

trol. Someone says something that upsets him or makes him

angry . . . he reacts and reacts verbally and reacts physically –

he lashes out and hits me.’ (Narelle)

Felicity recalls the day that her son struck out andpunched her. The boy was already under the scrutinyof the judicial system and his mother was trying tokeep him home to avoid the possibility of furtherdifficulties.

‘The day that it happened we had been arguing over him going

out. His father was at work and he [son] was grounded, but

he wanted to go out. I had said no, and then things got more

heated and I put myself between him and the front door. He

was 17 at the time, a big, well built kid and he just punched

me [pause]

.

It was terrible, all the fight went out of me and

I just fell over, I was so shocked and crying. We both were

shocked. But that’s when we all knew that something had to

be done. If there is one thing that I regret it is that day. It did

us both a lot of damage.’ (Felicity)

Though Felicity had experienced months of disrup-tion and unrest through the actions of this son, shewas completely unprepared for the violence her son

directed at her. By putting herself between him andthe front door, Felicity believed she would stop himgoing out. She didn’t consider the possibility that hewould knock her down to get past her. Though herson had been intimidating and menacing for sometime, Felicity had no previous experience with overtphysical violence. On the other hand, Lilian disclosedthat there had been a long history of spousal violencedirected at her by her husband and that her childrenhad grown up witnessing this. Lilian’s son had devel-oped an established pattern of abuse against her andother family members:

‘Many times he’s pushed and shoved me, swore at me, a

couple of times he’s hit me, he’s ripped my clothes another

time. He flies off the handle so easily and gets completely out

of control. There’s nothing you can say or do to calm him

down. When he’s stoned he gets super irritable and you can

never tell what he’ll do. He’s scary. I won’t be alone in the

house with him because I never know when these outbursts

will be triggered.’ (Lilian)

Lilian remained very distressed at her son’s treatmentof her and other family members, and about the direc-tion his life had taken generally. Though she had moreof an accepting attitude towards family violence thanthe other participants, her conceptualization of familyviolence was as spousal/partner violence. She foundchild-to-mother violence to be extremely distressing.


violence directed to the mothers by friends and associates of their children

In addition to family violence from the children them-selves, participants reported feeling threatened andvulnerable in their interactions with associates of theirchildren. The six participants reported having to copewith potentially frightening situations such as arrivinghome to find their houses filled with people. Anitadescribes regularly waking up in the night to findseveral intoxicated men in her home, and then havingto somehow get them out.

‘In the middle of the night suddenly I’d be awake to find my

son had come home with six or seven mates. All drunk or

stoned. It happened nearly every week. Sometimes Friday and

Saturday night in the same week, and it scared me. I didn’t

know them and I felt like he was always putting us [Anita and

her other children] in danger.’ (Anita)

As discussed earlier in this paper, one of Anita’s fearswas that she would awake at night to find herself beingstood over by her son and his friends, and this fear(as well as the intimidation directed at her by her son)was the catalyst for her decision to lock herself into


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her bedroom at nights. Participants felt that they wereput at risk by their sons’ lifestyles, and they frequentlyhad to cope with distressing events taking place intheir homes. This meant that the women were reluc-tant to leave their family homes, and all reported thatthey modified their usual activities to avoid leavingtheir homes unattended, as much as was possible.Gina had tried to set boundaries for her son and toget him to respect the family home, but she was notsuccessful. One day she went out to lunch and camehome to find

‘. . . there was a girl with alcoholic poisoning in my house,

they’d locked the doors and smoked a few joints. There were

two or three other big blokes in the house and the girl was 15

or 16 or something. The girl was lying in her own vomit and

urine because she’d had so much to drink. I had to get the

doctor because I thought she was going to die.’ (Gina)

In addition to her distress over these events, Gina alsohad to face a backlash from the neighbours, whodistanced themselves from her and her family becauseof her son’s behaviour, and situations such as thatrelated above. Participants also described being delib-erately subjected to scare campaigns by their chil-dren’s associates. These generally occurred eitherwhen their children tried to break away from theirassociates or when their children owed money to asso-ciates. Four of the six participants reported receivingunpleasant and intimidating telephone calls at dif-ferent times that were attributed to their children’sactivities. Anita, Gina and Narelle also experiencedphysical intrusion into their homes from associatesof their sons. For Narelle, the threatening behaviourfrom his associates continued well after her son hadleft the family home, and she eventually had to seeka court order to put a stop to it.

DISCUSSION

Some of the characteristics noted by Harbin & Mad-den (1979) were seen in the present sample. Theseincluded the fact that all children lived at home withtheir parents at the time of the violence, all wereeconomically dependent on parents, the abusive epi-sodes were repetitive and took place in the home, andsome of the adolescents had also been violent towardsother family members, as well as people outside thehome. Among other characteristics noted by Harbin& Madden (1979) that were seen in this current sam-ple were adolescents who were a lot physically largerand stronger than parents, and/or were the only malein the home, lying to protect the adolescent, avoid-

ance of confrontation with the adolescent because itwas feared that it would provoke a violent outburst,denial of the seriousness of the problem, and a lackof contact with professional helpers.

Previous exposure to domestic violence is positedas being possibly significant to the incidence of paren-tal abuse. However, in this current study only one ofthe six participants revealed any history of family vio-lence, in the form of spousal violence. Though theimpact on adolescents who have witnessed family vio-lence is not fully understood, Hastie (1998) raises thepossibility that parental violence perpetrated by ado-lescents may be part of a violence continuum thatincludes violence in a range of intimate relationships.Child-to-mother violence is most often associatedwith male children (Charles 1986), and all partici-pants in this study experienced violence from adoles-cent males. Jenkins (1999) identifies son-to-motherviolence as being the most common form of parentalabuse he has encountered in his therapeutic practice.However, it has been observed in females, thoughHarbin & Madden (1979) suggested it occurs in lessernumbers with daughters.

All participants in this current study linked theirchild’s violence/aggression to drug-taking activities.Charles (1986) identifies delinquent behaviour as afactor in some incidents of parental abuse, and sub-stance abuse is undoubtedly associated with delin-quent behaviour. Harbin & Madden (1979) did notobserve drugs as a major issue in their sample, butother evidence (Sheehan 1997; Bonnar 1999) doessupport the idea that substance use may be associatedwith child-to-parent violence in some situations.Though they acknowledge that acts of violence arerarely able to be attributed directly to ingestion ofsubstances, Pelletier & Coutu (1992) point out thatuse of drugs and alcohol is known to be a factor inother forms of family violence, and they raise thepossibility of a relationship existing between adoles-cent aggression and substance use.

Pelletier & Coutu (1992, p. 8) suggest that sub-stance abuse can indirectly contribute to adolescentviolence ‘not by directly altering the adolescent’sbehaviour but by triggering concerns and stress forthe parents’, and propose that this then becomes asource of conflict, and thus violence ensues. In thiscurrent study, participants suggested that drug-related activity such as adolescents demandingmoney, or mothers attempting to restrict the adoles-cent’s movements outside the home could precipitatemenacing, violent behaviour. This finding is in keep-ing with other findings that suggest the episodes of


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violence were commonly precipitated by a disputethat could be triggered by parents attempting to curbthe young person (Pelletier & Coutu 1992), or byyouthful demands for money (Harbin & Madden1979; Evans & Warren-Sohlberg 1988).

Shame is identified by the women in this study asone of the factors that affected their perceived abilityto disclose. Hastie (1998) claims there are manyother reasons for the failure of families to discloseparental abuse including: the perception that societydoes not recognize that parental abuse even exists,and where it does so, it often blames the parent for it;fear of reprisal from the child if they report theabuse; and unwillingness of parents to contribute tolabelling of their children and themselves as bad. It isalso suggested that the failure of health and welfarepersonnel to recognize the existence of parentalabuse is one of the main reasons for under-reporting(Hastie 1998).

It is likely that committing violent acts against his/her mother would cause a young person to experiencenegative feelings – feelings such as shame, guilt andself-loathing. The awareness of this further compli-cated the mothers’ situations, because the participantsat all times remained very concerned about the wel-fare of their children. In this study, all of the youngperpetrators of the violence were already experiencingother problems. The women felt that they were theadults, and so the onus was on them to stop theviolence and abuse. However, this was easier said thandone.

SPECIAL COMPLEXITIES PERTAINING TO CHILD-TO-MOTHER VIOLENCE

Family violence is known to be a very complex issue,and research has been conducted to elucidate someof its complexities, such as the development of detri-mental behavioural patterns, and why the problemdefies simple resolution (Shea

et al

. 1997). There is awell-established link between economic and/or psy-chological dependence and domestic violence (McAl-lister 2000), and in partner/spouse abuse situations,victims report complex and confusing feelings ofsimultaneous love and hatred for perpetrators (Cody1996). Issues related to child-to-mother violence aremore complex still. Child-to-mother violence occurswithin a context of intensely intimate and long-standing emotional, familial and caring bonds. Partic-ipants were linked to their children by blood and noneconsidered it an option to sever the relationships. Infact, the mothers remained committed to restoring

and retaining loving, positive relationships with theseyoung people.

Participants in this study were thrust into a situa-tion of tension and conflict. They experienced conflictbetween their deeply held and culturally sanctionedbeliefs of mother–child love as being an uncondi-tional, permanent love, and other (previously uncon-flicting) beliefs, that grown children should protect,rather than show aggression to, their parents. Theyoung people in this current study were all under 18at the time the violence started. This meant that thewomen still felt a heavy burden of maternal responsi-bility towards their children.

Though the mothers were aware that they couldhave the adolescent (perpetrator) declared uncontrol-lable and have them put into the care of the state,none saw this as a valid option. They were not pre-pared to withdraw the nurturing and unconditionallove and support that is culturally expected frommothers to their children. Even though two of theparticipants arranged alternative accommodation andcare for their children during the worst of the crisis,both these mothers ensured their children were inloving family environments, and continued to providesupport for them.

Most of the women strongly believed that womenshould not have to live with family violence or abuse.Lilian was the exception to this. She held the view thatfamily violence (which she constructed as spousal vio-lence) was a fact of life, and she was the only partic-ipant who had a history of family violence in thehome. However, child-to-mother violence was com-pletely outside her frame of reference and wasextremely distressing to her.

Some of the mothers felt that somehow they wereto blame, that it was their failure as mothers that hadled to the violence in the first place. Like other victimsof family violence (such as battered wives), their dis-tress at the violence itself, and the stigma and shamethey felt, made it very difficult for these mothers toseek support, either informally or from health or wel-fare agencies. This was complicated by the invisibilityof this issue and their complete unpreparedness forthis violence.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Evidence from this and other studies strongly sug-gests that child-to-mother violence is experienced asa shameful event, and one that is very difficult todisclose. This shame and reluctance to disclose iscomplicated by the seeming failure of health and


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welfare workers to discern the existence of parentalabuse (Hastie 1998). Recognition of the existenceand stigmatized nature of child-to-mother violenceis crucial. Health and community workers couldassist client ease of disclosure by creating opportuni-ties for women to discuss their mothering as a nor-mal part of client assessment procedures (Nelms2000). In a study of women’s experiences of caringfor sons with HIV/AIDS, Nelms (2000) suggestshealth workers provide a space for women to telltheir stories of mothering as a normal part of evalu-ating women’s well-being. One of the reasons thatwomen took part in this current study was that itprovided a chance to have a discussion about eventsin their family lives, and they indicated that theyvalued the opportunity to speak frankly and sharetheir experiences.

The women in this study experienced child-to-mother violence as a devastating event and one thatpushed their families into crisis. Once identified,there is an urgent need for supportive intervention,not only for the mother but also for the other fam-ily members and the perpetrators of the violence.None of the women participating in this studyaccessed professional help to assist them in dealingwith the problem, and a search of the literaturereveals relatively little to guide health and welfareworkers in intervening in this area. However, Mic-ucci (1995) describes four strategies to guide thera-peutic intervention. These are: supporting parentalauthority, repairing dislocated relationships, con-taining conflicts, and discovering and supportingcompetence. Micucci’s (1995) strategies aredesigned to support and encourage the activeinvolvement of the family unit, and are able to beconducted within a multidisciplinary framework.This is important because health and communityworkers from a variety of disciplinary backgroundsare ideally positioned to provide at least immediate(if not on-going) support for women experiencingchild-to-mother violence.

IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH

Child-to-mother violence remains largely hidden andpoorly understood. Further research in a number ofareas is urgently needed to make the problem visible,and so that supportive, sustainable multidisciplinaryinterventions can be developed. The most pressing ofthese needs are to:

∑

establish the extent and scope of this problem inthe community;

∑

gain insights into the perspectives of other membersof affected families and the youthful perpetratorsthemselves;

∑

undertake longitudinal studies to ascertain whetheradolescent family violence is more commonly atransient phenomenon associated with a catalystsuch as drug abuse, or if it is part of a violencecontinuum as postulated by Hastie (1998), and

∑

explore the issue from more multicultural andsocially diverse perspectives.

L IMITATIONS TO THE STUDY

Methodological limitations mean the findings fromthis study are unable to be generalized to the widerpopulation. The main limitation of this particularstudy is that it is a study of Western Caucasian middleclass women. Experiences relating to child-to-motherviolence may be different for women of cultural orother minority groups. The women who participatedin this study were well educated, and none wereaffected by extreme poverty. Poverty limits the optionsavailable to people when they are trying to problemsolve, and therefore would almost certainly compli-cate aspects of the mothering experience.

CONCLUSION

While generalizability is not claimed, this study pro-vides credible and convincing accounts of women’sexperiences of child-to-mother violence. Thereforethese findings are of interest to those concerned withadolescent, family and women’s health. Health andcommunity workers have the potential to be effectivein supporting people living with family violence. First,however, there has to be an awareness that this formof violence exists. Child-to-mother violence needs tobe reconceptualized to be seen as a form of familyviolence, rather than being positioned as an aspectof delinquency. Only then will it become visible.Increased visibility of child-to-mother violence willlead to increased awareness and opportunities for sup-port, thus reducing the shame and isolation felt bythose living in its shadow.

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Documents

Broadening constructions of family violence: mothers’ perspectives of aggression from their children