This topic idea came to mind after reading an article that Jess linked about a little boy getting hacked to death by his mother's boyfriend. It seems like lately I have read so many stories, and heard a lot of stories from my mom (who is a school nurse..and encounters all sorts of very sad things regarding children in her school) about children being abused and/or killed by the mother's boyfriend.  Please, I am not trying to put anyone down...I'm just trying to understand. Why is is that some people (mainly women) can't seem to be content without a man in their life?  Some seem to go from man to man, moving each of them into her home, with her children...really not knowing much about any of them...and putting her children in danger of possibly being abused and/or killed. It seems like there are so many selfish people nowadays...putting significant others BEFORE their own flesh and blood...and that truly makes me sick.  I know that if I had a child/children, and I was a single mother..there is no way in hell that I would move a random person into my home...instead, I would concentrate on my children..and raise them well.

I'm sure she had no idea this would happen--I hope.Some women think threy're all that if they have a man and/ or if they're pregnant and have kids.Seriously,in some families,a female can be not too bright,and have no talent whatever,but they get preferential treatrment by realatives just because they're the first to have a kid.You can be smart,pretty,and artistic,but get put down because you ahven't "found someone" yet.personally,i don't think being a "baby'mama' is cool.

Erin,
I don't know.  My neighbors grandkids were put into a scary situation when the mom married an abusive guy, luckily she (the grandmother) got custody of the kids.  Seems like some women can be without a man and it doesn't matter what kind of guy he is.  

Luckily I'm in a stable, loving relationship with my husband of nearly 18 years but if there ever came a day that I was alone, it would take me a long time before I would feel comfortable having another man around my children.  

Friends of ours recently got divorced and they were both dating a few months after, what kind of message do that send to the kids?

My sister's friend also got divorced and recently her boyfriend moved in.  The daughter is now having panic attacks at night before going to sleep.  She is terrified of going to bed.  The doctor suggested therapy, the mother thinks the kid is being a brat.  I think it should be looked into, I mean it could be nothing, but what if the boyfriend is doing something to the kid?  

Erin,
I don't know.  My neighbors grandkids were put into a scary situation when the mom married an abusive guy, luckily she (the grandmother) got custody of the kids.  Seems like some women can be without a man and it doesn't matter what kind of guy he is.  

Luckily I'm in a stable, loving relationship with my husband of nearly 18 years but if there ever came a day that I was alone, it would take me a long time before I would feel comfortable having another man around my children.  

Friends of ours recently got divorced and they were both dating a few months after, what kind of message do that send to the kids?

My sister's friend also got divorced and recently her boyfriend moved in.  The daughter is now having panic attacks at night before going to sleep.  She is terrified of going to bed.  The doctor suggested therapy, the mother thinks the kid is being a brat.  I think it should be looked into, I mean it could be nothing, but what if the boyfriend is doing something to the kid?  


This is what I am saying. My mom tells me all the time about stories of these kids who have to go through stuff like this....then they suffer HORRIBLE depression/behavioral problems/sicknesses/etc...and the parent then has the nerve to blame it on the child by saying that they are bad. Totally disgusting.

On the flip side of the coin there are single mothers out there who can't or don't want to raise their children by themselves. My parents spilt when I was five years old. My mother dated quite a bit before I was 16, and all the men she went out with (save one*) knew that my sister and I came with her, and were not mere inconveniences to "deal with". Most did things with all of us, like camping, fishing, etc.

*One man, Don, wasn't mean to us per se, but had no business being around kids. He was the only guy my mom dated that both my sister and I detested. She dumped him because of that.

I guess I'm fortunate that I don't really understand how women can put their boyfriends over their kids... my mother never did.

Ant

This time I'm not being a smartass, I'm just saying what I have observed in my 38 years:

Violent and sociopathic men have more success with women than
gentle and earnest men do.

I have been an eyewitness to it in my own damn family; I have seen it amongst peers and acquaintances; I have observed it time and again in news stories. 

Bad boys don't sleep alone.

For me to say otherwise would be a lie, so what am I to do?
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/dontknow.gif

Let's face it, there are a lot of confused and unhappy people out there.  They tend to make children when it's not in the better interest of the children they bring into this world.  Feminists will tell you it's because violence against women is accepted in our society.  Conservatives will tell you it's because of illegitimacy, divorce, and not going to church.  Perhaps there's some truth in both points of view, but neither tells the whole story.  One thing is for sure, every sick, depraved, evil thing a person does in this benighted nation of 300 million finds its way into the 24-hour news cycle.

You tell me a 6-year-old boy was hacked to death 3000 miles from my home and all I can tell you is there's nothing new under the sun.

My first reaction when I read your initial thread on this subject was to say, "Oh my god, how terrible!  What's the world coming to?"  My second reaction was to heap on some perverse levity.  My third reaction is stated above.
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/znaika.gif

Relationship wise, it's not always women. In the rare cases where the man gets custody in a divorce or he is suddenly widowed, he's going to feel the pressure to find someone new because, in the eyes of society, men apparently can't raise children. ::) And there are cases of evil women out there (think Wicked Stepmother). So the men are going to latch on to the first woman that is going to accept him, children and all, without really getting to know her and realize she's nutso.

Relationship wise, it's not always women. In the rare cases where the man gets custody in a divorce or he is suddenly widowed, he's going to feel the pressure to find someone new because, in the eyes of society, men apparently can't raise children. ::) And there are cases of evil women out there (think Wicked Stepmother). So the men are going to latch on to the first woman that is going to accept him, children and all, without really getting to know her and realize she's nutso.

Yup.  You got that right!

Relationship wise, it's not always women. In the rare cases where the man gets custody in a divorce or he is suddenly widowed, he's going to feel the pressure to find someone new because, in the eyes of society, men apparently can't raise children. ::) And there are cases of evil women out there (think Wicked Stepmother). So the men are going to latch on to the first woman that is going to accept him, children and all, without really getting to know her and realize she's nutso.


yes, that's true. That is what happened to my ex. His real mother left when he was young, and his dad married this witch...who treated him like crap..and basically screwed him up for the rest of his life.

yes, that's true. That is what happened to my ex. His real mother left when he was young, and his dad married this witch...who treated him like crap..and basically screwed him up for the rest of his life.


It was mutual with my dad and my stepmother.  Basically, when my mom--no angel herself--left him after 20 years of domineering abuse, my dad turned out to be a total wuss who couldn't stand on his own without a woman to lean on.  He ran right out an married the first woman who would put up with him for more than 10 minutes--a mean, chainsmoking alcoholic who could quote Walt Whitman verbatim and apply none of his wisdom to her life!  Dad hit paydirt my sister and I had to suffer with it in our teens.

I know the Fifth Commandment, but if He ever met my folks, He would have chiseled an asterisk!

This is common among abusive men. They are really little boys who can't live without mommy. 

I must give credit where it is due, unlike my mom, my stepmother would only take so much crap.  She left him three times in two years and promised to make it permanent if he ever laid a hand on her.  Dad as a physical menace disappeared; the rest of the S.O.B. remained, however. 

But here is the catch with abusive partners and parents: They're not monsters all the time.  My dad could be charismatic, charming, and witty.  My stepmother could be oodles of fun (generally when she was smashed). 

It is so often a Jeckyll & Hyde phenomenon.  Remember the notorious case of Joel Steinberg?  He made his girlfriend's face look like a bowl of oatmeal and beat his adopted six-year-old daughter to death.  Everybody was so surprised when the news broke.  Him? He wasn't just Joe Shmo, he was a prominant attorney admired by his colleagues and loved by his community.  He used to bring that little girl with him to social outings and to all who observed, she appeared to be the light of his life.  Nobody guessed the horrors of him pounding on his girlfriend, Hedda Nussbaum, like she was Mike Tyson's punching bag nor that he was treating his two kids the same way while abusing cocaine and keeping the "family" virtually imprisoned in a filthy apartment.  Nobody knew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Steinberg

A lot of adult children of abusive parents are utterly conflicted because they want to remember their parents as the wonderful people everybody else thought they were.  In my case, I have often been reluctant to talk about the domestic violence and psychological torture I endured because I don't want it to overwhelm anything else I might say about my childhood. 

There are exceptions some people--men and women--are constantly horrible people, but in general, the reason a woman ends up with an abusive man is he charmed the pants off of her at the outset.

Then there's the whipped puppy act.  I personally knew Michael Cartier, a skinhead who murdered his girlfriend in Boston back in '92.  I knew him and I didn't like him.  A lot of kids thought he was cool because he did just what he pleased and wasn't scared of the cops.  What I saw was Charles Manson and warned people to stay away from him.  Once he did a jail stint for stabbing his girlfriend with a pair of scissors (he also killed her kitten for taking a dump on his leather jacket by slamming the kitty's neck in a door).  I said, "Do you guys see what I'm talking about now?"  They said, "Well, you gotta understand...he's had a really hard life."  So did I, doesn't mean I stab women with scissors and kill cats for chrissakes!  The thing about Mike is he was a hunk--movie star handsome--with James Dean eyes; rebel eyes; sad eyes ("they said he was bad, but I knew he was sad...").  His sad story began with his mother abandoning him and how he was raised in orphanages, ie. "The Home for Little Runaways."  The girls that went for him were on a mission: They were willing to take the bruises and black eyes because "he is really so sweet and kind and gentle and nobody loved him; if I just love him enough..."  Pitifully typical.  In the spring of '92, one naive art school student woke up and smelled the coffee...she was going to break up with him and get a restraining order.  Mike had an idea for her two.  He blew her brains out in front of a sandwich shop on Commonwealth Avenue.  Then he ran back to his apartment and ate the gun himself.  She was 21, he was 22.

Neither friends nor lovers nor cops seemed to understand what they were looking at when they looked into his beautiful eyes.  I did.  Not sound like the shrink from "Halloween" here, but when I made eye contact with Mike, I saw a severe deficit in humanity, and it chilled me to the bone. 
::)

It is so often a Jeckyll & Hyde phenomenon.  Remember the notorious case of Joel Steinberg?  He made his girlfriend's face look like a bowl of oatmeal and beat his adopted six-year-old daughter to death.  Everybody was so surprised when the news broke.  Him? He wasn't just Joe Shmo, he was a prominant attorney admired by his colleagues and loved by his community.  He used to bring that little girl with him to social outings and to all who observed, she appeared to be the light of his life.  Nobody guessed the horrors of him pounding on his girlfriend, Hedda Nussbaum, like she was Mike Tyson's punching bag nor that he was treating his two kids the same way while abusing cocaine and keeping the "family" virtually imprisoned in a filthy apartment.  Nobody knew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Steinberg



I remember that well. It was plastered all over the place. I also remember everyone's reaction about how he couldn't have done something like that because he was an upstanding member of society. Yeah, even they have dirty little secrets. ::)