The Most Appalling Behavior by a Young Child's Parent: Insights and Realities

I had a supervisor who invited me to his home for dinner with his family. At one point during the evening he was standing in the middle of the room when his daughter who was about five years old walked past him carrying a bowl of potato chips. The bowl slipped out of her hands and spilled on the floor. She began to laugh, probably from embarrassment, but then her father slapped her in the back of the head hard enough to send her face first to the floor, and he yelled at her to “Clean it up!!” It was 1985 and my heart still breaks for that poor little girl every time I think about it today.

Parental Misconduct: Examples and Impacts

As a teacher and a foster parent, I have heard children speak of things they have lived through, which is horrific, but the one thing that I saw with my own eyes that still upsets me even today was a situation I witnessed in 1988. I was pregnant with my first child and working full-time at a fabric store. I was the cashier, and the whole front of the store had windows. The store was in a small shopping plaza shaped rather like a horseshoe. Cars would drive through the large parking lot as if it were a side street! One day, I was at the register looking out into the parking lot, bored, and I saw a small child crawling through the parking lot. No parent was in sight, and I got worried. Just then, the child got up and ran into our store, crawled around on the shelves, and finally made their way to the back of the store where a woman was looking at patterns. After ‘touching base,’ I realized how scary this situation could be, and I escalated it to the store manager, ensuring the child was safe.

Swimming Incident: Long-Term Trauma

My boys are three years 3 months apart in age. One day, when the youngest was nearly 2 years old, we went swimming in a local pool. The place where I had been taking the boys for swimming lessons. My ex-partner was not a good father. Every time he ‘played’ with the boys, and later our two girls, he was too rough, and at least one child ended up getting hurt. This time, he decided to throw our younger son around in the water and then held him under, even when I tried to grab him and bring him up. The lifeguard quickly shouted at him to let my son up. My son was choking and required help from the lifeguard, who suggested we call an ambulance. Yet, my ex-refused and laughed, saying that it proved the boy couldn’t swim, and he demanded to know what I had spent the money on for the swimming lessons. Pool management eventually banned him, and my son stayed afraid of the water to this day.

Emotional and Physical Abuse: A Devastating Legacy

A few years later, my ex-partner and the boys were really into WWF Wrestling. The boys knew the moves were all staged and that they knew how they were done, and often played wrestling. On one occasion, my ex-partner and the boys went to visit his parents, who were about 8 and 5 years old at the time. His father saw them play with my elder son and pretended to smacking the youngest head down onto the bin. He came running out, punched my 8-year-old in the face, and screamed, “See how you like it!” Even after being told they were just playing, and the younger son was not hurt, he hit him again, breaking his nose. My kids hated these grandparents anyway and refused to go there again. I was glad to say that my ex-partner finally left a few months later, and we didn’t see him or his parents anymore.

For those asking why I stayed with him, the answer is complex. My ex-partner and his parents were manipulative, controlling, and abusive. They had isolated me from friends and family, controlling every aspect of my life, right down to what clothes I wore, the food I cooked, and who I spoke to. I couldn’t leave because I had no one and nowhere to go, and there was no way of getting him to leave. I developed post-natal psychosis after having my younger son, on top of having PTSD from a trauma when I was 16, and ADHD. Being told multiple times a day, for years, that I was useless, worthless, and no good to anyone, that if I didn’t like it, I could leave but I’d never see my kids again, I believed it and had no choice but to stay. They made me believe I couldn’t cope without them, that I couldn’t do anything, or go anywhere without them. The threat of them taking my kids kept me compliant, and I had no hope that things would ever be different. Domestic abuse isn’t always physical violence; the emotional abuse is just as bad, it just can't be seen like the bruises, cuts, broken bones. I had no support or help; I was totally dependent on them with no hope of ever being free.