Mothers are more likely to abuse children than fathers. Fact?

I recently had a bit of a heated debate with a anonymous tweeter ‘Preserved by Faith’ who was very sure that 71% of children killed by a family member are killed by their mother. She relied upon statistics provided by Mark Rosenthal’s ‘Breaking the Science’

These appear to be credible and are taken from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Data from U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services “Child Maltreatment” reports, 2001-2006*
Victims by Parental Status of Perpetrators
  Child abuse and neglect Child fatalities
  2001-2006 2001-2006
Mother Only 1,452,099 1,704
Mother and Other 222,836 565
Mother total (alone or with someone other than the father) 1,674,935 2269
Father Only 661,129 859
Father and Other 37,836 77
Father total (alone or with someone other than the mother) 698,965 936
Both total (Involving one parent acting alone or in concert with someone not the child’s other parent) 2,373,900 3,205
 
Percent of cases involving one parent acting either alone or in concert with someone other than the child’s other parent
Mother Involved But Not Father 70.6% 70.8%
Father Involved But Not Mother 29.4% 29.2%

What I don’t know because the table doesn’t make it clear, is how many of these mothers and fathers were living together at the time the child died. Is part of the reason that more children are killed by mothers because more women than men are primary carers of children? The vast majority of lone parents are mothers. In the UK in 2014 for example 91% of lone parents were women.

But probably a more interesting percentage that can be gleaned from these figures is that children killed by parents acting alone. I haven’t analysed those figures when a parent ‘acted’ with another because no explanation is given of what that means or what degree of culpability was afforded the parent as opposed to the ‘other’.

1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone.  For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.

She then moved on to assert that mothers were more likely to abuse children than father’s full stop, referring to an Australian article ‘Why aren’t we talking about abusive mums?‘. Again I wonder to what extent this is reflection of the fact that women are overwhelmingly more likely to be lone carers, and considerably more likely to be poor.

Half of all absent fathers in the UK pay nothing towards their children. Women are also more likely than men to be victims of violence and abuse from intimate partners.

https://twitter.com/PreservedFaith/status/1003989261253795840

Lets look at this article. It has a link to its claim that ‘children are far more likely to suffer abuse or neglect at the hands of mothers – but that link is simply to another article offering the experiences of ‘Sarah’ who was sexually abused by her mother and I couldn’t find any reference to statistics there.

It does however quote this study

The Child Family Community Australia reports, “A British retrospective prevalence study of 2669 young adults aged 18-24 (May-Chahal & Cawson, 2005) found that mothers were more likely than fathers to be responsible for physical abuse 49 per cent of incidents compared to 40 per cent).”

So no 70/30 split in terms of physical abuse.

It then says this, but provides no link to any published statistics in support

DHHS data in the UK shows that of children abused by one parent between 2001 and 2006, 70.6 per cent were abused by their mothers, 29.4 per cent were abused by their fathers.

I wonder if that is actually a reference to the statistic quoted by Mark Rosenthal given the reference to ‘DHHS’ which isn’t a UK body. With such precise statistics quoted, the lack of any link is odd.

‘Preserved by Faith’ also referred to this data from the American Society for the Positive Care of Children. But this doesn’t seem to break down the figures to show what proportion of the abusers were mothers and what proportion fathers or step fathers. However they are a shocking light shone on just how dangerous parents are for children.

NATIONAL CHILD ABUSE STATISTICS

  • 4 million child maltreatment referral reports received.1
  • Child abuse reports involved 7.2 million children.1
  • 3.4 million children received prevention & post-response services.1
  • 207,000 children received foster care services.1
  • 75.3% of victims are neglected.1
  • 17.2% of victims are physically abused.1
  • 8.4% of victims are sexually abused.1
  • 6.9% of victims are psychologically maltreated.1
  • Highest rate of child abuse in children under one (24.2% per 1,000).1
  • Over one-quarter (27.%) of victims are younger than 3 years.1
  • Annual estimate: 1,670 to 1740 children died from abuse and neglect.1,3
  • Almost five children die every day from child abuse.1,2
  • 80% of child fatalities involve at least one parent.1
  • 74.8% of child fatalities are under the age of 3.1
  • 72.9% of the child abuse victims die from neglect.1
  • 43.9% of the child abuse victims die from physical abuse.1
  • 49.4% of children who die from child abuse are under one year.1
  • Almost 60,000 children are sexually abused.
  • More than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator
  • Estimated that between 50-60% of maltreatment fatalities are not recorded on death certificates. 
  • Child abuse crosses all socioeconomic and educational levels, religions, ethnic and cultural groups.1

But what is the point of all of this?

I don’t think the statistics show that mothers are more evil and more prone to abuse children than fathers. I think the statistics show that mothers are more likely to be in a situation where they will be poor and under stress. I really don’t know what ‘Preserved by Faith’ was trying to argue. She seemed to have a pretty clear animus against her step children’s mother but it wasn’t clear if she was trying to argue that the mother was therefore more likely to murder her children so custody should be given to their dad, now married to ‘Preserved by Faith’.

I could see that ‘Preserved by Faith’ was pretty angry and upset at what she perceived to be the situation. And yes, if its true what she set out, that’s a hard road to travel.

https://twitter.com/PreservedFaith/status/1003987854555566085

But does the path get any easier by relying on partial statistics to make some general point that as mothers are 70% of child killers, then HER step children should spend 50% of their time with their dad?

The tragedy of these cases is that the adults involved often cannot look beyond their own anger and they fall back on tired generalisations about ‘men’ versus ‘women’. If their rage is palpable to me – a complete stranger they ‘meet’ on the internet, I wonder what is is like for the children in their lives who presumably have a much more immediate and proximate exposure to such negative emotions. Their mother and father are not statistics for them.

Further Reading

Who Kills Children? Re-examining the evidence is a paper from the Bristish Journal of Social Work in 2013. The full article is available only on subscription but the abstract is interesting. It doesn’t support my speculation that poverty is linked to greater rates of child death.

Abstract

Violent children’s deaths have become a surrogate indicator of effective child protection but can those who kill children be better identified? A decade-long study of child homicide assailants (population of 2.5 million) is re-examined in the context of nineteen Western nations’ child mortality rates and child-abuse-related deaths, correlated with four international measures of relative poverty, focusing on income inequality. Child mortality rates of the nineteen countries were ranked and correlated with levels of poverty. Child mortality and poverty strongly correlated but, unexpectedly, child-abuse-related deaths did not. Child homicide assailants are extremely rare, but three distinct within-family assailant categories can be identified: mentally ill parents, mothers with a child on the Child Protection Register and men with previous convictions for violence. Mentally ill parents were the most frequent assailants, but violent men killed over five times the rate of mentally ill parents. The juxtaposed results indicate that the assailants’ problems are essentially psycho-criminological, especially violence, rather than socio-economic, although poverty worsens most situations. Despite the dangers of ‘false positives’, children’s services need to give greater weighting to the child protection–psychiatric–violence interface to assist front line staff in improving risk assessment and contribute to reducing the impact that parental mental illness can have on the child.

Filicide: Mental Illness in Those who Kill Their Children  2013 paper which concluded: 6144 people were convicted of homicide, 297 were filicides, and 45 cases were filicide-suicides. 195 (66%) perpetrators were fathers. Mothers were more likely than fathers to have a history of mental disorder (66% v 27%) and symptoms at the time of the offence (53% v 23%), most often affective disorder. 17% of mothers had schizophrenia or other delusional disorders. Overall 8% had schizophrenia. 37% were mentally ill at the time of the offence. 20% had previously been in contact with mental health services, 12% within a year of the offence.

291 thoughts on “Mothers are more likely to abuse children than fathers. Fact?

  1. Angelo Granda

    It is an unpleasant but it is a fact that children are subjected to much trauma and emotional disturbance when taken from family by LA’s and that by many reports of findings following Public and Police enquiries they are also stand much more chance of suffering abuse of all kinds and emotional neglect in care than with either Mum or Dad.
    Life for children in care is degrading and abysmal according to many care leavers also.

    1. Jennifer

      No, I looked at the media. Who they are labeling as mom are paternal grandmas, step-mother’s because the dads got full custody, and caregivers. It’s the males united network spreading this propaganda and it makes me very angry. Even in the media, I saw a then local woman labeled as a mom and when I read the articles, it’s step-mom or girlfriend because the real moms are ran off for being victims in the area. Then the kids end up in Juvenile because they are falsely or in reality accused of committing crimes after street gangs get the dad full custody. So it’s lies based on a men for child abuse and domestic violence-network. We’ve gone back to Victorian times because of women desperate to have a man support them.

      1. Jennifer

        I agree with the above also. They face more abuse at schools and daycare, then blame the parents and then abuse in foster care too. But they do this to cover their butts and stay out of lawsuites the same way in NV

        1. Concerned parent

          Children should not be abused period. Courts, child protective services, social workers should not be incentivised to place children with the lower income parent. That maximizes the money transferred from the high wage earner to the court, which takes its cut plus any penalty interest, then transferred to a the parent with custody.

          The sick part is it the government gets more revenue by maximizing this transfer of money.

          Leading to placing the child in tle lower wage earner custody much more often.

          That is without regard to what is better for the child.

          The money taints all this, and the beneficiaries being the government, lawyers and non parents or kids.

          The lower income parent has an incentive to maximize the money paid for child support to subsidize the parent’s lifestyle.

          Shared custody 50/50 by default would fix this.
          Making support payments not go through the court would fix this.
          Making interest penalties paid to the child woild fix this.
          Making most child support paperwork not require a lawyer and court time would fix this.

          This is an industry with hundreds of millions siphoned away to support courts and lawyers
          Instead of going to support the child.

          The custodial parent has an incentive to punish the other parent as much as possible and both parent’s lawyers know that an angry client means more money paid to the lawyers

          Long drawn out custody and post custody battles lead to worse outcomes for children, lower school marks, falling graduation rate, crime, incarceration, teen pregnancy, and a repeating cycle.

          1. CP

            Family court judges run for election in my state and get campaign donations from the very lawyers appearing in the judge’s court.

            Net net court helps lawyers bill more hours and make more money. Kids lose. Parents lose.

      2. Nick

        Learn how to speak English because you can’t form a full sentence without sounding like the typical hypocritical feminist. [the next time I spot a rude or abusive comment from you Nick, you are banned full stop. Grow up and talk with some courtesy and people may wish to engage with you]

        1. christopher smith

          Interesting that you should jump on Nick for protesting feminism, yet a previous post lambasted men’s rights groups without any complaint from the moderator.

          1. larion

            Obviously because hypocritical feminists don’t like it being pointed out. The only amazing part is that they didn’t completely censor the comments, as leftist feminists usually do.

          2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            Amazingly you managed to make a comment without swearing or using ablist abuse, so I leave it up. your other comments however, were embarrassing for you and annoying for me to have to read, so I have redacted them.

          3. Jeremy Phoenix

            Agreed. I would also point out that the conclusion of this article is in fact excusing the massive amount of abuse by women by claiming they are more likely to be in situations to abuse a child. This would be like saying it is OK for a husband to beet his wife after he is retired because he is around his wife more often. Again the feminists’ agenda is excusing the facts and blaming everyone else for their own actions. I am also willing to bet I get a warning for being rude simply for pointing out the truth and hypocrisy.

          4. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            I am afraid you lose your bet Jeremy. I don’t give ‘warnings’ about rude and abusive comments, I simply delete them. You have managed to express yourself without being abusive, so your comment may stay. It is not a complicated rule of engagement and I am glad you can abide by it. I have no wish to stifle legitimate debate but I will not allow my platform to be used for threats, abuse or obscenities.

      3. Some Dingus Who Had an Abusive mum

        You have to understand that facts aren’t meant to be hurtful, they are meant to be true and can hurt.
        Don’t take this as an attack on women. Don’t try to defend these women for beating or killing their kids.
        The way I see it, people who abuse others do so because they can’t handle power.

        Men use their physical power to beat women just like mothers use their
        power over their children to abuse them. People are capable of evil. Women count as people and they can very much use their power for evil.

        1. survivoroflifelongabuse

          She is not trying to justify why some women abuse children she is pointing out that the study is flawed and based on bias studies perpetuated by special interest groups.
          Many of these studies also fail to mention that when a couple is together and the male abuses the child the mother often face charges for failure to protect but in the reverse scenario fathers do not get charged for failure to protect when a mother is the perpatrator… because the studies are severly flawed their not valid and their findings can not be deemed accurate..
          To be honest my experience with child services, police and family court has been that fathers are often favored when abuse cases come up and they require a eye witness to collaborate what the minor child said happened on top of brusies and taking them to hospitals and doctors and having a diagnosis of suspected child abuse.. they will say its a matter of he said she said because no one saw how the child got the brusises and the person they said did it, denies doing it… as if a five year old with black eye and finger brusises is making it up or time stamped and dated photos before and after visits with the abuser must be edited… The system is broken and the data in the studies that are being used as propagand were paid for by special interest groups and are designed to show incomplete, inaccurate conclusions that fits the narrative.. the should show ratios and do more math.. when you do more math you see that abuse is way more often inflicted by men then women.

      4. Jenns

        You don’t have to be desperate for a man to support you. If you or your child complain about abuse from the father, he will be given full custody. You can look it up. If you are coming out of an abusive situation, it is better not to say anything, to give your child at least some break from them. I could not care less about support.
        Why is it men are so high on violent crimes everywhere else? It is because they have less access to the children in this one instance. Men have the testosterone, they are violent.

          1. Johndoe

            No, it’s true look it up. It’s called parental alienation (which is pseudo science and already debunked) Judges almost always give the father custody when this happens.

            Seriously, just google it yourself it is definitely true.

          2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            ? parental alienation is a real thing that happens and there is copious case law about it. Both men and women alienate their children.

          3. Ann

            Child alienation is complex but clearly happens. Not at the same frequency as child maltreatment (statistics are hard to come by, but estimates are that CM is about twice as likely to have occurred as child alienation in a divorce case).

            And, women (in particular) who make allegations about child abuse are more likely than not to lose parenting time with their children. A national US DOJ study (Saunder’s Report) verified that in 2017.

            The questions are: why is alienation so much easier to believe than abuse? Child abuse is very difficult to prove (children are not usually called to testify, and the parents who make allegations are usually in conflict), so what can we do to in custody orders that protects children from the effects of judges “getting it wrong”?

          4. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            I disagree that child abuse is very difficult to prove – the last three findings of fact I had, all allegations were found proved. One case involved very serious allegations of sexual abuse and I have made an application to appeal against those findings as I did not think there was sufficiently reliable evidence.

        1. Mom Abuse Survivor #92394024412

          Your sources, ma’am? I need to know where you got this quite frankly untrue information.
          I can see the bias in your arguments as well. That’s why I’m asking.

        2. Jessica

          Actually men are only 20 percent violent more often than women. women are violent 40 percent and men are violent 60 percent. We’re both violent. STOP DEMONIZING MEN!!

        3. Braden

          Why do women in lesbian relationships exhibit the same rates or even higher rates of domestic violence as do men in heterosexual relationships?

        4. Frustrated at the lack of critical thinking

          Interesting that you claim abusiveen get custody without question. My experience is that more women are able to abuse a partner and yet still be given custody and guess what you have to blame for this ….. the deluth model. The stats actually show that women are more likely to be abusive in a relationship where abuse is none reciprocal. They also show that men are more likely to cause physical harm while being abusive. Women are more likely to use coercion and blackmail as well as humiliating tactics and men are more likely to be out right physical. Yes this is a consequence of the physical, mental and emotional disparities between men and women. It does not make one more or less acceptable than the other. Again as stated elsewhere saying women are more likely to kill their child because they are around them more and stressed more and in poverty more could have some statistical basis but does NOT make it acceptable or mean they should get a lesser punishment. If women areore likely to kill children because they are around them more and we make it so women are around them less it’s possible female crime stats in another area go up. And if men where around kids more we would likely see more male child murders.

      5. Ingegerd

        It is all sickening. I feel ashamed to be a women. I have seen and heard dreadful things, and I think you are right. The Stepmothers seems to be extra horrendous, sad ?☹️?

      6. Demolition Man

        The only thing I get from your post is that you refuse to acknowledge that women can be and often are violent and abusive!

        My ex and mother of our daughter is borderline and she started hitting our daughter when she just started walking. And it’s my daughter who told me. She never did it in front of me – she would scream at our daughter, but not hit her. But she did it in front of her girlfriends. That’s how I learned about it. They warned me. When I heard about it, I asked my daughter and she confirmed it – she said she didn’t want to tell me as she was afraid that her mom would hit her more. I was devastated and heartbroken.

        Her mother was not alone, she was not poor, she was not under stress – other than spending a few hours alone with our child while I had to go see clients. When I was at home, our daughter would stick to me like glue.

        Now we have shared custody. When my daughter leaves school, she calls me, even during her 5 minute walk home. When she is at her mom’s place, she chats with me via WhatsApp all the time – never calls, as she is afraid of talking before her mom.

        When she is with me, she only talks to her mom when she calls – I never interfere, I always just leave the room so she knows she is free to say whatever she wants. She doesn’t chat with her mom about the things she likes as she does with me – because she knows that her mom is not even interested.

        I’ve now observed similar behavior from multiple mothers – one who treated her son with such extreme severity that he left her the second he legally could choose to be with his dad. One woman who screamed like crayz at her cute little 3 year old boy. All the time. One who was an alcoholic and neglected both her kids – but she still got custody. I often had to make sure that her kids got out of the house while she was a neighbor.

        I know multiple kids who are in care of their fathers. None of them suffer similar abuse.

        Guess why the immense majority of kids who fail at school, experience teenage pregnancy, become criminals, commit suicide etc. were raised by single mothers, while kids raised by their single father do NOT have those problems?

        Either parents should get shared custody or fathers should get full custody at much higher rates, based on an actual, serious and honest evaluation of the mother’s ability to handle the child’s education – without bias!

        What I found truly shocking was that the local child care service recently tried to force a 16 year old girl to live in shared custody with her mother, although she made it very clear that she loved her dad and did not want to be with her abusive mother. The child care service claimed that she was suffering “parental alination” and that she would be placed in a home for teenagers if she did not comply – when she was perfectly happy to live with her father. I don’t get what they want to achieve other than to traumatize this girl.

        I’m not giving my name as my daughter still has to deal with her mother for a few more years. I’ll write about it with my full name when she is grown up. Given the crazy biased child care service here, I’m not taking any risks.

        1. Khalif Foster

          That is very logical since it is base on mom is good and dad is bad since mom is more emotional sensitsive, but forgot the other side which mom can be cruel that is the emotion downside will go down faster and deeper that is equal to emotion upside, so it is important to think how emotion work in woman and man, not assume a woman is always good, a woman can be cruel and crueler than man which seems illogical since dad has less emotion than woman, that is true but that is looking at surface seeing, but not deep seeing that within is the ability to go up and go down, and go up high and go down low, so it is biology so important to understand how it works, not outside that is connect to nurture, biology is more important.

          So, it connects to understanding since you say father are less abuser depite lower emotion from dad, so it seems illogical so mom is more logical choice, but not understand, within biology is not about emotional connect but about emotion buffer, so the father has higher emotion buffer even the mother can see within same situation, so emotion buffer is not same as repress which father reduce the emotion within to make it worse for other and themselves, so it is by understand body’s wisdom to handle the situation not assume wisdom that people will make a decision, forgetting the body will naturally gain higher self-control for men so that higher self-control will naturally make father better, even better with repress, but with repress eventually will cause a bigger problem like rage, etc, because the negative emotion is being out-filled like a cup with water that you pour so it overfilled, there are two cup and two sitation with water, so the cup has hole so you pour alot of water, so it goes out of hole so it doesn’t filled up within your body, that will eventually react strongly. But the hole in the control of emotion and adopt the negative emotion into positive, instead of cup without hole but overfilled so it spills out so it fill up within your body so you react strongly that is internal and external, so it is important to understand the biology of two so mother need higher training so mom will become like a father since the father can handle the stress in all situation, unlike the mother that can’t handle stress in all stress, so by assuming mother are good to give children to them automatically, instead of father.

          Of course, the father can be bad to their children since they are lower emotion which their emotion can’t go high to feel connected, well, there is another biology within that show father can’t have higher connect because they are weak so they will feel more and protect children. The feeling of weak is higher than mother since the ratio between father to children is higher than mother to children physically from the father POV, but from the mother POV, the emotional is higher since the father can do higher physical damage that will lead to emotional damage in connect to mentally impact so hard to feel connected, so physical is more powerful so will give higher emotional impact which is logical so same as stranger beat a person and a person will feel trauma, so the emotional connect that is being damaged to male or stranger or both is higher, but the trauma from father to beat a daughter or son is even higher, so the emotional damage is higher. So, parents have a higher responsibility to be careful like superman has higher responsibility to other men since superman can hurt easily as a parent can hurt easily.

          In connect to hurt easily, the father will feel more protection than mother will feel more since the father is aware they are more dangerous so lucky they have higher self-control than mother, so their body will help their mind to more easily feel connected to children, so trust your body, than trust other men, of course, you can control your body to be more heartless so override the self-control so you can lose self-control and hurt your children. Mother has less self-control so they need to train more in all situations unlike the father since lucky within the body, they, the father, has higher resources within so father do better. Father needs more training that to become a more emotional connection, it is about balance emotion buffer and emotional connect, so one is not over high over the other. But the emotional disconnect between mother and children is higher than the emotional disconnect between father and children in all situations base on the explanation above.

          All courts need to understand that.

        2. Kev

          how did she get custody over her when she was verbally and physically abusing her? If the roles were revered the dad would never be able to step 300 feet from her.

        3. Brian

          This whole article looks like it was written with the sole purpose of defending women who abuse their children. Which is odd because I simply came here looking for statistics. Not the writers perverse sense of abuse being acceptable if you under stress.
          It is never ok to abuse children. It doesn’t matter how stressed out you are. Grow up.

      7. Charlie Vazquez

        It’s the same shit when with a mom it’s a step dad but the fact of the matter is it’s a woman, many woman who are biological fathers. Cmon cut the bs cause if it was men you’d be all over this shit.

        1. Jay Guerra

          Sorry Charlie, I’ve never really known woman to be biological fathers, could you elaborate, LOL.

      8. Ashurbanipal

        Show a source confirming your alleged widespread corruption of data. You CLAIM you saw this and saw that and the government who also publish the data feminists love to wave around when it benefits them has completely failed to record proper data when it comes to women’s role in abusing and murdering their own children. You’re going to say there were so many cases where the father had custody. What planet do you live on? The father had custody. If that’s the case, that mother was a piece of trash because they never want the father to have custody. So is the government making up the statistics that show female same-sex relationships have higher instances of sexual and physical assault in them when compared to heterosexual relationships? It’s all the patriarchy, right? When women abuse their kids and each other it’s all internalized misogyny. Disgusting.

        1. Mom Abuse Survivor #92394024412

          You’re disgusting for being in denial of just how often women abuse their kids. Tell me. Where are your sources? Where id you get this information? That’ll help me tell if you have a bias or not.

          Misandry is just as bad as mysoginy, and my mind will never be changed so long as i live with the trauma of my mom beating me, emotionally neglecting me and my sisters, manipuklating me into faltering. etc.

      9. Spiritual Being

        Males united networking? Step mom because the dad’s have custody? Wow do u think men are not capable of actually raising kids alone?

    2. Dan

      Who ever they are, this author spins the statistics that were clearly published by Mark Rosenthal. Stating “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859).” If 1.4 million equates to 0.12% of a population (according to your numbers) how does 661k (a far lesser number than 1.4 million) equate to 0.13% of a population? Further this author interjected ideology, reporting that mother (of course harms children more) because they are usually the primary care taker, and only 50% of UK fathers pay towards their children’s care. More mothers are the primary care taker, not because men do not want the job but because women have social and legal privilege in Euro-American cultures which enable them to commit these horrible acts against children with seemingly no reprieve. The author stated opinion, not based on fact, probably to suit the authors agenda and not to help children. The numbers are correct the author of this site (whoever they area) might have a hidden agenda they are trying to accomplish. Mothers do harm their children more than men, and the statistics that Rosenthal based his paper on are free and easily attainable through DHHS.

      1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

        Why do you assert that the ‘author of this site’ is hiding or anonymous? Its clearly me and stated to be me all over the shop. I have simple analysed the numbers in an admittedly simplistic way. But crunching those numbers does not support the assertion that more women alone kill more children than more men alone.

        1. Dan

          No your name is not clearly documented on this web-page nor are any credentials. A search of Sarah Phillimore doesn’t help me resolve this issue either but thanks for filling me in on who the author is. You said “I have simple analyzed the numbers in an admittedly simplistic way.” It is not professional to make loose judgments on the topic of mothers who hurt or kill their children. Neither dose your article portray that you addressed the statistics in an “admittedly simplistic way.” Maybe keep your ideology behind closed doors than real professionals like me wont be compelled to address you in a professional forum so we can assure (somewhat) that your oppressive opinions don’t hurt the next generation of children as they have this one.

          1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            How very odd. Simply putting my name into Google will tell you precisely who I am, what my qualifications are and where I practice. Perhaps your search engines are different.

            I will express my views however I like and only the law or my regulator can stop me.

            I also suggest it is unlikely that you are a ‘real professional’ given the way you have approached this – and of course, your own anonymity. Do feel free to share more details so I can give your ‘real’ professionalism the respect it deserves.

          2. Dan

            Didn’t have the reply link this time, curious? Sarah Phillimore is a common name according to Google, more than 200 professionals with that name. [I have deleted the rest of this comment. Dan seems to not understand that this is MY site, I pay for it and I decide who gets to comment. He doesn’t. As he is very rude. If he can restrain himself and talk like a grown up, he may comment. If he can’t – he won’t.]

          3. Angelo Granda

            Dan, It isn’t seemly for a professional to launch personal attacks on fellow professionals who make statistical arguments on this resource or any other.
            I thought the whole point of statistics was for professionals and various authorities to apply/interpret /manipulate them to make argument and disagreement possible without turning them into intractable ,personal disputes.
            The authorities even create there own statistics to fit their policies and ignore those which don’t.
            The problem, as I see it, with these particular statistics is that they examine gender differences thus they encourage sexism and all the rancour and intractability which sexism causes. Thus professionals should look at them in a detached manner not get personal .On this resource, we try to discuss matters rationally. If you disagree with Sarah, put an opposing statistical ( or moral ) opinion as all the other commentators have and leave it at that.
            Sexism is the cause of so many problems these days.

          4. Bob

            Sarah, you say in your meta analysis that men kill more children then men, which is directly contradicted by the stats you presented, to claim that. You might say that men kill a higher proportion of children, but those percentages were of children killed out of children abused, and are not normalised to populations. If you want to state that “men kill more children than women” you are going to have to pull more statistics out that you can use to normalise.
            You did bring out the fact that 91% of single parents are women, but you have not done anything to show that that is at all relevant to the statistics of how many children men or women killed, the statistics say “Percent of cases involving one parent acting either alone or in concert with someone other than the child’s other parent” this means that they didnt separate on a marital basis only a perpetrator basis. This means that mothers killed TWICE as many children as fathers, simple hard facts. Your contention is based on your bias as you have presented no evidence.

          5. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            I have used the figures in an entirely uncontroversial way to see how the raw figures translate when calculated as a percentage of the whole. that you don’t like the answer this gives is nothing to do with the validity of this exercise.

          6. Dan

            Angelo Granda,

            {comment deleted as threatening and abusive. Neither myself nor Angelo have any difficulty in defending our positions, in public or in private. But if you have a genuine wish to discuss and challenge, it would help to tone down the abusive nature of your posting. I don’t appreciate threats and you don’t impress anyone by making them}

        2. Angelo .

          Hi Sarah, I know this is an old chat however I couldn’t ignore one of your glaring mistakes. I simply could t wait to explain to you why you should get down of your high horse.

          So put simply you compared the number of children killed compared to abused by each gender specifically and found, proportionately more men kill children then women do.

          Few reasons why that’s wrong but the obvious one is you assume that these deaths are committed by single parents only, this is wrong as it is for all children. Meaning you cannot simply explain the discrepancy through saying kids tend to live with their mothers as over 75% of children in the US live with both parents so if you wanted to recalculate the proportion you would need to include all the men who are fathers at home with their children of which you’ve ignored at least 75%.

          Final conclusion, women kill more children then men, and proportionately the same is also true.

          1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            Nope. Read again. I looked only at the figures for parents who kill alone. The other group was parent with ‘other’ and I had no idea who the other was.

          2. Norbert

            Sarah, Angelo is completely right. Others here means that someone else assisted in the murder not that they are the person’s romantic partner. This means that women murdering without others does NOT only include single mothers but mothers that have committed the murder ALONE. So, these numbers go for all children with or without both parents and clearly show that women have more violent and abusive tendencies than men.

      2. Yovo

        Are you sure you studied math at school? The post author meant to say that 1704 killed children represent 0.12% of the total 1,425,099 abused children by their mothers and that 859 killed children represent 0.13% of the total 661,129 children killed by their fathers. It does not mean that 1,4M is 0.12% of the population…These percentages mean that there is insignificant difference between how violent the fathers are towards their children when abusing them thus resulting in 0.01% higher death rate when compared to mothers. However that does not change the fact that mothers represent about 70% of the total abusers deeming them the more potential child abuser.

        1. William

          And outright women kill more of their kids than men do!
          Men in the general population kill way more than women do, 20 times more.
          I personally think this has at least partially to do with the physical realities of men and women. As female murderers tend to pluck on people much weaker than them (elderly, children) and there is less opportunity to do so.

    3. Darren Sharrocks

      I look at the figures for mothers killing their kids alone 1,704, for fathers killing alone 859. Clearly, the author has an axe to grind against fathers because she states fathers kill more. NO, they do not. That figure shows mothers are over 50% are more likely to kill their kids than the father. It is just there in black and white.
      Mother and Other 565 children are killed.
      Father and other the figure is 77

      Mother total (alone or with someone other than the father) 2269
      Father total (alone or with someone other than the mother) 936
      neglect
      Father and Other 37,836
      Mother and Other 222,836
      just look at the figures it clearly shows there is more of a risk than the father.

      1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

        Nope. You need to read it again, where I explain what I am doing with the figures.

        1. Taylor Jenkins

          What you are doing with the numbers is trying to make them say what they don’t say.

          “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.”

          Here your last sentence is clearly false, by the preceding numbers. What you perhaps meant to say is: When parents act alone in neglecting their children, a NEGLECTFUL father is slightly more likely to kill his child than a NEGLECTFUL mother is. So, it is not that fathers kill more children than mothers, but that “neglectful fathers” kill their children at a rate of 0.13% vs 0.12% for “neglectful mothers”.

        2. Levi

          I’ve been a self defence/boxing coach for over a decade. I’ve worked with victims of domestic abuse and also the perpetrators. I hope to be able to offer some insight that could make sense of why it seems women are more abusive towards children than men.

          It has, everything to do with the likelihood of how the victim will react, and whether or not they pose any threat in retaliation. The average aggressive female knows that naturally, they run a high risk of being hurt themselves if they went out and expressed their anger over another fully grown adult.

          Aggressive male adults however, know that they could go out and find a potential fully grown adult victim without looking far. That’s why statistics show up to 9/10 violent crimes on the street are at the hands of men.

          In all my years working in the line of work I am in. I have never once heard of a female randomly attacking another person on the street. I have come across cases where they’ve been in a group and commited random attacks, once or twice, but never as an individual.

          You suggest that the data shows females abusing and killing children more than men is due to the fact they are more likely to be in a position of being alone with a child, due to sole parenting, or poverty. But females have just as much opportunity as a male to go out and exercise that aggression on another adult as a male does. So why don’t why?

          Because children are the easier victim for violent aggressive females. Let’s not pretend a violent and aggressive female is any different to a violent and aggressive male. Just because society perceives the latter as being more dangerous and able to cause more harm, is irrelevant to the individual victims of violent abuse.

          Humans are aggressive. Humans get angry, regardless of gender. It’s all about the ability to cope and manage the onset of stress that those emotions can cause. There is no excuse for violent abusive behaviour.

          I’m not surprised there is zero evidence to support to claim that being poor increases the likelihood that a single mother would abuse her child. I’d argue that actually there more evidence it has the opposite effect. And that being poor inspires a sense of connection with your child, even in those who have aggressive personality traits.

          I have also observed over the years that it is more often the single mother who doesn’t have to worry about where she gets next month’s rent payment from, as she lives off her parents bailing her out, or is receiving child benefit payment from the child’s father that is more likely to be resentful towards the world. As they feel a level deep rooted inadequacy. These factors crossed with aggressive personality traits and toxic tendencies are more often that combination that leads to abusive outbursts. The poor single mother who has nobody but herself and child to fall back on, is far less likely to do anything to push the child away.

          I appreciate it may be easy to shut what I’m saying down as anecdotal and not credible. But i know one thing for sure, when you are holding pads for somebody, male or female, and letting them express themselves physically. You get unfiltered, raw, honest conversation. You really get a strong insight as to what makes them the way they are.

          You keep saying repeatedly that people should “read it again”. Surely after 3/4 times you realise that there’s a common denominator here? And that maybe what you’ve written is in fact, biased and emotionally charged. It really does seem as though you are misconstruing the factual data to support preconceived beliefs.

          Humans are capable of evil. Gender irrelevant. Humans also have centuries of psychological experience in weighing the risk Vs reward aspect of their actions.

          Aggressive violent people often don’t consider the chronic consequences to their actions. Only the acute.

          They don’t care if they get caught when in the midst of their emotional turmoil. They care about whether they will get hurt themselves whilst delivering the hurt.

  2. Luke Pickell

    The issue of abuse and neglect becomes muddled when the debate focuses on gender. Abuse can occur from a mother or father. The core issue nobody seems to address is the mental wellness of either parent. A high conflict person with a personality disorder is the likely culprit of abuse. Even worse is their ability to present in a charming and likeable way to outsiders while being monsters in private

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I agree. a lot of the problems I see are caused by people with clashing personalities. I am not so sure I would go so far as to say most of them have a ‘personality disorder’ – but their ability to react appropriately and proportionately is often compromised by high levels of anxiety which are made worse by relationships breaking down and an increase in conflict generally.

    2. monscarecoeur

      Thank you for your post. “Even worse is their ability to present in a charming and likable way to outsiders while being monsters in private.” Indeed this is true in our situation. My daughter disclosed sexual abuse by her father. Her father is a pathological liar and mimics symptoms of a psychopath as he is able to blend in with society, appears incredibly charismatic, charming, etc., while feeling no remorse or guilt for any harm he causes anyone else. Worse, he cares so much about his reputation that he makes the politics of his appearance look good as well. He goes to church regularly and plays all the components that apply to his reputation and appearance. He puts all this extra effort in, to appear ‘normal,’ when in fact, he is a monster. How does one reveal the true monster that he is?

      1. Glad

        Almost impossible, sad thing is them you are seen as the alienating parent instead of the parent trying to protect your child from a very sock person.

      2. Angelo Granda

        Most people present as normal,appropriate and proportionate thus it is dangerous for SW’s to predicate on antecidents otherwise ‘normal’ men can be misjudged.
        Only way to prove someone is abnormal is to present factual forensic evidence. Obtain witnesses, make a record of events and arrange them chronolgically etc.etc.Check and cross-reference reports, put together that which is corraborative and then go to the Police. The Family Courts are unable to unravel it all. These people have to be taken through the criminal process.Guesswork,opinions and predication ( pre-judgment ) will get us nowhere.

    3. Jay Guerra

      So fucking true Luke, many have been abused and neglected by both parents, bio- or step. And Sarah can mention men not supporting their families all she fucking wants, it’s called neglect dipshits. let me tell you, somedays it’s hard to tell which was worse, abuse and neglect at home, or the father that got custody of my sister didn’t want his sons.

  3. Angelo Granda

    Luke, I am interested in your comment about ‘high conflict people with a personality disorder’.
    I feel sure you are right that such characteristics can evolve in both genders( or should I say all genders).
    I wonder at what age the traits first emerge and begin to set within one.
    Early childhood,teens or anytime.
    If high conflict begins in childhood then it should be spotted,addressed and subdued early on before it gets out of control.
    Perhaps you know what are the early signs to be looked out for.Then children can be disciplined and set on the right path early?

    1. Ingegerd

      It might not be lack of discipline with those damaged children, they probably was abused them self. What I think seem odd. You think they would be extra respectful and loving to wards their own children when time comes to have them. But apparently that’s not the case? It’s terrible what some children ( and in most cases they suffer within, all their lives).. have to put up with. All the best to you??

  4. Sam

    Angelo . In my personal opinion children who are high conflict, do not need discipline, they need uncondtional love, coupled with boundaries. Boundaries are different from discipline as they are flexible and are less likely to lead to conflict or resentment, from the person to whom they are applied. Also a person with anxiety is frightened, very frightened at times , they need to feel stability and it helps to learn coping mechanisms. As I say it is only my experience, I know you will feel free to disagree.

    1. Angelo Granda

      Sam,I respect all opinions .
      Unconditional love to me includes teaching them self-discipline.
      We all need discipline.Ask the Authorities who impose it upon criminals.
      I don’t really know what the jargon ‘high conflict’ means but I am guessing it relates to a child who is hard to control and who becomes violent, fights and perhaps hurts others.Those sort need disciplining,maybe the naughty step or lines,extra lessons etc.
      From my experience boys who bully other children punching and kicking are best disciplined and taught self-discipline.
      This can be done by taking him to the boxing club.Put him in the ring with a bigger boy first time and he learns what it feels like to get a pasting from a larger person and it teaches him a lesson for life. Then channel the boys physical attributes,teach him how to fight fairly,how to buckle down,follow the rules,self discipline himself and succeed.
      All readers should realise that I am probably quite a bit older than most of you.I totally disagree with corporal punishment myself but I can remember when the schools and authorities used to flog children mercilessly with all kinds of nasty weapons.
      The naughty-step is kinder ,I think .

      1. Angelo Granda

        Naturally men’s ideas will differ from women’s and SW’s will have their own answers for everything.
        We all have to show respect to each other as you and I do.
        However,childcare is not the problem.The problem is child a protection system and inhumanity imposed upon citizen’s by an in just ,out-of-control judiciary ( in secret).

        1. Angelo Granda

          Sam, I come to these discussions from a different direction than you do also these people engaged in the male.v.female debate who are generally involved in private law disputes.
          My concerns are for innocent children and their parents in dispute with the authorities.
          Innocent Mums (and Dads) are systematically dehumanised and demonized purposely in order to impose inhumanity upon them and often shortcomings such as alleged ‘personality disorder’ ,depression etc.after a biased witch hunt of files are used to achieve what are illegitimate goals .
          The SW’s are just the small fry used as tools.They have to do what the powerful mutants ( managers and executives) tell them to.
          These awful people must be opposed and the law enforced.

  5. Jamie

    What a biased article, setting out to achieve a desired outcome from the start. A couple of points being:
    – The statistics show right there at the top of your article that women are far more likely to commit violence/murder against a child, but you try to say that its actually quite an even number when you look at it from a different perspective? Maybe if you close your eyes.
    – You say that 0.13% is MORE (yes you typed more in capital letters to highlight the massive difference between 0.13% and 0.12%) than 0.12%. If you are actually looking at things logically, that is a negligible difference, but you have found a straw to hold on to there. So it seems your point is just to try and show that men are worse than women.
    – Which follows into that I think the biggest problem with this piece, is it offers not even the slightest contribution to the problem. You have merely tried to say that men are more guilty than one might realise, and women not so. You have offered excuses as to why women may be more violent towards children, excuses which I’m sure you would not accept as adequate reasons for men being abusive towards women.
    If you’re going to do a piece like this, please try and help the issue, don’t just sling mud.

    1. Angelo Granda

      Jamie, Let me assure you that the writer of this post is trying to help and solve problems.She works tirelessly to write them,tirelessly to conduct this resource which Is dedicated to reform and spends hours. of her own spare time reading and moderating our comments.
      One measure of the CPR is its impartiality and as part of that you or any other person interested professional can,if you feel so inclined,submit a post of your own.
      Thanks for your comment but if you do send in a longer post,bear in mind that I find statistical arguments such as we see here are off the point for me.
      No-one should be violent towards children .
      Smacking by Mum is not violence or neglect,it is a responsible child-training technique and acceptable in England at least.
      I hear lots of ‘stories’ and read lots of ‘statistics’ about male and female violence and abuse of children but long in the tooth as I am ,I have see very little if any except that dealt out by schoolteacher and authority figures including those who run care-homes both men and women.
      Our main problem is institutional abuse.

    2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Jamie, similarly if you are going to comment, maybe row back from being so rude and impatient? This post was written in response to someone who was very keen to say that women do X Y and Z MORE THAN men. The statistics don’t actually show that. I am well within my rights to point this out. No debate can flourish or have any positive outcome if we are making false factual claims. So when I see them, I will attempt to debunk them. I didn’t wave this post under your nose and demand you read it, if you don’t find it helpful you don’t have to dwell on it. Or write your own response?

      1. Marco Bresciani

        I get your point and agree that the statistics clearly show that it is more likely that a man will abuse or kill a child in their sole custody.

        What you incorrectly posture is that because the potential is greater, it means that more men actually abuse or kill children. This is factually incorrect because of the limiting factor that more women have custody of children.

        You wouldn’t say that more black Americans commit violent crimes because the statistics show that a black American is potentially more likely to commit a violent crime. That too would be factually incorrect.

        You also wouldn’t target black Americans if you wanted to reduce violent crimes because that would be racial profiling. Racial profiling is racist because you are grouping the majority of innocent black Americans along with the guilty black Americans just because of their skin color.

        In the same way, it would great if there was less gender profiling as that is sexist: just target the heinous people that commit these inhuman crimes.

    3. Peter Cohen

      Thanks for your post Jamie. I agree the article is very biased and unhelpful. I was alienated from my father and abused by my mother. Finding supporting for this and helping people understand the systemic bias has been a lifelong nightmare. These kinds of articles are definitely part of the problem. Parental alienation often precedes abuse so claims that these figures are simply because more women care for children don’t wash with me. I don’t care where the % lies. What I care about is that people make efforts to tear down the systemic bias against men that precipitates many bad childcare decisions.

      So again, this article isn’t helpful and begins from the premise and agenda of tearing down a statistic from an unhelpful and biased angle.

      1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

        Sorry you don’t find it helpful. I was attempting to provide some balance and point out that both men and women are capable of enormous cruelty to their children and each other – but I still think the statistics show that the majority of violence and sexual abuse perpetrated against children is committed by men.

        1. English Lady

          Until about 15 years ago it was widely believed in childcare circles that women were not capable of sexually abusing children. The only thing that made people in that profession face the the truth were a number of high profile cases of female care workers convicted of exactly that.

          I don’t believe the author is trying to ‘provide balance’. I believe she’s trying to make the stats say what she wants to support her preconceived bias that men are more violent and are more likely to be abusers. Taking a larger number and a smaller number, and then saying that the the fractionally higher percentage of that smaller number is actually more than the fractionally lower percentage of the higher number is bad arithmetic, and probably intentionally misleading.

          Its all founded on the feminist dogma that women are inherently innocent and harmless, whereas men are inherently violent and evil.
          I’m also very suspicious of people who play games like this with the figures, make excuses to justify the actions of perpetrators, but still insist that they care about all the parties involved in equal measure.

      2. Andrew Honeycutt

        Be careful, now. Websites with moderators who’ve gotten accustomed to keeping one hand hovering over the Block/Ban Button are keen to spot comments that disagree with them. I’m not saying that this is the case HERE, but it does happen. I was Blocked AND Banned by ‘The Verge’ for pointing out their obvious and lifelong bias toward a particular mobile device company. My very first comment on their site got me shot down (it’s not as if they can keep me from making a NEW account, though). Anyway, be cautious when contradicting moderators. ??

        1. Angelo Granda

          Quite right ,Andrew. It certainly does not happen here . The position with the CPR moderator is actually the opposite.
          She welcomes constructive arguments ,agreements and disagreements. This has caused problems for the resource . The sides with arrogant, intractable,illegitimate,authoritarian outlooks and targets based on fallacy tend no longer to come on the site.
          I refer ,of course, to SW’s and solicitors,S.S. management etc.
          The CPR moderator encourages contributions from all including critics from the general public,parents ,children and so on.
          This,in my opinion,is frowned upon by the powers that be and there is much evidence that CP professionals are warned off. Not only that, parents involved with the system are also warned off ( by solicitors and SW’s) and adverse inferences taken about them in the Family Court when they quote articles of law and demand their rights.
          Authoritarianism in its ugliest form.

        2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          Dear Andrew

          I am the only moderator. I will allow comments on wide range of topics. I will not allow comments that are abusive, threatening or which identify a child in care proceedings.

      3. English Lady

        There certainly is a bias, and I find too find this article biased. The main objections here seem to be ideological- based on the assumption that women cannot possibly abuse children at the same rate as men, and when they do there must be some logical explanation and they need our sympathy.

        Fundamentally, its based on the belief that women are essentially innocent and harmless beings who cannot hurt anyone or anything unless pushed to do so by the most extreme of circumstances. Women are passive, woman are always the victims. Woman are incapable of evil. Men are the evil ones, men are to blame for all the ills of the world, and when women do evil its not their fault.

        When I worked in early years childcare, years ago, this literally translated into the belief that women did not sexually abuse children. Indeed, not just that they did not, but COULD not. They were literally incapable. Until several high profile cases forced the establishment to admit the truth and change its position.

        A position that proved damaging to men and kids, because of the belief that any man who wanted to work childcare must have been a pedophile, but women couldn’t possibly be. Which resulted in fewer men working in that profession.

        Until we get past feminist bias and assumptions and admit women are just as capable of violence and wrongdoing, we’re not going to be able to address studies or statistics like this honestly.

        1. Jackson

          Thank you, this idea that men have agency and responsibility for their actions while women are not responsible for overcoming life’s adversities is degrading to women.

          Also, most abuse by men is physical. There are bruises to show, while women tend to psychologically and emotionally abuse their children. And if the child seeks help they are labelled as spoiled, bratty, entitled, etc.

        2. Reality Check

          I like how the author dosen’t comment on these strong structured and supported statements but goes after the weak ones, shows the authors feminist jewel aren’t up to par, then she mods her own comment section because shes scared of criticism that thinks “attacks” HER and try to put up this fake “Objective” wall to shade her clear cut bia.s of the “EIVL’S” of this world

          1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            My site, my time, my cash, I will respond as I wish. If you don’t like it – don’t read it.

      4. Johndoe

        You mean like how MRA’s are constantly trying to nitpick rape statistics to say women are lying or some crap and essentially try to find ways around it? You mean like that kind of agenda?

    4. Nick

      Fucking loved your comment and when she compared the 0.13 to the 0.12 statistic she didn’t take into account the overall percentage and in that case women are more likely to abuse their kids. She also tried to make excuses as to why women abuse their kids – poverty and stress. That’s not an excuse. That’s like trying to justify murder by saying “well I just couldn’t take it anymore so that was my online solution”. It doesn’t make any sense. She also didn’t include the “women are more likely to abuse their kids” part – National Domestic Violence Statistics. The study she gave us takes into account the 19 Western Nations and we don’t even know if it’s true because there is no actual evidence to support it and it’s a paper from 2013. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers were doubled just so that they could make women look good. If you look closely the study isn’t even an official study and it can’t be found anywhere.

      1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

        I can’t explain it any more clearly than I have done Nick. If you can’t understand the point about not looking at raw numbers but their representation in a certain population, then I suspect any further attempts will just keep whizzing over your head.

        1. Bob

          Sarah, as I stated in a different comment, you didnt actually use the correct populations in those rates, so you may want to slow down there. Statistics are only as good as the numbers behind them, and if you combine the numbers badly then it is only garbage.

          1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            I have explained exactly how I have used the numbers. I have extrapolated from the raw figures to provide a percentage of that group. What is incorrect about that?

      2. English Lady

        You don’t just find those excuses for women abusing kids. They seem to be applied to female criminality as a whole. Whenever women commit crimes, or any act of violence we seem to have this need to rationalize it, and ultimately to prove the woman is not responsible for her actions. She couldn’t help it because she’s poor. Or uneducated, or she was abused, or she was stressed, or she had PMT. Or she had post-natal depression. Or she was mentally ill. Or she didn’t get enough toys at Christmas when she was little.

        Its all based on the absurd and entirely unscientific belief that women are fundamentally innocent, harmless, helpless and passive beings. Whilst men are just fundamentally evil and violent, so we don;t have to rationalize their actions- they just do evil naturally.

        Its like how women who like to bring up the ‘men commit more violent crime’ statistic usually leave out the second part- which is that (with the exception of rape) men are also more likely to be the victims of violent crime. Some people see stats like this as another metal stud to add to the big stick they like to bash men with.

        Its just confirmation bias. People are more likely to accept information or stats that agree with what they already believe.
        People already believe women are innocent angels and all men are violent criminals, and when they see evidence like this, it has to be skewed or explained away.

        1. Jackson

          Also people argue that men are physically stronger than women, therefore there is a power imbalance which causes the woman’s helplessness.

          BUt is there not the same, if not greater, power imbalance between adult females and small children? Children have zero agency or power to leave. Getting into foster care is terrifying and worse. The physical difference and subsequent threat between an adult female and child is even greater than an adult female and male.

  6. Ryan Dube

    “You have offered excuses as to why women may be more violent towards children, excuses which I’m sure you would not accept as adequate reasons for men being abusive towards women.”

    This is an excellent point from Jamie – and it’s par for the course on issues like this one. Seems that when the statistics don’t match the “men are inherently evil” belief system, all form of excuses are made to try and evade cognitive dissonance.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I haven’t offered excuses. I have analysed statistics and talked about actual facts. Women are overwelmingly the majority of lone parents and overwhelmingly more likely to be in poverty. This is a fact. Sorry it doesn’t chime with your narrative of ‘men as victims’ but tough. There it its.

      1. Nic

        Interestingly enough, women are majority lone parents because men are victims of family court, and child support abuse. If you look at the cause of your stats, then things get a clearer.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          Interestingly enough, you don’t care to provide any statistics to back up this pretty astonishing claim? Many single parents don’t go anywhere near the courts. Men who father children then disappear are a perennial problem and nothing at all to do with any court system. Rather a culture that seems to find this acceptable and does not dish out the appropriate moral or legal condemnation.

          1. Danielle

            Sarah- this is not the case. To begin with single women living in poverty is more closely associated with having a child outside of marriage than it is with being a divorced single parent. Secondly, I’d bet if you took the group of single moms living in poverty, and took the kids out of the mix, almost all those same women, would still be in poverty. There’s endless articles on what actually causes the poverty, and it’s quiye complex. And research shows child support payments increase, when men are given the chance to see there kids and were allowed to be involved with those kids, and when they had a decent relationship with the mother.

            I know this goes both ways, but point is, if you are a broke, sleep with some broke dude who hasn’t made a lifelong commitment to you, and then you get pregnant, having a kid isn’t going to help you get out of poverty. As for guys bailing, well he didn’t want a kid, and guess you did. Then you whine about not having the money for the kid you solely decided to have.

          2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            Sorry, don’t understand the point you are making. Single mothers are overwhelmingly more likely to be poor than women in partnership with others. This isn’t a moral judgment – i am not unpicking their bad choices in men etc – its a fact.

          3. English Lady

            In many Western countries, certainly in Britain, and probably the States, its just taken for granted that whoever the mother names is the father of the child. She could be lying. She could be mistaken.

            I actually think that there should be a requirement for DNA testing, to ensure that men are not required to pay support for kids that aren’t even theirs because the mother was screwing so many men that she doesn’t know who the real father was.

            And I’m sorry to say Sarah Phillimore, you were indeed making a judgement. You were saying that single mums live in poverty because men don’t want to face their responsibilities. Only when confronted with an argument to the contrary you backpedaled and said you’re just stating ‘facts’.

            I suggest, like Danielle that the reason most single parents are female is because our society gives women more incentives to just go out and have unprotected sex with a random guy because SHE wants a baby- regardless of his wishes. Let alone his financial circumstances. Women can’t be forced into motherhood- they can have abortions, they can give their babies up for adoption.

            Men, however, can be forced into fatherhood, as well as being forced into paying for children which aren’t theirs. They can also be forced to support kids that they’re not allowed to see or that the mother prevents them from having anything to do with.

            Imagine of men forced women to support children who weren’t theirs. There would be no end to the shrieking.
            Or devised a way to take women’s egg cells without their consent, fertilize them, and implant them into another woman and never bothered to tell the biological mother she had a kid. Again,, this would be treated as an outrage. Yet this is essentially what women can do to men. And its not especially uncommon.

          4. Jay Guerra

            Thanks for that Sarah, that was both true and satisfying. As a child abandoned by a biological father who refused to sign the divorce and only made appearances so the courts couldn’t nail him, [REDACTED ABUSIVE]

      2. Dima

        Poverty has nothing to do with this at all. during ww2 people were sent to ghettos and concentration camps , and it did not make them become abusive towards their children (most of the time….), quite the contrary, most of the time the parents did everything they could to save their children. if we are talking about the facts, we have to consider the following :
        1. The reason that majority of lone parents are women is because of the courts, to deny the fact that the courts are tilted towards women is like denying that the world is round.
        2. parents are responsible for their children, if someone decides to have kids despite their economic situation, or that they are alone, only shows how responsible they really are.
        3. Psychologically, abuse of children by parents causes at least the same psychological damage as rape
        4. Poverty/difficult situations does not make you hate your children.
        5. It is impossible to say all the time that only a woman has the right to decide to have an abortion, or to give birth, but then to bring poverty as a cause of abuse … This shows a lack of objectivity … to say the least …

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          To say poverty has ‘nothing’ to do with this is nonsense. Of course being poor does not mean that you automatically hate your children or are bad parents. Many poor parents work very hard to make up for the lack of material opportunities their children have.

          What poverty DOES mean however is that you have much fewer choices and opportunities. If you have a mental or physical disability you can’t pay for extra help or extra equipment to make life easier. Daily life can become a horrible grind of struggle.

          to say this has ‘nothing’ to do with why some parents are bad parents, is simply wrong.

      3. Nick

        You sure did offer excuses. You love debunking stuff. Let me debunk your comments. You tried to justify it by saying “well maybe women live in poverty or they are under stress”. That’s one way you tried to justify shitty behaviour. And as far as I’m concerned, logically speaking, you didn’t debunk anything. You gave reasons as to why it COULD be false but you never really backed up your arguments. If you look at the stats, women are twice as likely to abuse their kids and they are more likely to neglect them – in most cases boys are the victims. You also didn’t meantion how most criminals were raised by single and abusive mums. You also didn’t include the NATIONAL Child Abuse stats which clearly state that over 50% of child abusers are women. You also mentioned that women are more likely to be victims of violence. That’s factually and statistically incorrect. According to the FBI and the Department of Justice men are twice as likely to be victims of violent crimes and boys are 25% more likely to die when they are abused. Not to mention violence at school. You also love talking about debunking stuff but you still haven’t debunked the doemstic violence statistics 90% of which are either biased or don’t take into account different factors.

      4. Jackson

        BUt can’t you argue that many, if not most men, beat their children due to stress, poverty and their own history of abuse stemming from their own toxic parents?

        Very few people abuse just for the sheer joy of it. The majority have some kind of history of abuse or other life stressors. So why do only women get empathy and compassion, while their kids needs get ignored?

      5. anne

        What would happen if we gave custody to fathers more often, and had mothers pay child support more often? Would children be abused more often or less often?

        The only way to know is to try it, but I’m guessing that you’re not going to be willing to do that.

        You want women to have their cake and eat it too, no matter what happens to the children, mom is a victim and cannot be abusive.

  7. Nic

    It would be interesting to see how equal shared parenting might alleviate some if these abuses. If society and courts expected both parents to take an equal role. Stress would be reduced greatly, money is great but what allot of single parents need is a break, time for themselves and free time for a life beyond being a parent.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Yes shared parenting is best – IF you can achieve it both emotionally and practically. Insisting on dividing a child’s time ‘equally’ down to the last minute (as I have seen some parents try to insist upon) is unlikely to be in the best interests of any particular child. And unless parents are rich enough to provide two homes of comparable status within easy reach of child’s school and friends, the practical problems can be big too. Better than talking about ‘equal’ shared parenting is to talk about ‘shared parenting’ with both parents having the emotional intelligence to realise and accept that sometimes ‘shares’ are not of equal division and this will fluctuate as child grows and his/her needs change.

  8. Andrew Shapiera

    you are rationalizing behavior for people who kill their own children? I think the overall point should be that the incorrect narrative which exists in society is that fathers are almost always the abusers and that the perception of mothers as only the nurturers in the family could not be guilty of abusing/killing their own child. Care to take that one on?

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Eh? Not sure I understand your point. I am trying to analyse statistics. Facts are facts. You don’t ‘rationalise’ them into or out of existence. They are what they are. I have no where supported any narrative that claims women don’t abuse or kill their children. Of course they do. But overwhelmingly, perpetrators of violence across the board are men. Sorry if that stings, but facts are facts.

      1. revspinnaker

        Sorry if this stings but show me a child burned with cigarettes, starved, chained to a bed, pimped, trafficked… and I’ll show you a woman in the house. I have yet to have a professional in mental health disagree with that assessment. You are obscuring facts to protect abusers to save face for the evil YOUR gender does. Crimes against children are gendered, most are committed by women, usually natural mothers, and most is perpetrated against boys, 60%. Same citations as yours. Facts are facts. Now go tell me why ALL Munchhausen By Proxy cases are perpetrated by YOUR gender.
        You go girl!!!

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          The criminal justice system will differ I am afraid. Please do share with me the source for your assertion that no man has ever been involved in a fictitious illness case.

          1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            Seriously? Like all the men who have imprisoned and impregnated their children in basement prisons? Please. Men are capable of just as much studied cruelty as women and proportionately much larger amounts of violence and sexual abuse.

          2. Bob

            Careful bringing in the criminal justice system into your arguments, as there are documented statistics of it being rather in favour of women.
            I would have to dig up those stats, but I do remember it being something along the lines of women being 60% as likely to be charged, 60% as likely to be prosecuted, 60% as likely to be convicted, and receive 60% of the sentence as a with a comparable/same criminal history man for the same crime.

          3. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            I would like to see those stats. Given that men overwhelmingly commit the crimes that attract the attention of the CJS.

  9. Angelo Granda

    FACT: Statistics are not facts and aren’t intended to be. They are propositions.
    FACT: Not many women abuse their children and not many men abuse their children.
    FACT: The Authorities often allege falsely for political reasons that natural parents abuse their children and the system denies those parents their civil rights to a thorough investigation of facts.
    FACT: No publicity is given to cases and hearings are held in closed courts .There are no charges laid and no fair hearing of facts considered by a public jury.
    FACT: We have a ‘culture’ where children are neglected, starved, confined under guard, pimped, trafficked etc. whilst in the ‘care’ system; see various public inquiries and criminal court findings.
    FACT: The Authorities are generally the source of statistics re- abuse which consequently cannot be fully relied upon even as a rough indicator.Neither can Court findings or figures.Particular any American ones.

    In my opinion Reverend Spinnaker, gender arguments are pointless.

  10. Angelo Granda

    FACT: When compiling statistics ,when targeting ‘troubled’ families, when both considering and taking court action aimed at procuring children into the care- system AND when later on taking action to remove newborns from former looked-after children , the Authorities continually and probably deliberately refer to the ‘ likelihood’ of child abuse within a family based on conjecture with ACTUAL CHILD ABUSE within a family.

    No-one actually sees any child-abuse,often there is not a shred of physical evidence of it ,no-one is accused of it thus parents cannot defend themselves in a fair court hearing . Alas ,despite their human rights not to have their lives interfered with without a fair trial of circumstances and facts, we have an inferior civil family court masquerading as a fair one where decisions are taken based on information and ‘data’ which is not validated.

    https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/2018/10/17/almost-16000-babies-under-1-are-growing-up-in-toxic-households-at-risk-of-severe-harm-childrens-commissioners-report-reveals/

  11. Angelo Granda

    Correction: The authorities deliberately REFER to the ‘likelihood’ of child abuse AS actual child abuse.

  12. Pete

    Did anyone else read this: “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.” and think: thats not at ALL correct (the conclusion)?

      1. Andy

        Men killed 859, women killed 1704, hence, women killed more. You are comparing the portion of victims they are likely to have killed, a relative number that you are trying to compare absolutely.

        The correct statement would be that men are more likely to kill the kids they abuse than women (by 0.01% which is probably within the margin of error).

        What if fathers only abused 10 kids and 4 were killed. That number would be 40%, but you can’t say fathers kill more often than women.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          yes. BUT MORE WOMEN have care of children. therefore you can’t just look at raw number. You need to look at number of child deaths in proportion to the number of men or women caring for them.

          1. Nick

            “You have to look at who is caring for them”. That’s not the point of at all. Several people have debunked your statistic which you claim to be a fact and yet you always find excuses. You either say “well it’s because women are the primary careres” or “men in general are more likely to commit crimes”

          2. Living Example

            I am a living example of a child abused by her mother while married to my father. She was a stay-at-home mom. Most of the physical abuse occurred while he was at work and it started out at a early age, while I was younger than 5. She was a mastermind at hiding the abuse, easy for an abusive mother to do, and 40 years later is still pretending like nothing happened. My mother scapegoated me, the eldest, and she did not physically abuse my younger sister. My mother emotionally, physically and financially abused my dad, me and my sister. Please look at statistics regarding narcissist mothers who abuse their children. I feel like my experience, which is not unique, is completely left out of the conversation.

          3. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            I am sorry this was done to you. I have never denied that mothers and fathers are capable of doing horrible things to their children. Abuse and cruelty are not restricted to one sex alone.

  13. Danielle

    There are several big issues with drawing conclusions based off the data collected. My main issue would be is that this information is based off the small percentage of cases that were reported. Since a Lot of child abuse is not reported, it makes it difficult to conclusively know much for that matter. All the data actually shows us is what percentage of mothers or fathers abused their children and got caught, and then abuse was reported and analyzed.

    The awful truth is both fathers and mothers are capable of abusing their children. However, we have no way of actually knowing the “Real” Numbers of who’s doing what, so we can’t confidently say we know who’s more likely to do what, based of this data. There seems to be an underlying issue at play… where there’s this divide of us versus them, Mom vs Dad, and this desire to display some superiority to the other ( I honestly see this much with Moms than Dads, however I know it can go both ways). At the end of the day, every parent should strive to be a good parent, and kids need both parents, preferably parents who won’t abuse them, who will support their child having a relationship with the other parent, and to share parenting as equally as possible.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Of course. I accept all you say about data. All we can ever do is analyse the data before us. That allows us to form some tentative views about how that data is represented in the world at large but it can never be offered as a definite absolute about ‘this is what happens’. And I have seen how readily people misinterpret or ignore data in order to arrive at a pre formulated conclusion.

      FWIW my life experiences tell me that men and women abuse and hurt children. But a clear majority of sexual and physical abusers are men.

  14. Adrian

    Last I checked, 1,704 is MORE than 859, no?

    “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.”

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Sorry don’t understand your point. the percentage of lone fathers who kill is greater than the percentage of lone mothers who kill. By sheer weight of numbers more children are killed by lone mothers – as 90% of lone parents households, in the UK at least, are lone mothers.

      1. MR

        The point is you have deliberately argued using misleading figures because of your innate bias.

        There are 100 dogs.
        10 of those dogs are brown.

        There are 2000 cats.
        160 of those cats are brown.

        You are in all seriousness arguing that there are more brown dogs than brown cats because 10% is more than 8%.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          If you can’t understand the statistical analysis I have undertaken, you can’t. Not my problem.

          1. MR

            I understand it perfectly, thanks for the condescension though (or should I say “femsplaining”?)

            You’ve pushed, and wriggled the figures to dishonestly ‘prove’ that 600,000 is more than 1.5 million and that 900 is more than 1600.

            You’d probably be a shoe-in for a job in the Cabinet TBH, they always need fudgers and manipulators to misrepresent truth.

          2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            You have commented an awful lot haven’t you? Why don’t you set up your own blog and write something to debunk what I am saying? Could you do it without insults? I hope so. Otherwise you run the risk that fewer and fewer people will ever listen to you.

        2. Jay Guerra

          [REDACTED ABUSIVE] the article makes no mention of sexual abuse because of the massive disparity, hence it was left out in favor of the other forms, which the author clearly states that both parents do.
          All your arguing other the presentation of numbers and the attacks against them fail to recognize that the single father statistically abuses almost as much even though far less men than women are single parents, much like the ratio of suicide attempt to suicide success or failure.
          Just can’t take the fucking truth can you? Either way all this ain’t got shit on fatherlessness.

  15. Adrian

    You did not write in your article above that the percentage of lone fathers who kill is greater than the percentage of lone mothers who kill. (Never mind that the difference is 1/100th of a percentage point). What you wrote in your article was: “So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.” That statement is not correct. 859 children is not more than 1,704 children.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      The point I was making that the statistics for lone parents at least did not support the assertion that MORE mothers kill than fathers, simply by virtue of their motherhood. The truth, as ever, is a bit more complicated than that. Feel free to disagree with me but please don’t think the simple fact of your disagreement is of any interest or relevance to me.

      1. larion

        [This comment is redacted for its use of highly offensive language. If you can’t make your point without insults, I am not going to publish it. Take a breath, calm down, see if you can say what you want say without abusive language and try again]

  16. Adrian

    In fact, one could accurately write that mothers acting alone kill nearly twice as many children as fathers acting alone. Or that 66% of children who are killed by a parent acting alone were killed by a mother rather than a father.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      yes. That would be accurate. What is also accurate is when you boil it down to percentage terms – because MORE mothers have sole care of children than fathers – it is the FATHERS who are more likely to kill. This is why data needs to be interpreted from a number of perspectives. Sheer weight of numbers tells you one thing. But you also need to look at the proportionate representation of individuals in groups.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          No Adrian. You are being wilfully obtuse. Let me put it this way. In a group of 100,000 – 5,000 do an awful thing. This is a percentage of 5%. In a group of 100, 50 do an awful thing. Now I agree, 50 is numerically a lot less than 5,000! but as a percentage of the group it is 50%. Are you not a bit more worried about a group where 50% of its members do a horrible thing than the group where only 5% of its members do the horrible thing? Can you really not see the point and value of interpreting data in this way?

          1. Adrian

            You cite a difference of 45 percentage points (5% vs 50%) as your example to support your point. But the reality is the difference is not 45 percentage points, it’s 1/100th of a percentage point. You pretend a 45 percentage point difference is comparable to a 1/100th percentage point difference, but I’M the one being obtuse? That’s actually pretty funny.

          2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            Sigh Adrian. I was trying to help you understand a basic point which you seem to have missed. I am glad to learn that you do in fact understand it.

            One more rude and aggressive comment from you and I shall simply delete all your comments. That’s 100% my rule.

          3. Acid Kritana

            How about looking at it this way:

            There are 100,000 dogs.

            There are 100 cats.

            13 of the cats are black.

            12,000 dogs are black.

            That would mean that 13% of cats are black and 12% of dogs are black. Does this mean that there are more black cats? No, there just happen to be a 1% more cats that are black than dogs that are black.

            Or, let’s get closer to the difference you said.

            0.12% vs 0.13%.

            That’s a difference of 0.01%. That does NOT mean that fathers are more likely to kill their children. The number is too small for that. Now, if you said that there was a 5% difference, or a 80% difference, then yes, fathers would be more likely to kill their children. But this was a 0.01% difference. That just means, from the numbers shown, fathers are about equally likely to kill their children when they do abuse.

            Another thing I often notice feminists says is stuff like “61% of homeless women in the UK are homeless because of partner violence.” (2020 report bu Mankind Initiative) 13% of homeless men are homeless because of partner violence (in the UK). 85% of homeless are male.

            There are 320,000 homeless people (according to http://www.bigissue.com). That would mean that out of those 320,000 homeless people, 272,000 were male and 4,800 female.

            Out of the 4,800 homeless females, 2,928 were homeless because of partner violence.

            Out of the 272,000 homeless men, 35,360 were homeless because of partner violence.

            That means: there were 32,432 MORE men sleeping rough due to partner violence; men are 12.07 times more likely to be sleeping rough due to partner violence; about 38,288 rough sleepers were due to partner violence; males made up 92.35% of those sleeping rough due to partner violence; females made up 7.65% of rough sleepers due to partner violence; there were 84.7% more men who were sleeping rough due to partner violence.

            The percentage may be higher, but that doesn’t mean that there are more homeless women (as a result of partner violence) than homeless men (as a result of partner violence).

          4. larion

            You must hate black people then. 14% of the USA population but 55% of the homicides, every year.

          5. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            What an odd comment. Why should I ‘hate’ all people with dark skin because some people with dark skin kill other people? Can you explain your thought processes behind this statement?

      1. larion

        [I am redacting this comment for its tedious use of abusive language. Make your point like an adult and I’ll publish it. Post like some angry adolescent and I won’t]

  17. Adrian

    The thing about the percentages you came up with is that they don’t say what you think they do. You’re comparing the number of kids who are killed to the number of kids who are neglected.

    The only thing that those percentages tell us is that When comparing women who acting alone to click their children and Men Who acting alone neglect their children, the likelihood of either group killing that child is almost identical. These numbers do not include those parents who do not neglect their children and so they do not reach the conclusion you claim they do.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Adrian. Let me break it down for you. I think men and women are equally capable of doing horrible and abusive things to children. But as all statistics, criminal convictions and reporting shows me it is overwhelmingly men in all areas of life who are violent and sexually abusive to women and girls. I don’t know why that is but I suspect a toxic mix of testosterone and social conditioning.

      1. Nick

        It’s funny how when Adrian debunked your statistic you started talking about how men are more likely to commit crimes…. Damn you really are pathetic aren’t you ? [I am not publishing comments where people are rude and abusive and I have made this clear. If you are not willing to read or understand my comments policy, then I will end up simply banning you altogether]

      2. MR

        Lets simplify this right down.

        If women commit 10 acts of child abuse, and kill 4 of the children.
        And men commit 2 acts of child abuse and kill 1 child.

        Do you GENUINELY think that ‘proves’ men commit more abuse and kill more children because 50% is more than 40%?

        You can suspect what you like, but your information is massively (and IMHO deliberately) misleading.

        1 and a half million is more than 600 thousand.
        1,700 is more than 900.

        Regardless of how you misleadingly present the info.

  18. Angelo Granda

    No,No. YIt,s primarily caused by moral depravity nothing to do with testosterone or ‘social conditioning’ if by that you mean the extent of wealth,poverty and environmental influences.
    I don’t know the exact stats but I have noticed that both rich and poor men(and women) are alleged to abuse children and that despite obvious improvements in material wealth over the past 60 years,plus improved housing,hygiene facilities and healthcare,child abuse allegations rise and the child protection workers are apparently overwhelmed.
    In my opinion,it is caused by a toxic mix of ‘lack of moral training and example’ at school, idleness ,joblessness and shame induced when many men these days sponge off women,rely on them to get accommodation and then move in with them not save up for their own AND when Jo less,they send the women out to work and live by cadging off them for smokes,beer,drugs etc.
    Then when they are inevitably disrespected for it. Bash ,thump.
    Unless we discuss the causes more realistically and teach moral standards from an early age,human beings are bound to go astray and commit their various misdeeds.
    We all have our own faults and but for the grace of God,we could all kill,in theory.
    Arguments about gender will not help.

  19. TheTruth

    Sarah, it’s very disturbing to see you rationalize why more children are killed by their mothers. I see that you’re twisting the numbers around to support your chauvinistic assumptions. As a survivor of abuse and niglect at the hands of my mother, I see you [Deleted because needlessly abusive. Numbers are not twisted they are reported upon. If you can’t conduct yourself as a rational and courteous adult you are not welcome here]

      1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

        Nope. Like I say. This seems to be making you irritated and unhappy – maybe find another corner of the Internet.

        1. MR

          Perhaps don’t deliberately spin facts and manipulate statistics to claim 1.5 million abused children is less of a problem than 600,000 abused children just because of your gender bias?

          1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            I have commented on facts and statistics. You may see this as ‘spin’ if you wish. As its MY blog and I pay for it, I do not need to pay any attention.

  20. Dads Rights

    US HHS data shows clearly 70 % of child abuse by the mother alone or in conjunction with others.
    Mom is more likely to be the abusive parent alone or in conjunction with others, twice as likely as dad.
    https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/research-data-technology/statistics-research/child-maltreatment

    Has been this way since 2000. The data is simply the data, but it just does not fit the narrative. So it is not spread widely.

    FYI Boys are more likely to be the victims of child abuse as well. The most common perpetrator is Mom.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I did click on your link to have a look at the statistics and was met by lots of files going back many years. This is part of the problem. I just don’t have time to sift though hundreds of pages of documents to check that your interpretation of their results is the same as mine. From other statistics I have studied however, and my own experience of cases now over 20 years, I just cannot agree with a statistic that ‘70%’ of child abuse is carried out by mothers.
      I need to know a lot more about how you define ‘abuse’ for a start. Many fathers claim to me that a mother is abusing a child by not allowing the kind of contact they want. The mothers will reply that this is necessary to protect the child from father’s arbitrary or capricious demands – or even worse. So who is abusing who? Who gets to decide what is ‘abuse’ and who is the perpetrator?
      It is a very difficult topic and much of the time I fear that statistics are used to obfuscate not clarify.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          No. The point I make is that mothers AND fathers BOTH do cruel, stupid and careless things that hurt their children. Sometimes they do these things deliberately and sometimes they chose to hurt their children to hurt their ex. This is NOT a sex specific failing but, sadly, a general human one.

          1. Acid Kritana

            You weren’t arguing that men and women are both capable of evil. You were arguing that men do it more. When the statistics clearly contradict your point.

        2. Nat

          No your right in most statistics single mother abuse rate is 8/10 number one reason is stressed out. But it hurts eomans feelings so its not true.

      1. Nat

        That number is not allowed because your a female number one reason woman abuse is because of stress alot of my single mother friends mothers abused the crap out of em and should probably be in prison for life i dont know if they called the police or not but or if they all told but wehen i told school or family all i got was shes just stressed give her a break. If it makes you feel better and the situation less woman hating i do belive fathers sexually abuse more but woman dont handle stress well and more likely to end up in poverty then a single father.

      2. Dad’s Rights

        Abuse as defined by the department of health and human services. The statistics are clear and easy to read.

  21. Dads Rights

    The reason this is important is that in screening for abuse, whether in health care facilities, schools etc, more emphasis is placed on screening Dad than Mom, usually subconsciously. Which statistically does not make sense, since the most common child abuser is ….mom. That is the point. It is needed education for those who screen for child abuse to realize that mom is just as likely if not more so to commit child abuse. Little boys are just as vulnerable as little girls. There are good moms and bad moms, There are good dads and bad dads. Implicit bias training is important. But it sometimes is a double edged sword for groups that are used to claiming victim status.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I set out my reasoning clearly and in full in the blog post, so all I can suggest is that you read it.

  22. Angelo Granda

    Never believe official statistics are true as written.Especially in Britain.
    One example of how they can be deceptive.
    It may appear that more women are abusers and that it is because women are more likely to be poor and sole-carers. In actual fact it will be because only the poor and vulnerable are targeted by the system. Much more abuse may involve rich families and involve men and women but these cases are ignored by the system.
    Another example. Many of the men and women counted as abusers have not actually been found guilty of abuse or neglect.It has only been found in the Family Court that the children are likely to have suffered ‘significant’ harm or that their children are at risk of harm in the future.Likelihoods are not actualities.
    Waste of time discussing them really.

  23. Angelo Granda

    I suggest all that all budding and professional statisticians do some research into the victims of real abuse .By real I mean where there have been convictions in a proper court.
    It may be helpful if the gender of the abused themselves are studied.
    Are boys abused more than girls or vice-versa? I imagine boys are naughtier and get bashed by dads more than mums,for example,but because mums spend more time at home boys are more likely to suffer emotional abuse from her on a regular basis.I doubt if there are many convictions for emotional abuse though.
    I doubt if many men bash their daughters but will feel it their duty to protect them from harm by denying them freedom to roam and keep them in or deny them freedom on the internet etc.They also probably raise there voices more than mums do. Mums are more likely to slap girls about but lack the physical strength to catch and abuse the boys.This is why they say,wait til dad gets home.
    Men probably bash their wives more than the other way round but I think the wives dish out much abuse verbal and emotional to their husbands to control them .
    I imagine also that children of both sexes are abused more by step fathers and most others than by blood parents.There is much resentment of step-fathers from children missing their real dads,obviously.
    Can any statistician answer these points?

    1. Jay Camilleri-Agius

      ‘I imagine’, ‘I doubt’ and ‘probably’… what actual points were you even trying to make? As far as I can see you didn’t make a point just posed some random thoughts as your idea of reality and asked someone to back up your claims, what truly atrocious science. Not only that but everything imagined scenario you proposed goes completely against what the statistics show, and while statistics are not infallible to discount them completely is absolutely ridiculous.

        1. Acid Kritana

          But one would think that you’d WANT attention. Isn’t that how you get money off blogs?

          1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            This blog makes no money. It has no advertising. It costs me money to host it. I get no funding. But what I do have and enjoy is the power to remove futile comments. So keep it up. And you’ll be gone.

  24. Dad’s Rights

    Sarah,

    Please clarify your professional background. The data are pretty clear. Mothers are at least as likely to abuse kids as dad. If that is not your experience, than most likely you are missing many cases of child abuse by mom. Are you open to that possibility

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      This post is about me analysing one particular piece of data that was sent to me by someone arguing that MORE women abuse children then men. On my analysis of THAT data I concluded that his analysis was false. I can’t comment on any other data as I didn’t analyse any other. Nor am I making predications across the system as a whole based on one piece of data. Read the post again.

      1. Jay Camilleri-Agius

        I honestly cannot see how you possibly could have come to the conclusion that this data set backs up your argument as opposed to whoever you were arguing with? Forget the fact that you try to justify child abuse with the idea that ‘women are more likely to be parenting alone, in poverty or stressed’ etc, which even if true is no justification, the point remains that according to this data set men are more likely to kill children RELATIVE TO THE AMOUNT OF CHILDREN THEY ABUSE, women are far more likely to abuse children and therefore KILL MORE CHILDREN OVERALL. That is what this data set shows and there are no possible other ways to interpret it.

        The myriad of complex reasons for this you (and this Angelo Granda who for whatever reason seems to just nod and agree with whatever you say…) propose are completely irrelevant to this discussion as we have no data to support either way – so all of those justifications you put forward are at best just your opinion and at worst a deliberate attempt at misrepresenting the data.

  25. Dad’s Rights

    Or rather let me phrase it this way. Can you acknowledge the system misses lots of cases of child abuse? That’s school teachers, pediatricians , mental health professionals everyone. Can you acknowledge that maybe we miss lots of cases perpetrated by mom because our instinct is to assume dad is the likely perpetrator?

    As a physician I have learned and been trained over many years to value data in conjunction with my “gut”. Even if we think a procedure should work if the data shows otherwise we modify our practice if careful science shows otherwise.

    This seems simple to me. If the epidemiological data shows that mom is often the perpetrator shouldn’t that be a part of the education for mandated reporters. It is actually not relevant if the percentage is 40% or 70%. It’s a substantial proportion of child abuse that is carried out by mom.

    The system should be vigilant to the possibility.

    The question is do you and people like you have the courage to see it and modify the screening process to reflect statistical reality.

    Are you familiar with the concept of a gold standards? The lack thereof makes statistics in child abuse more challenging. But the statistics show the perpetrator is often mom. Maybe even the most likely culprit.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I am sure the system misses a lot. It is after all devised by and operated by humans who are fallible. However, I repeat, for this post I analysed ONE piece of data and came to certain conclusions which I think are correct, based on my interpretation of the data. That is all. If you wish to argue that in fact more women are abusive than men across the board, then show me the data.

      From my experience in child protection work – now 20 years – I am quite sure that human wickedness and frailty is not confined to one sex alone. Men and women are capable of treating their children really badly. However by every metric of which I am aware, men still perpetrate the majority of sexual and violent offences against women and children.

      1. Dads Rights

        And your unwillingness and that of many in the system that is supposed to protect kids to acknowledge that moms are often the culprits of child abuse is what lead to cases like the horrific case in Crystal Lake recently.

        https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-aj-freund-video-cracked-murder-investigation-20190501-story.html

        The child’s maternal grandmother tried to take the child away from the mom. The court system and child protective services simply did not do their jobs. Because those people face no accountability. The system failed this kid. Miserably. Because the system emphasized giving mom more chances rather than acknowledging there are bad moms.

        Look up the DHHS data in the US. 2016. Very clear. Gold standard as far as such stuff goes. Lots of violent child abuse by moms. The legal system largely ignores. And faces no consequences for its failures.

        Or look at this very nice summary.

        http://crg.aic.gov.au/reports/1718/18-1314-FinalReport.pdf

        You don’t want to hear this but here is the truth. If you haven’t seen lots of mom’s abusing their kids in your 20 years, its not that you haven’t come across abusive moms. You have just missed it.

        In Illinois this case will hopefully be a rallying cry. The system is failing. The system has been failing for years. The system needs to change. Dramatically. There can be no more excuses. Lets stop trying to defend a system that cannot or should no be defended. Enough is enough.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          I have never denied women abuse children. But recognising that the majority of violent and sexual abuse is perpetrated by men does not negate the harm done by women.

          1. Nick

            You never denied women abuse kids. That’s correct. But you tried to argue that men are more likely to be the perpetrators, which is not true. And Dad’s rights debunked your arguments. Oh you wanna talk about sexual assault. Let’s talk about forced penetration where 80% of the perpetrators are women. Let’s talk about juveniles and prisoners who are raped by police staff most of which is female. It’s true men are more likely to commit violent crimes. You mentioned domestic violence, right ? Statistically speaking women are more likely to hit first and they are more likely to use a weapon – for example a knife. Men leave more damage on average. One in 7/6 men are severely damaged by a partner – National Hotline for Domestic Abuse – most studies are in favour of women and our shelters receive no funding. Men are also more likely to be the victims of violent and hate crimes, but you didn’t mention that did you. You said fathers on average are more likely to kill their kids (0.1%) – you simply compared the overall statistics to the possiblity of these kids to die. You misread the statistic and several people such as Adrian debunked it. The stats also don’t take into account teachers, social workers, babysitters where the perpetrators are almost always female. Infanticide – also female. According to the national hotline for child abuse and the Bureau of Justice – women on average are more likely to abuse their kids. Most mass shooters were raised by abusive moms. I’m not saying men don’t kill their kids. In some cases they are more likely to kill them, but stop making excuses mate.

          2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

            Weird eh how the number of female mass shooters are infinitesimally small, but hey! you can still make it all about the woman by blaming the mothers. And where were their dads I wonder?

            I am not making excuses. I analysed a certain set of statistics and came up with a certain set of facts, which I note YEARS later various furious MRAs are still annoyed about.

            While this is amusing to watch, it doesn’t actually add anything to the sum of human knowledge, so I am not going to respond to comments about this any more.

            Men are overwhelmingly more likely to commit violent offences in every scenario. That is just a fact. I am sorry you don’t like it, but as the famous saying goes – facts don’t care about your feelings.

  26. Peter Cohen

    Thanks for the article but I believe it is really biased and unhelpful.

    Being stressed out is not an excuse for abuse and is the last thing a child of an abusive mother needs to hear. I have struggled my whole life to get support for the parental alienation and child abuse I experienced from my mother.

    The “cut her some slack, she was stressed out.” rhetoric is now archaic and needs to change. The statistics clearly show this is a both genders issue, whichever way you read them. So why even take all this time to refocus the gender statistic? It seems really trivial. If it’s 90% 70% or 50% women does it make a huge difference? The bias against men is out of order in ANY of these cases.

    Indeed your comment about .1% MORE was quite revealing of a petty trivial refocusing statistics, while actually a real issue exists in either case.

    The fact is there is systemic bias against men in our childcare systems. Arguing the %’s and becoming an apologist for one gender doesn’t help. Parental alienation often precedes single parent child abuse so overstating the relevance of the 91% of carers is also refocusing the problem unreasonably.

    Your unnecessary refocusing of the statistics actually put you in the camp of making this a gender polarising issue, which is unhelpful. The system is broken and too easily abused and defended by well-meaning misguided articles, such as yours.

    Basically, you took one gender polarising situation and, admittedly cleverly, flipped it. But you are still gender polarising.

    The focus needs to be on which abused and at-risk children have access to the support they need… and which don’t. Children abused by women have far less access to support than those abused by men, even not-withstanding the .1% MORE that are killed by men.

    How many children of abusive fathers have to live out their lives hearing “He was probably just stressed out? Not that it’s an excuse.”

    If you want to play the gender statistics game, try comparing that gender statistic.

    1. john hall

      Many women really DO perceive men as THE power- gender. They therefore interpret the mens side of an argument as an attempt, yet again, to assert male dominance by accusing ( at least relatively) innocent women of complicity. This can be seen as an excuse for men to continue a dangerous power imbalance in their own favor, and it must be stopped AT ALL COST.

      Many men , on the other hand, perceive the disingenuous groupthink defensiveness of women as yet more evidence for societies unchallenged bias in womens´ favour . Resulting legislation, for example, further skews any fairness , while men go largely unheard. Their suffering is not allowed to find expression.

      Both parties perceive the others voice as being the louder , and increasingly so. There is now a shouting match. going on.

      The real news in this article is not that one sex is more responsible than the other, or that both sexes are equally capable of child abuse and neglect.
      What IS newsworthy is that women are at all capable, and in large numbers . Larger numbers than most people would ever have imagined, especially when compared to men.

      If we were to survey the general public , we all know that most people, regardless of gender, would have a preformed notion that men are significantly more likely to abuse or neglect children than women, and that women are indeed the relatively ” innocent” gender in this matter.

      That’s why these statistics are important. It is not that statistics are always accurate, but they do imply , in this case at least, that a credible argument can be made against the aforementioned bias. There are countless examples where statistics are counter to current pro- women prejudice in many aspects of modern Western life , but they don’t always get the publicity they warrant. Imagine, for example, the outcry were most of the deaths of women under 50 due to suicide. I suppose the argument were this to be the case would be that female suicide could be attributed to male dominance.

      So too with the case made by Sarah. Of course its men Everybody knows this. Now how do I argue that ?

      Women feel more empathy for other women. Children feel more empathy for women . Even ( especially) men feel more empathy for women than they do for their own sex. (There are obvious evolutionary reasons for this, including sexual competition , limited eggs compared to sperm , and relative physical strength . These reasons may even account for why it is boys that appear more frequently to be the victims of death at the hands of a parent. )

      Now don’t forget chaps : in the last century, whole nations in their tens of millions were subject to the over exertion of the masculine principal. The consequences of continuing this imbalance would be catastrophic. The pendulum has swung the other way. In a sense it can be expected , even necessary.

      But I think truth is important : even more important than ” facts” .

      Often, truth is best discovered by arguing in support of the opposing team, so to speak. This at least demonstrates that we are fair-minded and capable of even handed judgement. We may even arrive at new unexpected conclusions.

      If the author insists in the purity of her investigation and in the correctness of her conclusion of diminished female culpability , then let her. I don’t believe she is CONSCIOUSLY trying to pull wool over our eyes. She has worked hard and is fighting her corner. She will, however, most probably be preaching to the converted in her flock. And , hey , let us at least entertain the slight possibility that she may even be right. Furthermore, there may even be factors we know nothing about. ( OMG. Is that even possible? )

      However , the message of the statistics she presents shows grounds for reasonable doubt. And simply THIS ALONE is newsworthy. In this mad gender-conflict dystopia we are increasingly being propelled into, it is cause for some satisfaction for those claiming a current unjust , unconscious sociological bias in favor of females and the feminine.

      Women and men need each other. Ignor this and we will kill our children or even kill the prospects of having any psychologically functioning children whatsoever. It could be the feminists were right: men and women ARE equal after all. It could also be that non- feminists are right too: Men and women have ALWAYS been equal . ( Not that anybody can ever show me anything ; any object , any being , particle, either plural or singular that has ever been equal to another thing , object , being or particle. The concept of equality only works as a mathematical ploy, and it has fooled the world.)

      It was my father who abused me most . My mother much less so. Were we equally to blame for what subsequently happened to me? Actually, probably yes. It helps to think like that.
      Am I now primarily responsible for cleaning up my act ? Oh Yeah . You can count on that .

      1. Angelo Granda

        John,Thanks for the comment and good luck to anyone looking for the truth. I have written above that gender arguments are somewhat irrelevant.
        Even-handed judgment leads me to ask is there indeed any truth in the allegation that your father abused you? Was it found by a Court beyond reasonable doubt or was it merely the finding of a Family Court Judge? Did he actually abuse you? Or have you merely been told he did?
        If you are certain in your own mind he did,what form did the abuse take? Do you remember events or were you very young?
        Assuming you were taken away from your parents ,was it proportionate?
        When families are liquidated, it is most likely you were failed not only by your father and mother but also by the system . There was no family safety net. I’m afraid to say that very often children in care and those adopted are seriously misled and brain-washed. It is deliberate policy to alienate them from natural family. That is a fact although i suppose we should not refer to facts in child-protection.Just false data and predication.

      2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

        If the author insists in the purity of her investigation and in the correctness of her conclusion of diminished female culpability

        O for goodness sake. You haven’t read a word I have written have you?

      3. Jackson

        @John Hall, Your mother allowed the abuse by not protecting you and getting you away. She put her needs and the needs of your father over yours. And while she did not abuse you directly, lack of protection is a form of abuse.

        Until children start realizing this nothing will change

    2. Jackson

      “She was under stress. Try to understand what she is going through” is the child abuse equivalent of ” She was asking for it in that dress”

      It is not OK for a child to be put into being the emotional nurturer of the mother. It teaches them young that their lives have no value. There is a reason why emotionally abused children grow up with the same traits as children of alcoholics.

  27. johndoe14

    If statistics showed the opposite results, the thought of “think about how stressed out the fathers might be” wouldn’t even cross your mind. This is despite men working the more strenuous and dangerous jobs, like construction, sewers, mining, etc.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I don’t give a damn what sex the parent is who has the primary care. My point is that the parent who has the primary care and who lives in poverty, presumably is subject to greater stress than the other parent. I would have made exactly the same point if the statistics showed that 90% of single parent households were headed by men. But they aren’t.

  28. Tierney

    These sorts of debates always really frustrate me because they’re very counterproductive to child victims of abusive moms. Ultimately the statistics that mothers are more likely than fathers to abuse kids have been produced several times over and by reputable sources, but strangers are more concerned with defending random moms they don’t know than in discussing why this is, or what can be done about it. My sister and I (both girls) were abused by our mom growing up, who was abused by her mom growing up. Abuse is often a cycle and unfortunately the fact is that since moms make up the highest number of primary caregivers with access to their kids, they will simply always make up the higher numbers wrt to child-parental abuse. This is of course not to say that there aren’t abusive fathers. But the fact remains that moms 1. are more often left alone with the kids for longer 2. more often the parent in a single parent household 3. not as likely to be scrutinized by people looking for this kind of behavior. Also these gender divide arguments always seem to be about defending women/girls, until it comes to defending us from abusive women. This discussion should never be about crunching numbers to prove your argument. We are talking about children being abused by parents. The discussion should always be about what can be done for the victims, and what can be done for prevention.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Agree. And that is what I do. I am only interested in statistics as they provide a reliable guide for what is likely to be happening on the ground. I am not interested in manipulating them to prove my own pet theory. Both men and women carry out horrible cruelties to children. I don’t give a damn which sex is ‘more likely’ – the focus as you say should be on identifying which particular children are at risk and taking steps to keep them safe.

      1. MR

        You literally are manipulating the statistics for your own pet theory.

        And if you don’t give a damn which sex is more likely, why on earth have you written a blog deliberately spinning figures to try and mislead people into believing the literal opposite of what they show?

        That’d the behaviour of someone who very much gives a damn.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          I have set out my thought process and working in full. I am not trying to ‘manipulate’ anyone and it is interesting to speculate why this makes you apparently so angry.

  29. Angelo Granda

    I agree with Tierney in all she has written particularly as to statistics and data being relied upon for decision-making ,policy-making etc.
    This has been a long discussion and i have noticed that many comments have come from across the pond. Of course, the culture over there does differ from ours and we will take that into account. However, the way the Child-protection system works appears to be almost the same as it is here .What CONSTRUCTIVE lesson can we take from this post?
    Systems which use statistics,algorithms and guesswork plus professional ‘assessments ‘ based on baloney and hearsay in civil family courts. The civil processes are not are not suited ( totally incommensurate) to child-protection work!
    Each case has to be addressed individually where allegations are made and a full and complete , impartial investigation by Police Public Protection Department alongside the criminal justice system. Decisions and appraisals must rely on FACTS alone as found by the investigation and attested to on oath in a Public Court.
    If cruelty and/or neglect cannot be proven on facts alone then the death sentence or family liquidation should never be ordered by an inferior civil court . Intervention through support,monitoring and counselling etc………..Yes! Why not? Disproportionate sanctions ………No!
    The main object is to PROTECT CHILDREN and the civil system is just incapable of it. The Police must be called in and be forced to investigate the FACTS.

    The problems we face can only sUCH PROBLEMS

  30. JT

    Thanks for sharing this, Sarah. Very interesting article that could kickstart a more important conversation if some people could stop being so emotionally reactive..

    It’s quite easy (and perhaps even instinctive) for some of the men reading this to feel defensive. As if the specific indictment of abusive men and fathers (alongside women and mothers) or the fact that men are on average more prone to physical violence than women are damning characterisations of our ENTIRE gender. When you’ve entitled yourself Dad’s Rights, you can just post “Read my name” and most people can correctly infer where your thoughts will lean.

    What has been mentioned yet strangely undervalued in this macabre contest of who abuses/kills more children is that abuse can be perpetrated by parents of both genders, and real action needs to be taken to help minimise or stop it when and where possible. This shouldn’t be a question of which gender is worse or who is better at math or who can craft the wittiest retort; it should be a question of what is being done to counter the alarmingly prevalent risk to children’s developmental health and well-being.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Agree. As I hope I have made clear, both sexes are capable of horrible cruelty towards children – the more energy we waste making this about men versus women, the less energy we have to making everything safer and better for children.

      1. Angelo Granda

        Hear ,hear to that!
        The subject which should be discussed is ‘Why do some women bash children and why do some men bash children?
        What is it that causes domestic violence?
        Then the next vital question is this one, how do we reduce domestic violence and what safeguards can be put in place?
        What is the social workers role and how should the whole problem be addressed?
        Can anyone suggest anything?
        I see these as moral questions and our response should be to correct morality in general. Sw’s can play a role in that by advising and instructing families including children from an early age. Usually when Mums bash children ,it is because they are naughty,disobedient and disrespectful to their elders.
        When Dads bash their wives, the causes are the same. Women disrespect their husbands which leads to arguments .In the final analysis,the stronger person will resort to violence unless they have previously had morals and righteousness, compassion and understanding instilled into them which will include strict limits on actions acceptable.
        The problem with the CP professionals is that they don’t address the real problem; they don’t appear to understand the basics.
        They are too keen to separate families because of disproportionate fears that in every case the situation is bound to develop into one where a child is killed. This approach is simply wrong being false ideology based on disproportionate fears. Their job is to address the fundamental problems. They should be trained properly,taught what they are and what the solution is! It’s not rocket science.

      2. Acid Kritana

        But you literally made this into men vs women, by claiming that men do it more (when the statistics show that women do it more).

    2. Acid Kritana

      Oh, but we do need to care which gender is more likely to do it. For example, men commit more murders on average than women (but probably not as high as the amount of men arrested/convicted for murder). We would need to look at (a) why, (b) in what ways, (c) how can we stop that. If men commit more murders on average, then we should look into why men are more likely, in what ways are they more likely, and how we can stop that. We would need programs designated more towards men, due to the fact that men are more likely to do so. Seeing as women are more likely to abuse children (and thus are more likely to kill children), we need to make programs that are designed more towards women, when trying to stop the abuse/murder of children by parents.

  31. Joseph Quesnel

    Why are you making excuses for these abusive women? Many of the things you are discussing – stress, trauma, inter-partner violence – also apply to men. Why are you singling out women for special treatment and rationalization? This is is a petty abuse enabling post. It is also misandrous because it continues the demonization of men.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I am not ‘making excuses’. I am pointing out facts. Women are overwhelmingly more likely to be lone parents. I reject your criticisms as unfounded assertions.

      1. Eu

        Answer the damn question. {Redacted because I don’t have to bother with abusive trolls on my site. Try posting like an adult without insults and I might answer you. Or I might not. My choice}

  32. Eu

    Just like she said, all you’re doing is making fucking excuses.
    Why AREN’T you talking about abusive moms?

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I talk about all aspects of the child protection system. That includes abusive mothers. Mothers AND fathers do cruel and horrible things to their children. Some have excuses, others have none. This is not a men versus women issue. And stop swearing or I will simply put your comments in the trash.

      1. David Wheatley

        Hi. First time visit to your site. Interesting points of view. However I would have expected a more neutral and calming moderator stance. Hopefully for next time!

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          Then I am afraid you need to find another site. My obligation is not to be ‘calm’ or ‘neutral’. It is to speak the truth as I see it with clarity. Sadly there are many who find that challenging. I am sorry for them, but I will not change my behaviour to collude with them.

      2. Jackson

        “Mothers AND fathers do cruel and horrible things to their children. Some have excuses, others have none. ”

        There is no excuse for abuse. These are adults with functioning brains. They know what they are doing and are old enough to be able to regulate their behaviour. Offering them excuses ignores the needs of the child. If there is no excuse for an adult male to beat his wife, there is no excuse for an adult woman to abuse her child.

  33. Charles Bailey

    You state fathers kill MORE than mothers. You went by the stats that showed lower for men on both abuse and fatality in percentage. But the actual numbers are higher for moms in numbers for both. The percentage isn’t the truth. The actual total is. WOMEN abuse and kill more kids than women. Another stat not mentioned is that a majority is little boys receiving the abuse and death. Quit trying to hide the truth and making excuses for women. Women are the worst thing for a child.

    1. someone not worth listening to

      The point is women are less likely to kill there children, but have killed more because they usually are the ones to take care of children.

      1. Michael

        .12% vs .13% is not less likely it is AS likely. Yes it is clear the difference in absolute #s is LIKELY due to the difference in % of children cared for by women. But the facts remain that, just as with domestic abuse, women abuse as much as men. Pretendng that is not true doesn’t help anyone; not children. Not victims of domestic violence.

        And the author would have morre credibility had she used the 12%/13% to point just that out instead of trying to make a misleading conclusion that men kill more children.

  34. MR

    Some men bought ten apples.
    Those men ate 4 of those 10 apples.

    Some women bought 100 apples.
    Those women ate 20 apples.

    Watch me use misleading percentages to ‘prove’ men buy and eat more apples than women.

    LITERALLY exactly what you have done here, and every time you get called out on it, you reach for the block button.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Nope. I don’t block people. I just remove abusive comments. You don’t like or value what I write – you don’t have to read it.

      1. MR

        Women bought 1.6 million apples and ate 1,700 of them.
        Men bought 600,000 apples and ate 900 of them.

        Without victim blaming by saying ‘women are hungrier’ or ‘women live closer to apples’, or making up entirely irrelevant percentages, who eats more apples, and who buys more apples?

      2. Acid Kritana

        Why not just point out how that comment was abusive instead of blocking that comment? That way, you can actually prove to us that people are being abusive.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          Because its my blog. And I moderate it how I like.
          you don’t like that? Go elsewhere.

  35. calis

    As someone who was repeatedly abused by my Mom, I feel so hurt when someone tries to justify such actions in the guise of “women are innocent, men are bad”. I recently moved in with my Dad and things have been way better for me.

    1. Acid Kritana

      I’m very sorry that happened to you, and my deepest apologies extend to you. Glad that it’s better for you now.

  36. Sergio Renato

    Your point about the 0.12% vs 0.13% doesn’t actually represent rates or likelihoods. You’re comparing the difference in results of abuse by men and women. When men abuse children, the result of their abuse is 0.01% more likely to be death than when women abuse. This would be totally understandable as men are much much stronger than women.

    In order to really represent rates you need to provide data that actually breaks down how much time men and women spend with kids. Women are majority of single parents, but the majority of families are two parent households. And in the majority of those single mother households, the child or children, do spend time with the father.

    You cant presuppose that the difference in time spent with children, will account for the disparity in abuse numbers without actually having showed this, by showing the data on time spent with children and calculating it.

    Also, while poverty may increase the likelihood, its not an excuse. People who abuse children are horrible people no matter what.

  37. Irving Babbitt

    According to reports by U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)
    Here is the proof that mothers are hurting their kids way more than fathers by 75% more…
    Reported Child Abuse Victims by Relationship to Their Perpetrators, 2018:

    Mother: 460,281
    189,672 of 460,281 from Mother with Step Father or Boyfriend living in the house with the abused Child(s)

    Father: 152,259
    8,556 of 152,259 from Father with Step Mother or Girlfriend living in the house with the abused Child(s)

    Reported Child Fatalities/Death by Relationship to Their Perpetrators, 2018:

    Mother: 585 with 193 from Mother with a Step Father or Boyfriend in the home.

    Father: 265 with 26 from Father with a Step Mother or Girlfriend in the home.

    With kids stuck at home due to coronavirus, ER doctors see more severe cases of child abuse.
    In 2018, nearly 80 percent of perpetrators were parents of the victim. That year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated 1,770 children died of abuse and neglect.
    Another child caller reported that her mom was a health-care employee in New York City, working longer shifts than usual. With schools and child-care centers closed, the relative left her two young sons with a boyfriend “who didn’t have a lot of patience and tolerance with the kids,” Fingerman said. When she came home from work one day, her 5-year-old had a black eye.

  38. non-angry white man

    Sarah Phillimore,

    Sorry, but you cannot read statistics.

    “0.12% vs 0.13%”:
    these percentages would rather represent the kill/abuse ratios
    Your conclusion you talk about is however the kill/non-kill ratio or abuse/non-abuse ratio respectively.
    Totally different things.

    Trying to make it clear this way:
    Step 1: Forget about fatalities to simplify.
    Step 3: only use the totals to simplify. This are “Mother Total” (1,674,935) and “Father Total” (698,965)
    Step 4: Do math: This gives a factor of 2.4 of Mother totals abusing children versus Father totals abusing children.
    This is the factor on the _absolute_ numbers.

    In order to calculate the numbers of abused children versus non-abused children, we unfortunately lack the data.
    Though it is correct that more women have child custody than men, we need to know how many children are currently cared for in total by women and men respectively.
    If for example (pure speculation) 50% is raised by both parents, and the other 50% were raised to 80% by single mothers, this would give a factor 1.5 on women raising vs men raising children.
    So we can agree that 2.4 (abuse ratio) is way higher than 1.5 (custody ratio).

    Another thing to be mentioned: There is a huge blind spot on the cases when women abuse children. That is because women are perceived as the more harmless, caring, nurtring parent than the man. – and that nobody wants to believe that women can be at least as men. And if women get convicted they can more easily get away with it (not sentenced) by declaring psychological issues, stress, whatever.

    And one more thing: please stop saying other posters contradicting to you are just angry men. This is dishonest.

    1. non-angry white man

      To add more:
      You can also do the maths with the kills instead of abuse.
      Mother Total: 2269
      Father Total: 936
      2269/936 = 2.42
      Interestingly the same factor as the abuse one.

    2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I have not said posters contradicting me are angry men. But I suspect many are. As my views are based on evidence, I do not agree they are ‘dishonest’. You disagree with my perception. Which is your right. But it is not within your gift on that evidence to question my honesty.

      1. non-angry white man

        The problem is that your view is not based on evidence.
        When you say 1+1=3 and I say it’s wrong, then it is not an issue of opinions but on maths.
        This is what I am trying to show, but you seem to be immune to that.

        “I have not said posters contradicting me are angry men. But I suspect many are.”
        Let me reply like this:
        <I don't say that all feminists are falsifying/misinterpreting statistics, but I suspect that many are<
        Sounds odd, right?

        1. Jo

          I just looked up some figures on custody here in Canada. Mothers have their kids 79.3% of the time, fathers 6.6%, and custody is shared 12.8% among divorced couples. Actually, I should use these stats in the past tense because I only found data from 1994/1995. Current data might indicate a higher ratio of custody by dads. I hope so.

          Interestingly, even in married households, women spend approx. double the amount of time looking after their kids than do men (primarily because men work outside the home more).

          Some props to guys though: married men spend about triple the amount of time with their kids than they did in the 60’s, and single fathers’ time with their children increased from less than one hour per week in 1985 to about eight hours per week in 2011. Plus, men with kids work more hours than do men without kids, which I assume reflects their motivation to ensure their kids are economically secure.

          Because you seem like someone who appreciates references:
          https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/famil/stat2000/p4.html
          https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/appendix-1-additional-charts-2/

          PS- I’m not providing this data to prove anything. I was just genuinely curious and it looked like you might be too.

  39. Kevin

    “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.”

    neglected = killed?

  40. Acid Kritana

    Hm. I must point out, you’re incredibly wrong. 0.12% vs 0.13% is a difference of 0.01%. That does not mean that “fathers kill more;” it just means that fathers are about as likely as women to kill their children when they do abuse. Women are still more likely to abuse. Thus, they are more likely to kill their children. If you feminists ever fought FOR shared custody instead of against it, we would see the amounts of child abusers/murderers (by a parent) even out some, but it would still be more mothers than fathers abusing/murdering their children.

  41. Michael

    Why is it so hard for people to accept that women are violent and use physical and emotional control to abuse/control other people? Without making excuses for it and making them victims striking back? I’m not saying this is what women ARE I’m sayiing women resort to violence and control as much as men. With less physicial strenght they often have to turn to other means (when dealing with men) but make no mistake even in marriages women resort to physical AND emotional abuse as much as men, this has been proven in every long-term study.

    Do you know which relationships have by far the highest percentage of domestic abuse? Lesbian. The least? Male homosexual.

    So while we should not glean from the 75%/25% split in female/male perpetrators in this study that women are MORE violent to chlldrne than men since any dunce can deduce the difference is likely due to the difference in the % of children whoi are cared for by women, only that women, like men resort to abuse/control in relatonships and the extent to which they have parity (Lesbian) or superiority (children) that abuse/control iis expresses as physical violence.

    Pretending women are NOT violent like men, do not abuse, and when they are it is because they are victimized (by men/society) first is not helping anyone solve any problems, not domestic violence and not child abuse

  42. Jackson

    But your statistics are footnoted with “Child abuse crosses all socioeconomic and educational levels, religions, ethnic and cultural groups.1”

    Then you go on to say that women abuse children because they are poor. This is not the case and just gaslighting.

    The idea that women abuse their kids due to their external stressors, not only sucks up the compassionate empathy and diverts it to the mother and away from the child, but is in itself a form of abuse and manipulation. These kids need to be heard and not shamed for speaking against their abusive mothers. It is still a societal taboo to speak against the sins of the mother and shine light on them.

  43. David Eggins

    Michael above is quite right. My colleague Mrs Denise Knowles and I have worked with female abusers (and male abusers) for the last 25 years. Having both trained as RELATE counsellors in the late 80’s we were aware of female violence. So when I constructed the original TEMPER DOMESTIC VIOLENCE programme to which we work, we saw no reason whatsoever not to include female abusers. At that time female abuse of men was deemed to be 4.7%, (now between 30% and 36%). Between 10% and 15% of our clients were female. Freedom of information requests of Northamptonshire police established that there were in round figures 7,000 call outs to the police by females and 5,000 call outs by males, figures which matched more or less exactly the proportions in the research of Prof M P Johnson, who scored “intimate terrorists” as 7 men per 1,000 prior to separation and 5 women per 1,000 prior to separation. But of course there is now a strong narrative that says only men are abusers and only women are victims. In consequence female abusers are very largely sent on the “free” “Freedom Programme” for female victims of men’s violence and the men are sent on RESPECT’S “accredited programmes” where, for example in 2007 ish DVIP (Respect’s flagship) claimed success with 21 men of 230 referred to their project, at an overall cost of £219k. Drop-outs have been the overwhelming feature of DVIP’s and other accredited programmes’ output. Why would that be? Perhaps we have to read and understand the very influential £210-£220k p.a. CEO of REFUGE who told us in 1994: “Violent men are all the same and they won’t change the only thing for a woman to do is to leave him.” Her bed spaces are “as scarce as gold dust.” By contrast more than 90% of men and more than 95% of very many fewer women complete the 36 hours of our therapeutically informed work 100%. Our income? About £15k per year. Accredited to RESPECT? Not likely. Work with female abusers in mixed gender groups is not permitted. Our 25 year experience of more than 100 women and more than 1,000 men completing our programme flies in the face of that. But then, there are none so deaf as those that will not hear – and their vested interest lies in …….. ?

    1. non-angry white man

      Thanks David for sharing your experience,
      7 vs 5 of 1000 is about the same ratio of DV ratio estimated between men (60%) and women (40%) as perpetrators. But one more thing to consider: it is proven that women more easily seek for help, whereas men rather try to cope with the situation themselves (or are ashamed of being beaten and keep it secret)
      Not to forget the bias in police and justice against men in DV: The man calling the police is quite often jailed instead of the woman who beats him; see also the Duluth model.
      Or the fact that woman are deemed less accountable for their actions (“can’t be so bad”, “what must he have done to her, that she is doing that?”)
      One question to your client ratio: why was the female part only 10-15%? Did you receive some sent by judges or were they 100% on their own will?

      Re “RESPECT”
      Your experience sounds similar to the Erin Pizzie’s, when she was thrown out of her own shelters when she insisted to also have shelters for men or to have mixed staff in the shelters to show the children that ‘not all men are violent’.

      “Violent men are all the same …”
      When phrases start like this, one should already know where it leads.

      Human society has always cared more for women and children*.
      And this would be ok to me, if the truth was not falsified by feminists.

      * this is why feminists get more attention in media the the mrms)

  44. Adrian

    If we look at Child Maltreatment 2006 report data https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm06.pdf

    there’s Victimization Rates by Age Group (p.28)
    And highest rates of victimization are for age groups of <1 year olds and 1-3 year olds – 24.4 and 14.2 per 1000 respectively.
    As well as Age and Sex of Child Fatalities (p.66) show that 78.0% cases of fatalities are children younger than 4 years old.

    That possibly could have contributed to over-representation of women since it is more common for women to spend much more time with a children of those ages.

    As for single mothers the data on Living Arrangements (p.28) and Table 3-13 (p.58)
    Of those cases where data was reported 26.7% of the victims was living with single mothers, while 19.7% with both parents married, 21.6% with both parents but marital status unknown, 4.3% unmarried parents.
    So almost half of the victims – 45.6%, were living with both biological parents.

  45. non-angry white man

    Just recently, in French radio, a feminist got a few minutes to say following:
    “in France, every 2.8 days there is a feminicide”
    Here are my thoughts:
    – no mentioning of male victims
    – she hadn’t defined “feminicide” The public would guess: a woman killed by a man / husband.
    – 1 every 2.8 days equals about 130 / year. But the day-thing sound more dramatic.
    – this translates to a probability of 0.00000389 (130 out of half of 67 million people in France) to die per year as a woman.
    – in 1 year, there are 3585 deads in car accidents* in France. I just take half 1792
    => before a woman dies due to “feminicide”, she would die about 13.78 times in a car accident.
    So now, that the female radio listeners are now all scared, are they going to count the times they die in car crashes?

    Don’t take me wrong. homicide or “feminicide” a bad things and I don’t want to play it down. It is ok to discuss this, but the way the information is put out of context and relation is so typical.
    And I suspect the original intend of the speaker was
    – scare women
    – remind that men are evil
    – “Please give us more money”

    *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

  46. Tarrif Ashton Ali

    child abuse and discrimination hmmm. Let me tell u of one (sorry for my english,i’ll try my best). Born in a home with three sibling, second eldest but eldest son. My father died when i was about the age of thirteen . I can’t remember a good day in my life as a kid growing up. All i can remember is my mom abusing and discrimination.
    I was called black bitch ,since I born I’m a curse(I’m dark skinned colored of east Indian decent, the only dark skinned of my siblings). I got employedment when i was 15 as a grass cutter.My mom used take evey cent i work for ,i could not say anything cause is cuss and obscene language ( just imaging your mom telling you ” yuh mudder cunt,ah doh know y yuh aint dead when yuh born.since yuh born yuh is a curse in mih life) and when she start, mom keeps on going on and on for nearly 2 day,waking me up in the middle of the night from sleep and is cuss and cuss and more cuss.
    At the age of 21 ,I met a girl.After some months i got engaged,my fiancee told me i have to opened a bank account to save some money and have to stop giving all my money to my mom.My fiancee told is up to me i can give my mom half and save the next half, so i did just that.
    After about a week my came home intoxicated and started to insult me y i giving this girl half of she (mom ) mom.My mom again with her cussing ,obscene and discrimating,so it reach where i tell her “mom yuh have a man in the house,y yuh aint cuss him for money”(my mom had man she had a relatinship with, living in the house,he not working). You konw wat my mom tell me,WHAT I STUDYING SHE MAN FOR,IF I WANT TO FUCK SHE. just imagine my mom cuss me and tell me this.
    I lost all respect for her from that moment. When she called me a black bitch, i tell her shes a bigger one cause is only dog does make dog.She say yuh mudder cunt ,i answer yuh cussing yuh own cunt and so it went for half night.
    there are more to this story of which is very longwhere my mom does go by pundits ,obeah people and believing eveythibg they saying, and these only conning her of her money.

  47. Dan

    The percentage of single mothers is not relevant. What we can see is that firstly the men as villains narrative is nonsense, and secondly more children can be protected by dealing female abusers. Every time there is some sort of activism about child abuse it is always implied that it is pretty much exclusively perpetrated by men. Interventions are also aimed primarily at men.

    What’s even more serious is that child abuse creates another adult who is likely to abuse. So women are at the forefront of creating tomorrows abusers who campaigners will conveniently use to vilify men.

  48. Mark

    “So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers” is a completely false statement. If mothers killed 1,704 children and fathers killed 859 when acting alone, how on earth can you conclude that fathers kill more than mothers? What you should have said is that in cases where one parent neglects/abuses their child, fathers are .01% more likely to murder them. That’s not at all the same as saying that fathers kill more children than mothers when acting alone. it’s also statistically insignificant.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Because you look at rates per 100 people. To show who is in reality more risky. This is all explained in the post.

  49. Gary

    Hi Sarah,

    You have been criticized many times for your statistical analysis. Your critics are correct
    This
    “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.”
    is false.

    You are clearly making a proportionality argument. Which would be true based on those numbers but the absolute statement “in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.” remains false. Proportions do not override absolute numbers.
    “In terms of parents acting alone, mothers kill MORE children than fathers” – this is true.
    “In terms of parents acting alone, fathers proportionally kill MORE children than mothers” – this is also true and presumably the argument you were making. As another commenter mentioned, the MORE here is actually 0.01% and that could easily be with a margin a error. Probably better to say something like “mothers and fathers, acting alone, kill their children at roughly the same rate.” This is accurate and it does lend some credence to your suggestion that women are overall killing more children than men because they are more often the sole or primary carer. This is a good hypothesis given the data and is very likely to be at least some part of the explanation. It is not a fact though. There are all kinds of factors that could explain this so caution needs to be exercised until the causal factors are well researched.

    The mistake mentioned about is likely one of expression rather than of comprehension but it is, nevertheless a mistake. There is nothing to be lost by admitting the error and correcting it. These kids of writing errors are entirely routine but can and will lead to a proliferation of objections if not corrected.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      It is not an error. It is a way of interpreting statistics that is valid. More women are sole carers of children than men. If the same numbers of men were sole carers, they would kill slightly more children than women.

  50. non-angry white man

    Ok, last try. I will give up otherwise. promised.

    Here is an example with fictional figures
    sex|custody|abused|lethal abuse|lethal to abuse ratio|lethal to custody ratio|abused to custody ratio
    ————————————————————-
    single women 1000 200 5 3% 0,5% 20%
    single men 500 20 2 10% 0,4% 4%

    You are looking at the 10% of lethal-to-abuse ratio, you have correctly calculated it to being 0,01% higher for single men.
    But this only shows, that _if a child get abused_, it is slighly, very slightly, (within margin errors) more likely to be killed as compared with women. This ratio hoewever is pretty much nonsense.
    What you have to look at is the abuse to custody ratio and the lethal abuse to custody rations. And here you can see that it is possible to have worse figures for women than on men, while your 0,01% (lethal to abuse) is worse on the men side.
    As you can see, the child is more in danger in being in the hands of single mothers than of being in hands single fathers.
    This is also shown in various statistics that the safest place for children is with the biological fathers.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      Sorry, don’t understand what you are saying. I am looking at the percentage of single men who killed children as against the percentage of single women. It is slightly higher for men. I don’t see how this shows ‘the safest place for children is with biological fathers’. I think it shows that both sexes are pretty dangerous for children. This blog was written in response to a woman who claimed that the majority of children who were abused were abused by their mothers. I asked for the statistics to back that up. She didn’t have them.

      I find it so interesting that of all the posts I have written over the years, this is the ONLY one which is still getting frequent angry and often abusive comments, mainly from men who don’t like it.

      1. Willx

        [I am deleting this comment because it makes allegations that I am a child abuser, which is untrue and absurd. If you have evidence for this astonishing proposition, you had better make sure you send it to the proper authorities. You will not be allowed to make such ridiculous and harmful allegations on my site]

  51. Paul

    This is not so much an attempt to analyse data objectively as to find a way (any way) to blame the men in any way possible.

    For example, you say “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the 1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.”

    You determine triumphantly that “ONLY” 0.12% of neglect cases end up dead in the case of women carers, but a full 0.13% in the case of male carers. It may only be 0.01% more, and probably not statistically significant, even if we assume that the scaling operation you performed is statistically valid. But it’s MORE, and apparently that’s all that matters to you.

    Analysis is more that torturing numbers until they prove your ideological, motivated point.

    The general point no doubt holds that a large part of the reason women kill more children is that they spend more time with them, being more often the sole carer (the classic OPPORTUNITY of means-motive-opportunity). But similar arguments can be made about domestic violence. Men kill more women in large part because they have the greater MEANS to accomplish it when an argument gets out of control. Still, I feel completely sure you would not allow this as a valid argument, although the argument is of a similar nature to your own. Nor I suspect would you think it reasonable to formulate a sentence like “men kill ONLY (some small percentage) of women where troubled relationships are known to exist”.

    You say that the person you mention “Preserved by Faith” is playing the game of “men versus woman”, and I am inclined to agree. What you don’t seem to appreciate is that you’re playing the same game, and your team has many, many more players.

  52. Cait

    There is a very distinct bias in favor of women being the primary caregivers of children in custody cases. Women tend to favor psychological, mental, and emotional forms of abuse, which are harder to prove in court (and women are overwhelmingly given the benefit of the doubt), while men tend to be physically abusive (which can be proven in court). My aunt abuses her kids and has a track record of recklessness and irresponsibility, but has always retained full custody of her kids. My own mother has a long history of abusive, mentally ill behavior but easily was given custody of my sisters when my parents divorced (we even had evidence against her, but the court still gave her full custody). She continues to abuse and isolate my sisters, and despite all petitions and evidence, has never lost custody of them. Other women in my life have been psychologically abusive towards their kids or spouses, I’ve basically had to cut women entirely out of my life because all the women I know or have tried to befriend have displayed toxic, abusive behaviour towards others. I’ve relayed my traumatic experiences with my mother to others and I’m almost always give the response “well, she’s still your mother”. Would I have gotten that response if my abuser was my dad instead of my mother? There is a dangerous bias in our society that insists on turning a blind eye to abuse perpetrated by mothers (and women in general), and it needs to be stopper.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I agree that it does appear that women – being physically weaker – tend to favour ‘psychological’ abuse rather than straight up battering. I don’t agree however that a ‘blind eye’ is turned to any of this and the definition of ‘abuse’ in UK law very clearly encompasses a very wide variety of behaviour going well beyond simply physical assault.

      1. CR

        That would seem disengenuous. Since 2015, I think, there has been a recognition of coercive control. But most commentators I’ve read see it as an adjunct to male violence not an alternative method of abuse used by women. How many women have been successfully sued or prosecuted by men using that law? I’m guessing “0”. Very few anyway. Women will tend to side with women over an abuse issue, and men will also side with women. The instinct to do that seems to be built in to us, I experience the same instincts even though my experience has shown me they are often entirely wrong.

        In practice the law is desperately beholden to human instinct in all kinds of areas, but especially this one. Look at the psychiatric expert witness system. It’s desperately corrupt and just exploits the prejudices and instincts of lawyers and courts. I knew one of those witnesses rather well. She got away with extraordinary claims based on nothing at all.

        We are a million miles away from a rational system for assessing this stuff, even in principle.

      2. CR

        I think you should admit to yourself that you are wiling to go the extra mile to excuse a woman.

        And then, try to imagine how how easy that is for someone evil to exploit. She might be telling you how hard it is to look afer her child, and how hard she tries and so and so forth. But the child is just such a problem. The husband is horrible to her. And so on.

        In fact the problem is that she’s mistreating that child, and her husband, and ideally should be kept away from those children. It starts early in life and the family might be very devoted indeed to the perpetrator. That’s what it looks like, it doesn’t look like male abuse at all. People are devoted to thier mothers even if they are abusive. Maybe they are *more* devoted to abusive mothers. The exploitation of that deep bond characterises maternal abuse in a unique way. The mother is likely to be successfully deceptive and present herself as upstanding in society. They do sometimes kill. I could have been killed actually. She’d very likely have successfully blamed me if I had.

        I would think you have enough experience that you suspect this yourself at some level from cases you’ve seen. Everyone knows actually, at some level. but they’d prefer not to think about it. I saw a colleague of mine speak fawningly of his dear moither, who I had seen not long before yelling vile, twisted abuse at him. He is very successful indeed. He’s a public intellectual. He is not married. Neither am I.

        1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

          ? I certainly make no such admission as it isn’t true. I do not go out of my way to excuse anyone. I try to look at the facts and base my opinions on those.

          1. CR

            OK, if you say so. Facts are actually very complicated things indeed. Surely you accept, at least, that we need to agree on many facts at once in order to arrive at the inerpretation of any particular fact. When you were given the information that women are recorded to kill their children at a higher rate than men, you were not satisfied with that fact as it stood. You sought to set it in a context of some other facts to change it’s meaning. That’s a perfectly sensible move to make.

            But one can take that process in many directions. On the matter of child abuse, typically, people take it in a direction that avoids female culpability. And that is costly to children, and also to men.

          2. CR

            I responded to that but it didn’t appear

            I expressed deep skepcticsm regarding a simple definition of “fact”, especially since here you’re in the business of selecting facts to form a context that you prefer. There’s lots of factual ways to contextualise the information that more women kill their children than men. For one thing: is it surprising that such people have been left by their partners? I don’t know the answer to that of course. I know it’s too complex to be glib about “facts”.

  53. Stan

    Abortion is a touchy subject to be playing on in many cases. While yes the women may be aborting the child did the man support this or even force it? I feel like in a narrower view abortion is while a factor in some cases not relevant due to how wide spread the possibilities are. Also some argue abortion isn’t theoretically murder for many reason. I will not go into this but rather give my 2 cents on the matter.

  54. Stan

    A suggestion for, is Mrs Phillimore ok? I feel as shown in comment above that this is a very controversial and may be triggering to some people. I do not take it this way but some people who have been abused in the past could have taken offense to what you have wrote. I think this because they might think you were excusing their behavior which would be incredibly hurtful. I suggest adding something in the front explaining how that you are rather not excusing it? Again you are the author so do as you please but I think this will save some rather rude comments in the future.

  55. Jacob's Journey Inc

    We had an individual go over the American Version presented by a Naomi GoldStein under the Children’s Research who is in charge of its Distribution. Her findings submitted into Congress and trickled down the courts, is statistically incorrect. Her expertise is in Government Planning, and she doles out Grants like bubble gum to those organizations who actually gathered the Data, showing a clear unscientific data gathering or better put an intentional corruption of Data. The Data was presented to Congress but hid the important Data behind the submitted form. The hidden Data shows fathers to be far, far greater a risk to children than the presented data expressed. Ms. Goldstein is also deeply involved with a spiritual program that does not recognize God but is Universal, meaning there could be a push by that organization for a predetermined Universal influence through such reports. Facts are showing almost half a million children are now being turned over to domestic abusers and intimate terrorists by the Courts based on this false information. Lives, children’s lives are being lost. Children themselves are now fighting for escape where before it was the mother fighting to save them and escape. IF, a report does not appear logical then it most often is not logical. Science does not support her findings or these findings.

  56. CR

    I think that any stats to do with family or domestic abuse are worthless, becuase so much goes unreported. “Abuse” is not even a meaningful term.

    I suffered pretty horrific maternal abuse much of my life. My response was to become a scientist and study it. If you look at the behaviour of non-human primate species, which is a way of controlling for differences in culture and in interpretation, and a way of conducting precise experiements with clear variables, the nature of maternal abuse is laid bare. Such experiments began in the 30’s. At this point we know all about it actually, but no one listens. I mean, it’s not perfect research or anything. But we do know what’s going on. Other animals show clear analogues of human behavour.

    As of 2021 I do think that what is currently called “feminism” is a big problem. That is not a scientific claim it’s just a personal opinion. Several people on this thread have pointed out the nature of this problem. When I was young I thought feminism was meant to make us all equal. But at this point it seems to be something else, something more like an assertion of female interests at the expense of other interests, and a defnition of problem behaviours as male behaviours without any dispassionate examination of the strategies female humans use to harm others.

    That’s what I think. It’s position that is growing in popularity amongst educated people. I just don’t believe you anymore, or have the energy to argue.

    Like most primate species male and female humans have different means of harming each other. Female abuse tends to be more verbal and social. But not necessarily less serious in its consequences, or indeed less fatal. My mother eventually did become violent, when left with no other option, and I’m grateful for that beceuase it permitted my escape. Overt physical violence is not necessarily the worst thing that be can done to a person. Ask the CIA.

    I have no hope whatsoever that modern feminism is going to suddenly grasp these ideas and look at itself in the mirror, and so it is actually becoming a big part of the problem. Sorry it definitely is.

    I’m going back to my work now. I just like working on my own.

  57. Maciek

    Hi.
    To answer your question “….Fact? ”
    FACT
    Convictions for “cruelty or neglect of children” in the UK are 60% female and 40% male – please refer to Ministry of Justice publication ” Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System 2019″ published on 26 nov 2020

    Now, you clearly didn’t like the US statistics you presented, and as you can’t deny them (the facts) you started to use other statistics which spouse to excuse child abuse by females or at least divert responsibility.
    Guess what?
    There is no excuse for child abuse!!!

    Problem with an ideology is that ideology tramps everything, proven many times – always with tragic outcomes, but people seem to close their eyes on history and refuse to see similarity because, ofcourse , their ideology is that special one and of highest importance….

    You wanted to play game with excusing inexcusable by providing some numbers which would explain “why”, so let me play this game too… I hope you don’t mind…?
    (Not stating my own opinion , its just for “the game” purposes)
    You stated that 91% single parents are female, ok , so I will ask why? Why such a huge disproportion?
    Could that be due to the fact that family courts are overloaded with females and are very biased ? Statistics would support that – 67% senior staff &practitioners in MoJ , 66% in CPS and 56% in Magistrates (2019 fogures) are female ? Not to mention proportion of less senior staff … Fathers really struggle to get even 50% custody (abundance of stories).
    Or
    Could that be because due to the overblown welfare system women don’t have to act responsibly when choosing partners or while having casual sex ?
    Statistics definitely support this hypothesis – since introduction of welfare which benefits single mothers single motherhood trippled or possibly almost quadrupled…
    Again , I’m not saying those are the reason, just marveling…

    As you can see this game can take us in various places , some which we may really dislike….

  58. Nathan

    From what I seen in my short 28 years of life is, woman that find them selfs in unstable circumstances tend to be more stressed and violent as a result.
    It’s unfortunate that kids being kids are a bottom less pit of energy that tent to mess up a lot, are weak and vulnerable, thus making them easy victims.
    But if you give them a stable enough environment they then to flip to that kind and caring image of what a Mather usually is.

    For example, corporate America, few female CEOs but a good portion of management or mid level positions are full of women.
    If you look at history, queens manage the social background and/or some internal aspects, Genghis Khans wife and his daughters being a perfect example.
    Or female rulers, start off with key support and give you an era if prosperity before times changes, instability strikes then it’s just wars and genocides.

    I would also like to make the case of nature vs nurture for the man. while yes males tent to be more violent on average then females, what taught in childhood stays with them years longer after they grow up but Not so for women.

    1. Willx

      Except that all the available statistics prove that, regardless of testosterone, men are overall LESS violent to children than women are. They’re even less violent to adult women than women are! Lesbians experience the highest levels of domestic violence of every gender pairing.

      Men are, however, 3 times more likely to be the VICTIMS of violence than women.

  59. Green

    Your understanding of the ACF HHS report is extremely flawed. Let’s look at the numbers. In the diagram you presented that was presented to your readers there’s a margin of 790,970 for child abuse and neglect between mothers and fathers. Then there’s a margin of 845 for child fatalities between mothers and fathers. To try and take the percentages of each category for mothers and fathers individually and say that fathers cause MORE fatalities is completely ignorant and misleading. The numbers themselves show that children face more neglect, abuse, and fatalities from the mother. To get an actual percentage you would need to get the total number of fatalities and then calculate the percentages individually based on that number. Example: Let’s say the total for fatalities is 1 million. The total for mother alone is 1720 and for father alone is 860. Mothers come in at 0.17% and fathers at 0.09% making mothers more likely to cause child fatalities. You also should’ve gone to the acf.hhs.gov website and reviewed the 2006 pdf report entirely before denouncing the idea that women (at least in the US) are more harmful to children than males. (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/cm06.pdf – page 66). It clearly shows in figure 4 -2 “Perpetrator Relationships of Child Fatalities, 2006” that mothers were at 27.4% while fathers were at 13.1%. If you look further it also shows mother and other (not the father) at 11.5% while father and other (not the mother) at 1.5%. 2019 has father only at 14.2%, mother only at 29.2%, father and other (not the mother) at 1.7%, mother and other (not the father) at 10.0%. Then let’s also address a few other things that feminist and the courts refuse to acknowledge. Now that men have started recording attempts to see their children, pick up their children, etc. in plenty of cases it’s the mother who is using the child as a weapon towards the father. There have been cases where the father buys clothes and electronics for the child, but the mother throws them out or won’t let them give it to their children then cries about child support. There are plenty cases of child support going towards the mothers needs and not the child’s. Shoot, I just read about a case where a mother met the father for a scheduled pickup, but not until after she filed a false report seeking a restraining order on him. I know, all your readers are going to say “He’s a man. He did something wrong. Humph”. However, the mother did the same thing with her first baby daddy and got caught. Now she no longer has custody of that child. Or what about the mother that told her 3 daughters that their father raped them as young children and had them grow up to their 20s and 30s believing that. Then she finally comes clean and tells them that she lied the whole time. More than likely neither of these instances were classified in the ACF HHS reports, but we all know that they are examples of child abuse and domestic violence.

    Speaking of domestic violence. For the girl that said men have testosterone so of course they’re violent…How hard do you fight for men who are victims of domestic violence from their wives or the men that are raped? The court system doesn’t seem to care about them at all. Many of them don’t even get taken seriously by the police and prosecutors will rarely file charges against the women. You know what I do see though! A whole bunch of domestic violence towards men on TikTok and YouTube with a whole bunch of feminist cheering it on.

    And for the girl who said something about the title of some article said mother, but when she read the article it said grandmother. These ACF HHS reports also have a category for Non-parental Perpetrator. It’s still lower than the mothers.

  60. Pingback: Who Might Be An Abuser? – Sarahjocrawford

  61. Willx

    Why did you imply that being poor was a reason or excuse to abuse children? Do you seriously think that poor people are less moral and more evil than rich people?

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      No. I think poor people are under greater stress and have less financial opportunities to buy their way out of stress.

  62. Toxic Male

    You’re a woman. You don’t use logic. You use emotions as you’re doing here in these comments. This article is Bee Ess.

    Nuff said.

    I am a man who grew up physically, emotionally, and mentally abused by his adoptive mother. Abused and belittled by female peers.

    Baseball bats. 2x4s. Fanbelts. Skillets, broomsticks. I was blamed for things out of my control and for things I had nothing to do with, suck as the car breaking down.

    I pretty much dislike most western women now. Yea I admit it. I am not sorry. I am not sorry for the way I treat them now. Your brought this upon yourselves.

    And for you to support the system that has destroyed my community, infuriates me. Karma will make you all reap what you have sown….

    So expose me, doxx me, keep trying to silence me, whatever. You and your wimmins have decided I don’t belong in society a long time ago.

    I’m long past caring. I just want to burn it all down now.

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I am sorry that you had such horrible experiences with one particular woman, and sorry that they have made you so hateful towards women as a whole.

    2. Jo

      I’m so sorry for what you have gone through. Nobody deserves abuse of any kind. My heart aches for the little boy who didn’t get the childhood he so badly needed and deserved. Even if you’re long past caring, I’m sorry. I hope that someday you get a break and are given love. I hope that someday you’ll feel accepted and supported and cared about. Everybody deserves people they can rely on for help and care, especially you, who were denied it during the years that mattered most.

  63. Jimmy

    We love some censorship in here don’t we Sarah? [redacted as abusive. This is not ‘censorship’. This is my site, I run it, I pay for it and I do not permit abusive comment. If you can say what you wish to say without being rude and unpleasant, I will publish it. If you can’t, I won’t. If you don’t like the rules, find another website]

    1. Jimmy 2

      Nothing about my previous comment was “abusive” Sarah and yes this is censorship it has nothing to do with who pays for the platform. The government pays for the country you live in but if they started censoring anything they viewed as wrong then you would call it censorship yes? You need to understand that someone going against your opinion doesn’t make it abusive. You completely censored my comment because you couldn’t take any criticism on your views.

      1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

        My site, my rules, my decision. If you don’t like it, feel very free to comment elsewhere.

  64. Greg Allan

    “1,704 were killed by a mother acting alone. That represents only 0.12% of the1,452,099 children who are neglected by their mother alone. For fathers, who by themselves neglected 661,129 children, they killed 0.13% (859). So in terms of parents acting alone, fathers kill MORE children than mothers.”

    In which field of mathematics is 859 greater than 1704?

    1. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      When you look at the figures as a percentage of their population, as I have explained. The percentage of fathers who kill children acting alone, is very slightly higher than the percentage of mothers who kill children acting alone.

    2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I have explained this clearly in the post. More women than men have sole care of children. So raw numbers alone may not tell the whole story. If 100 women with sole care of children killed 10, that’s 10%. If 10 men with sole care of children killed 2, that’s clearly numerically less than the 10 killed by women, but represents 20% of all children cared for by men.

      1. Jo

        I, too, would like to know what percentage of abuse and neglect happens with the custodial parent. If we knew that information, we could make meaningful comparisons between moms and dads. For example, IF we assume that custodial parents are always responsible for child abuse and neglect, then based on your data, moms abuse/ neglect their kids 21.7% as often as dads [(1452099/0.91)*0.09=143614]. In other words, if moms had custody of their kids 9% of the time (i.e., if they had custody at the same frequency as dads), they would abuse/ neglect 143614 kids for every 661129 kids that dads abuse/ neglect.

        Of course, it’s a massive leap to assume that custodial parents are the only ones who abuse/ neglect their kids.

        Other acknowledgments:
        -statistics make no difference to the little girl or boy who’s hurt by their mom, the adult who grew up with an abusive mom and still deals with trauma, or the dad who’s ex hurts his kids.
        -I suspect that it takes way longer for abusive moms to get caught or children to get taken seriously because people assume moms are nurturing and loving.
        -the VAST majority of men are nurturing and loving and excellent parents. The small minority of dads who abuse their kids get a lot of media attention and stain men’s reputations. We need to celebrate awesome dads more than we currently do to alleviate this problem. We can expect guys to defend themselves rightly and sometimes take a polarized stand whenever we make generic, negative comments and assumptions.

  65. Jay

    I would imagine after 3 years of trying to pretend that .01% is statistically relevant that additional commentary on the bad analysis isn’t going to change things. This article is emotionally invested in defending females and rejects the premise that women are humans. That when having access to victims in which they are physically superior, they are at least just as violent as men, and likely more so when you account for violence other than death.

    1. Jo

      Jay, I agree that a difference of 0.01% between men and women in terms of their ratio of abuse/ neglect to murder is essentially a wash. Most likely the statistic will increase or decrease on any given year.

      I don’t think that’s the main point of the article, though. I think the purpose of the article is to compare the rates at which women abuse and neglect their kids in comparison to men, and also to compare the rates at which women murder their kids in comparison to men.

      If we consider the frequency at which moms and dads abuse/ neglect/ kill their kids, there’s no doubt that moms do far worse in all realms. However, if we consider the frequency at which moms and dads abuse/ neglect/ kill their kids that they live with, dads fare worse. I think this is relevant because custody is at least a partial indicator of a parent’s opportunity to abuse/ kill their kids. For instance, a dad who rarely or never sees his kid isn’t likely to abuse or neglect them. Murder, though… I’m not so sure. Seems to me murderers often break into homes.

      I also agree with you that women/ moms are human and that stereotypes that perpetuate the nurturing, victim-only status of women hurt boys, girls, and men alike. I only need to think of the man who is abused by his wife and wants to get out of the relationship- what support system or shelter does he have access to? Nothing. Who will take him seriously? Almost nobody. How will the wife be punished, IF she is sentenced? Minimally. Obviously, spousal abuse is different than child abuse, but I point it out because it’s yet another example of how women’s role as abusers is minimized and ignored.

      If you or your children have been hurt by a woman, I’m truly and deeply sorry. I hope better days and better people come to you soon because you deserve it.

    2. Sarah Phillimore Post author

      I think you need to read it again. There is no ’emotional investment’ in defending females.

  66. Sander

    “I don’t think the statistics show that mothers are more evil and more prone to abuse children than fathers. I think the statistics show that mothers are more likely to be in a situation where they will be poor and under stress. I really don’t know what ‘Preserved by Faith’ was trying to argue. She seemed to have a pretty clear animus against her step children’s mother but it wasn’t clear if she was trying to argue that the mother was therefore more likely to murder her children so custody should be given to their dad, now married to ‘Preserved by Faith’.”

    Seriously what kind of flawed logic is this? Poverty and stress do not entitle you to childabuse, there are vast amount of mothers and fathers that deal with stress and poverty, without abusing their children. At the same time, I have seen a large amount of cases in which rich mothers without stress abused their children. Do not dare to justify what these women do or take away their responsibility. NO ONE should abuse children, no men, no women. I do not care if it does not suit the feminist narrative, I will fight childabusers of any gender, any race and any age.

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