Mothers are more likely to abuse or neglect their children

Child abuse

 According to child welfare studies, mothers are almost twice as likely to be directly involved in child maltreatment as fathers. Mothers are more likely to abuse or neglect their children than fathers.

 I agree with those who say these numbers are as such because women are usually more involved with their children, and as single-parent homes are on the rise and women are increasingly the single parent, they become over-represented in the numbers on child abuse.


Interestingly, when former Minnesota Viking and NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter spoke of being a victim of child abuse, he revealed that it was his mother who was the abuser. His central point about child abuse was well-received, but the fact that his mother was his abuser was either largely ignored or thought to have been of no consequence.


Meanwhile, one could also say that black males are over-represented in terms of homicide rates for various reasons (poverty, unemployment, education, etc), but the reasons why they are killed don’t make them any less dead than any other homicide victim. So it is with child abuse: The reasons why women are over-represented in the crime of child abuse does not make a child any less abused. And these abused children, half of which are male, live with that pain and become adults. As men, they are told to not talk about their pain or acknowledge that a woman hurt them.


“Man up. Don’t cry,” we tell them. And in doing so, we create the perfect conditions for a toxic relationship: men who can’t verbalize their very real pain and an ethos that says women can’t really hurt or traumatize men.