Filipino Adolescents’ Experiences of Abusive Parent-Child Relationship in Low Socioeconomic Status Families

This phenomenological-qualitative study aimed to describe how an abusive parent-child relationship of selected Filipino adolescents from an intact family of low socioeconomic status affects the perceptions of their potential romantic partner, marriage, and family. The study also uncovered their coping mechanisms and support system. The seven informants were identified using a purposive sampling technique. The researchers devised an open-ended interview guide to elicit information from the informants and were conducted with a guidance counsellor. With the use of content analysis, the study revealed that their abusive experiences with one or both parents have significantly affected their perceptions. Most of them have resorted to using negative coping strategies and that their grandparents stood as their extended family support system with their friends as their non-family support system. The informants displayed a significantly entrenched position on the characteristics of their future marital partner and family. However, they have shown disapproval of marriage due to their experiences. The study also exposed that mothers have been more present in the abusive parent-child experiences than the fathers, which contradicts expectations that fathers act as strict disciplinarians and mothers being the child's protector in Philippine Culture. The study exposed the experiences of children in verbal and physical abuse in their homes from intact families with low socioeconomic status in Metro Manila, wherein expounds on the type of social support these children have been given and the kinds of coping mechanisms that are prevalent in their experiences and how these abusive parent-child experiences reflected with either positive or negative on their perception of marital partner, the concept of marriage, and concept of family, wherein provides substantial knowledge on how these experiences can be handled and faced in terms of treatment.

Influence of intrafamilial abuse in children's change of values towards their parents

The socialization that parents and society exercise on children instills in them a set of values towards parents. Some of these values are not lying, feeling affection for the parents, and wanting to have contact with them. In this work, we attempt to determine whether these values change in the face of intrafamilial abuse. To that end, an incidental sample was used, consisting of 2730 minors aged between 6 to 18 years, who had never suffered abuse. They were asked to put themselves in the place of the main character of a story. The story varied depending on the conditions to be studied: observation and direct suffering or account of the abuse by another, type of abuse (physical or psychological), who perpetrated the abuse (custodian or non-custodial), and who received it (the other custodian or the minor). The results show that, as a rule, children lie to conceal both parents’ abusive behavior; they love their parents and want to have contact with them, even in the presence of abuse. Notwithstanding that in the presence of abuse by one of their parents, children still love them and want to have contact with both parents, a significant number of children, however, stop loving them or want to have contact with the abusive parent. These results undermine what is defended by theories like PAS with no scientific evidence, and underline the need to use scientific procedures to test the reliability of minors’ testimony based on the idea that children tell the truth.

On Becoming a Feminist

The author of this chapter writes about his childhood experience of domestic violence and the impact his mother’s life experiences would have upon him. In it he recalls one particular moment while witnessing his mother being physically abused by his father. Taking a bold stand of resistance, he remembers as an eleven-year-old boy “from that day to the last day of his [father’s] life . . . [he] would be at war with [him].” Yet, as the son of an abusive parent, the author states that this event would mark the beginning of his “commitment to feminism,” a stand against domestic violence. His mother became the first model of feminist identity in how she viewed herself, her independence, and the ways she maintained her family’s home. In sum, she taught him how to be a feminist. Additionally, as a college student, the author would come to read writings by noted pro-feminist female and male authors of varying races. He would be particularly influenced by the lives and works of Alice Walker, as well as Beverly Guy-Sheftall and bell hooks.

Properly Accounting for Domestic Violence in Child Custody Cases: An Evidence-Based Analysis and Reform Proposal

Promoting the best interests of children and protecting their safety and well-being in the context of a divorce or parentage case where domestic violence has been alleged has become highly politicized and highly gendered. There are claims by fathers’ rights groups that mothers often falsely accuse fathers of domestic violence to alienate the fathers from their children and to improve their financial position. They also claim that children do better when fathers are equally involved in their children’s lives, but that judges favor mothers over fathers in custody cases. As a consequence, fathers’ rights groups have engaged in a nationwide effort to reform the custody laws to create a presumption of equal parenting time, with no exception when one of the parents has engaged in domestic violence. Domestic violence survivors and their advocates, however, claim that the needs of survivors of domestic violence and their children to be safe and free from further abuse are not being met in custody cases, that their claims of abuse are not being believed, and that the harm when a parent commits domestic violence against the other parent is not being recognized and addressed by judges and the family law professional upon whom they rely. This Article first presents a literature review, with articulated scientific standards applied to each of the pieces of research cited in this review, on what is happening outside of court and in court relating to domestic violence and best practices for taking domestic violence into account in these child custody cases. Among the key findings from this literature review are: (1) when a parent commits domestic violence against the other parent, this can cause serious long-term harm to children, (2) custody judgments tend to favor fathers over mothers because greater weight is placed on claims of alienation than on domestic violence claims, (3) long-term harms can be mitigated by evidence-based best practices, most notably, supporting non-abusive parents in their efforts to protect themselves and their children from further domestic violence, (4) family law judges and professionals must be trained on domestic violence and its nuances, as well as how to screen for domestic violence, to adequately support them, and (5) a component of this training is learning how to distinguish mutual “situational couple violence” for which “parallel parenting” custody arrangements might be feasible, from a pattern of “coercive abuse,” where sole decision-making and primary parenting time should be ordered to the non-abusive parent, and protective restrictions on parenting time should be ordered to the abusive parent. The Article then reports on a fifty-state review of custody-related laws (laws determining which parent makes major decisions relating to the child, who is allocated primary parenting time, and whether protective restrictions shall be placed on the parenting time of a parent who has engaged in domestic violence). This review found serious gaps between what evidence-based best practices suggest, and what is currently required by law in many states. These gaps in the law, including the failure of the law to require domestic violence screening and training for judges and other family law professionals, contribute to poor custody decision-making by them that compromises the safety and welfare of domestic violence survivors and their children. The Article then proposes nuanced law reforms that would align custody-related laws with evidence-based best practices for taking domestic violence into account in custody cases, including creating rebuttable presumptions, burdens of proof, and definitions of domestic violence that conform with these evidence-based best practices.

Contested Parental Authority in Jules Vallès's L'Enfant

This article examines Jules Vallès's portrayal of an abusive parent-child relationship in his 1879 novel L'Enfant, showing how the author's narrative techniques, in particular his use of an unstable first-person narrative voice, undermine the notion of parental authority. Situating this novel in its historical context, I show that although it was published a decade before France's first law protecting children from physical abuse, authors of childrearing guides from as early as the 1820s were already advocating moral as opposed to corporal punishments for children. Not only does Vallès cast his critical eye on parent-child dynamics but also he widens the novel's scope by creating an analogy between the authority of parents in the home and that exercised by the State in schools. Moreover, through the young protagonist's rejection of his parents’ professional aspirations for him, Vallès's provocative novel challenges the classic nineteenth-century narrative of progress through upward social mobility.