I recently read a story on a mother who killed her eight-week-old baby and left the infant’s twin sister severely injured. She is now being supported by the Department of Human Services in a bid to regain access to her surviving children. Sadly, although this is the worst case I’ve read about, it’s definitely not the first.
This story struck a nerve with me because I was also the victim of an attack by my own mother and just like the girl in this story, I was allowed to return to her care within a relatively short time after the attack. My own story began in 1989 however, so I’ve had the chance to gain an adult perspective on living with a parent after a brutal attack.
There are differences between our stories, true. I ended up with a tube in my throat for 11 years and my own mother was bipolar unlike the mother in the story. My father stayed with my mother, believing the doctors who told him that it wouldn’t happen again and that medication would fix all her problems.
There is one key issue that remains the same, though; the rights and opinions of the child were ignored.
There is no perfect answer when a parent attacks a child. Sometimes, it is outside the parent’s control as much as it is outside the child’s. But the family justice system in Australia believes that the rights of a parent outweigh the rights of the child, except in the most extreme of cases. Unfortunately, murder or attempted murder often doesn’t qualify, especially in the murky world of mental illness.
I was two and a half when my own attack happened, so I can still remember parts of it and was encouraged to talk about it as I grew older, particularly by my father, who I shared a very close relationship with. After a few years, social workers decided to close my case. The adults around me became less vigilant, assuming it was a once off tragic event. It wasn’t till I turned 13 that I began to question the events that had happened to me. I’m now 28 and it’s been a long and arduous journey to understanding why she did it and dealing with the reactions (or lack thereof) shown by the adults around me, especially when she had further breakdowns as I grew older.
A young child does not know how to deal with such an attack from a person who makes up a huge part of their world. It is up to the adults to protect the child until the child is old enough to fully understand the events and make their own decision. Often, this might not be to till the child is a teenager and goes through the developmental changes where they begin to question their own environment and understand the grey world of adult concepts and understand that staying with the parent isn’t tacit approval by other adults.
In some cases, supervised visits might help the child to a degree but I personally feel that in many cases, no other access should be granted. Not necessarily because of the risk of an attack which is often unlikely to be repeated, but because that child will have far more emotional issues to confront when they’re older. Children experience guilt, fear and sympathy in far more confusing and forceful ways than adults and the emotional and psychological feelings they have as a child are a huge influence on their mentality and relationships as they reach adulthood.
Traumatic events should not be swept under the carpet and forgotten; children should not have to cover for their parents and should not feel guilt on their parent’s behalf. The rights of the child are far more important than the rights of a parent if the parent has abused or attacked that child. Children need the right to be protected and listened to, instead of left in the confusion of legal red tape and parental rights that severely impact so many.
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