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By Mark B. Rosenthal
November 23, 2005
The National Network to End Domestic Violence has produced a
Viewer's Guide to Breaking the
Silence: Children's Stories containing a section
entitled "Know the Facts" whose purpose seems to be to build
a case that the primary danger of abuse to children is from
their fathers. At http://www.nnedvfund.org/default.asp?Page=83,
they cite the sources for these claims. The first two
statements in their list are based on work done by Professor Murray Straus, founder and
Co-Director of the Family Research Laboratory at the
University of New Hampshire, and one of the U.S.'s leading
authorities in the research of family violence.
Prof. Straus has provided the following responses, regarding
this use of his work in the context of supporting the
premise of Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories:
NNEDV Viewer's Guide:
“Three million to 10 million children witness abuse each
year in their homes. [Carlson, Bonnie
E. (1984). Children's observations of interpersonal
violence. Pp. 147-167 in A.R. Roberts (Ed.) Battered women
and their families (pp. 147-167). NY: Springer. Straus,
M.A. (1992). Children as witnesses to marital violence: A
risk factor for lifelong problems among a nationally
representative sample of American men and women. Report of the Twenty-Third Ross
Roundtable. Columbus, OH: Ross Laboratories.]”
Response by Straus:
“The statement in bold above is quoted from my 1992 article. However, the research results in that article do NOT demonstrate that men and fathers are the primary source of danger to children, as is implied by quoting this statistic in the context of a document intended to prove that men and fathers are the perpetrators of physical child abuse. On the contrary, the evidence in that article shows that mothers perpetrate violence against their male partners at about the same rate as do fathers. The evidence in another article reporting more results for that same sample shows that the percent who hit the other parent in self-defense is about the same for father and mothers. The evidence from many studies, including Federal statistics on child abuse, show that mothers physically abuse children at a slightly higher rate than fathers.”
NNEDV Viewer's Guide:
“In a national survey of more than 6,000 American
families, 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted
their wives also frequently abused their children.
[Strauss, Murray A., Gelles Richard J., and Smith,
Christine. 1990. Physical Violence in American Families;
Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence
in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick: Transaction
Publishers.]”
Response by Straus:
“This is another example of a statement taken out of context to imply that it is only or predominantly violent men who physically abuse children. On the contrary, the research results presented in the cited book (and in a more sophisticated analysis of the same data in an article by Susan Ross (Ross 1996)), shows that the focus on just men in the quote is contradicted by the evidence. The evidence shows that:
- Relatively few fathers "frequently assault" their partners - less than five percent.
- The percent of mothers who frequently assault their partners is about the same.
- The link between violence against a partner and physically abusing a child applies to mothers as well as fathers.”
REFERENCES
Ross, Susan M. 1996. "Risk of Physical Abuse to Children of Spouse Abusing Parents." Child Abuse & Neglect 20:589-598.
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