Mothering Babies In Domestic Violence

This unique book offers an innovative feminist critique of attachment theory that offers an alternative understanding of relationships between women and their babies in domestic violence. Fiona Buchanan identifies a way forward for working with women, babies and people who have grown up with domestic violence focusing on strengths not deficits. In doing so, she raises new possibilities for work with women and babies in other situations where trauma impacts on their relationships. In line with feminist traditions of listening to the voices of women, this book theorizes from research which asks women who birthed and mothered babies in domestic violence about their experiences. The research identifies that women respond with protectiveness when faced with sustained hostility from their partners and protected their babies in many ways not recognised by attachment theorists. However, sustained hostility often targets the growing relationship between women and their babies and limits space for the woman and baby to peacefully relate. This book offers deep insights and a new model for working with women, babies and those who have grown up with violence based on understanding the context of sustained hostility, appreciating women’s protectiveness and expanding space where women and babies can relate. The author calls for practitioners across health and welfare settings to explore the situations in which women mother; women’s protective thoughts feelings and actions and how they find space to relate. This is the ideal resource for researchers, policy makers and practitioners, as well as women and people who grew up with domestic violence.

Research into children and domestic violence in recent years has emphasized the importance of giving positive support to a non-abusive parent for effective child protection. But what exactly does positive support involve? Based on findings from six primary research studies carried out by the authors themselves, as well as other published research, this book reveals how undermining mothering - specifically, family courts and social work agencies blaming mothers for their own victimization - plays a key role in locking women into abusive relationships and exacerbating the damage done by domestic violence. It explores the principle message drawn from the research: that the needs of individual victims should inform risk assessment and safety planning by welfare practitioners. Case studies are used to explore key issues that should be considered during assessment and planning, such as the psychological impact on children of living in an abusive household; mother and child protection from an abusive partner during court proceedings; and child contact with an abusive parent. Mothering Through Domestic Violence is essential reading for practitioners working in the fields of family and child welfare, family courts and policy makers.

Coercive control is a severe form of domestic violence experienced by millions of children worldwide. It involves a perpetrator using a range of tactics to intimidate, humiliate, degrade, exploit, isolate and control a partner or family member. Some coercive control perpetrators use violence, others do not. Drawing on interviews with children and mothers who have experienced coercive control-based domestic violence, this groundbreaking book sheds light on the impacts of coercive control on children, how it is perpetrators who must be held accountable for those impacts, and how resistance by children and mothers occurs. Resistance happens in everyday life, not just in response to incidents of violence. Breaking free from coercive control is not a one-off event but a sustained battle for safety and recovery in which child and adult survivors need supports and professional interventions that work. Written accessibly for students, researchers, practitioners, survivors of domestic violence, and anyone with a general interest in the topic, the book provides a child-centered perspective to revolutionize our understanding of how children are affected by coercive control-based domestic violence.

Overwhelmingly, it is women who are the victims of domestic violence and this book puts women’s experiences of domestic violence at its centre, whilst acknowledging their many diverse and complex identities. Concentrating on the various forms of domestic abuse and its occurrence and manifestations within different contexts, it argues that gender is centrally implicated in the unique factors that shape violence across all these areas. Individual chapters outline the experiences of: Mothers Older women Women with religious affiliations Refugee women Rural women Aboriginal women Women in same-sex relationships Women with intellectual disabilities. Exploring how domestic violence across varying contexts impacts on different women’s experiences and understandings of abuse, this innovative work draws on post-structural feminist theory and how these ideas view, and potentially allow, gendered explanations of domestic violence. Domestic Violence in Diverse Contexts is suitable for academics and researchers interested in issues around violence and gender.

This book presents new interdisciplinary and intersectional research about women as mothers, highlighting that alternative accounts of mothering can challenge normative societal assumptions and broaden understandings of women as mothers, mothering and motherhoods. Mothering occurs within unequal power relations associated with the disadvantages and privileges of an unjust and patriarchal society. Social inequalities associated with gender, race, class, age, ability, sexuality, violence and nationalism intersect in the lives of women as mothers, to shape their lived experiences and perspectives on mothering. Showcasing the breadth and depth of feminist research on mothering, this book gives attention to the diversity of ways in which mothering is constructed and responded to as well as how mothering is experienced. Drawing on intersectional feminist thought, the book challenges normative visions of ‘good mothering’ and interrogates constructs of ‘bad mothering’. It brings together insights from multidisciplinary scholars who use feminist approaches in their research on mothering, to inform policy development and practice when working with women as mothers in diverse circumstances. Intersections of Mothering highlights the complexities of mothering in a contemporary world, show the benefits of considering mothering through an intersectional feminist lens, make visible lived experiences of mothers and provides challenges to dominant imaginings of and service responses to women as mothers. Intersections of Mothering will be essential reading for interdisciplinary scholars and students in criminology, gender and women’s studies, motherhood studies, social welfare, social work, social policy and public health policy, in addition to practitioners and policy workers that respond to women as mothers.

This book describes the impact of domestic violence on children and provides support for education and social care professionals, suggesting practical ways in which Education staff can meet the needs of pupils from difficult home backgrounds.

This book makes an important contribution to the international understanding of domestic violence and shares the latest knowledge of what causes and sustains domestic violence between intimate partners, as well as the effectiveness of responses in working with adult and child victims, and those who act abusively towards their partners. Drawing upon a wide range of contemporary research from across the globe, it recognises that domestic violence is both universal, but also shaped by local cultures and contexts. Divided into seven parts: • Introduction. • Theoretical perspectives on domestic violence and abuse. • Domestic violence and abuse across the life-course. • Manifestations of domestic violence and abuse. • Responding to domestic violence and abuse. • Researching domestic violence and abuse. • Concluding thoughts. It will be of interest to all academics and students working in social work, allied health, sociology, criminology and gender studies as well as policy professionals looking for new approaches to the subject.

This book provides a rare and in-depth examination of the narratives, experiences, and lived realities of abused mothers—a group of women who, despite being the victims, are often criticized, vilified, and stigmatized for failing to meet dominant ideologies of what a “good mother” is/should be, because they have lived and mothered in domestic abuse relationships. Based on a qualitative research study conducted with 29 abused mothers residing in abused women’s shelters in Calgary, Alberta, this book highlights the ways that these mothers experience the dominant ideology of intensive mothering, negotiate the resulting discourses of the “good” and the “bad” mother, and ultimately find ways to exercise agency, resistance, and empowerment in and through their mothering. This book discusses how abused mothers engage in empowered mothering by constructing valued, fortified, and liberating identities for themselves as mothers in the face of an ideology of intensive mothering that delegitimizes and subjugates them. These mothers are not passive victims, but rather are active agents who resist and question the idealized standards of intensive mothering as being restrictive and unachievable; who view their mothering in a positive light even though they have lived and mothered in social milieus deemed outside the boundaries of acceptable mothering; and who uphold that they are indeed worthy mothers despite their stigmatized status. Particular attention is given to the ways that intersections of gender, race, and social class shape and influence abused mothers constructions of their mothering identities. This book calls into question the false notion that there is only one standard, one definition, and one social location in which effective mothering is performed. It is a voice against the judgment of mothers, a call to end the oppressive and restrictive bifurcation of mothers into categories of either “good” or “bad” mothers, and an attempt to re-envision a more inclusive understanding of mothering. This book is a movement towards the empowerment of all mothers, regardless of differences in their lives and social circumstances.