Mother Blaming
Mother Blaming
Mother Blaming
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All content following this page was uploaded by Kathleen Coulborn Faller on 30 December 2015.
Kathleen Coulborn Faller, PhD, ACSW, is Professor of Social Work, and Director
of the Family Assessment Clinic at University of Michigan. She is the author of seven
books and over 70 articles. Currently, she is Principal Investigator of the Child Welfare
Supervisors’ Training Grant and the Program on the Recruitment and Retention of
Child Welfare Workers, funded by the US Children’s Bureau. She is also Principal In-
vestigator of the Hasbro Early Assessment Program.
Address correspondence to: Dr. Kathleen Coulborn Faller, PhD, ACSW, Professor,
School of Social Work, University of Michigan, 1080 South University Avenue, Ann
Arbor, MI 48109-1106 (E-mail: [email protected]).
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, Vol. 16(1) 2007
Available online at http://jcsa.haworthpress.com
© 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 129
130 JOURNAL OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
dynamics. He proposed a research agenda that took into account the full
spectrum of situations in which sexual abuse occurs.
Mother-blaming theories were also challenged by early research on
sexual offenders. Abel, Becker, Cunningham-Rathner, and Mittelman
(1988), in the first major study of non-incarcerated sex offenders, made
the following observations about incest fathers: The mean age of sexual
abuse onset for incestuous fathers was 18 (i.e., they began sexually abus-
ing as adolescents, not as adults and fathers), and half of incest fathers
also sexually abused children outside the family.
Landmark studies of large population samples also indirectly under-
mined the theory of the incestugenic mother (Finkelhor, 1979; Russell,
1978; Wyatt, 1985). Respondents to these studies reported extrafamilial
as well as intrafamilial sexual abuse. Finkelhor’s (1979) study is illus-
trative. He collected data from 796 students from six New England
colleges and universities. He reported a sexual victimization rate for fe-
male college student respondents of 19.2%, but only 43% of offenders
were family members. Male respondents, who were sexually abused at
a rate of 8.6%, describe only 17% of abusers as family members. No
males in the sample reported being sexually abused by a father; five fe-
males reported sexual abuse by a father, and two by a stepfather. These
findings make it difficult to sustain a comprehensive explanation for
sexual abuse that makes the victim’s mother the centerpiece.
Research on mothers of victims of sexual abuse (e.g., Bolen & Lamb,
2002; Bolen, Lamb, & Gradante, 1997; Heriot, 1996; Plummer, 2004)
provides a more nuanced and less pathologizing understanding of moth-
ers of victims than does the work of Lev-Wiesel. Faller (1988) noted a
spectrum of maternal responses to intrafamilial sexual abuse based on the
mother’s relationship with the offender. Everson et al. (1990) developed
an instrument that measured maternal responses, the Parental Response to
Incest Disclosure (PRIDS), dividing response into belief, emotional sup-
port, and protective action. This measure takes into account that parents
can be protective even if they do not know if the child’s statements are
true. Findings on this measure predicted whether children remained in the
family or were removed from the home. Bolen and colleagues (Bolen &
Lamb, 2002; Bolen et al., 1997) are engaged in a line of research, using
an instrument called the Needs-Based Assessment of Parental Support
(NAPS). The underlying theory of the NAPS is that parental responses
should be conceptualized according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
(1) Meeting the child’s needs for food, clothing, and shelter; (2) meeting
the child’s needs for safety; (3) meeting the child’s emotional needs; and
(4) meeting the child’s needs for maintaining a good sense of self. This
132 JOURNAL OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
signs of this interest when she chose him as a mate. Not only does the
case material lack any description of such signs, but many experts
would state there are not necessarily such signs (e.g., Herman, 2000).
One more example from the mother type was an “enabler.” Lev-Wiesel
states that in order for this mother to feel stronger, the closest and most
threatening person, her daughter, was sacrificed. Since the mother is not
described as feeling weak and the child does not implicate her mother in
her abuse, this opinion is somewhat bewildering.
Finally, in terms of the methodology, most of the cases in the study do
not appear in the results. Other than the examples used to illustrate the
four case types, there are brief references to two other cases. And, as al-
ready noted, all of the material appears to come from the mothers’ diaries.
In describing the advantages of conducting a qualitative study, Trochim
(2000) identifies one as an opportunity to obtain a deep understanding of
issues. I’m afraid Lev-Wiesel did not make full use of her many data
sources. Rather she imposed her own pre-conceived and pathologizing
understanding on the lives of the women in her study.
Finally, this article is utterly silent about the role played by the offend-
ers, that is, the men who sexually abused both the mothers and their
children. They committed the sexual abuse, not the mothers. A theory
and analysis that do not take into account their motives, manipulations,
and maneuvers are not useful. Sex offenders are not the helpless victims
of their partners or of family dynamics.
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doi:10.1300/J070v16n01_08
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