Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Senator, Proposes Law That Declares Single Parenthood Child Abuse

reply to post by milominderbinder

Dear milominderbinder,

May I suggest that, if you are as concerned about this topic as you appear to be, that you do a little more research to add on to what you've already done.

I checked in with the Canadian government position on this issue and found this website: www.childwelfare.gov... They talk about many categories of risk factors including:
Parent and caregiver factors, Child factors, Family factors, Community factors, Risk for recurrence of abuse, and Co-occuring risk factors.

Among the parent and caregiver factors they include:
Teen parenting
Substance abuse
Abuse as a child
Significant maternal depression
Race
Single parent households
Sex of single parent

Then I went to our government at www.childwelfare.gov... They say

Children living with single parents may be at higher risk of experiencing physical and sexual abuse and neglect than children living with two biological parents. Single parent households are substantially more likely to have incomes below the poverty line. Lower income, the increased stress associated with the sole burden of family responsibilities, and fewer supports are thought to contribute to the risk of single parents maltreating their children. In 1998, 23 percent of children lived in households with a single mother, and 4 percent lived in households with a single father. A strong, positive relationship between the child and the father, whether he resides in the home or not, contributes to the child's development and may lessen the risk of abuse. (emphasis added)

A couple of other thoughts:

The research says mother's abuse more, because of depression, stresses, and extra time with the kid.

Child services will only take kid's away on the basis of some evidence, not considerations which may be related to abuse.

I am sorry for your shame in your nationality. Perhaps more research will show you that, in this area at least, you needn't feel that way.

Basically I'm glad Wisconsin took this step. They're catching up with the rest of the world. It may lead to an increased understanding of child abuse and aid in its prevention.

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

Dear milominderbinder,

May I suggest that, if you are as concerned about this topic as you appear to be, that you do a little more research to add on to what you've already done.

I checked in with the Canadian government position on this issue and found this website: www.childwelfare.gov... They talk about many categories of risk factors including:
Parent and caregiver factors, Child factors, Family factors, Community factors, Risk for recurrence of abuse, and Co-occuring risk factors.

Among the parent and caregiver factors they include:
Teen parenting
Substance abuse
Abuse as a child
Significant maternal depression
Race
Single parent households
Sex of single parent

Then I went to our government at www.childwelfare.gov... They say

Children living with single parents may be at higher risk of experiencing physical and sexual abuse and neglect than children living with two biological parents. Single parent households are substantially more likely to have incomes below the poverty line. Lower income, the increased stress associated with the sole burden of family responsibilities, and fewer supports are thought to contribute to the risk of single parents maltreating their children. In 1998, 23 percent of children lived in households with a single mother, and 4 percent lived in households with a single father. A strong, positive relationship between the child and the father, whether he resides in the home or not, contributes to the child's development and may lessen the risk of abuse. (emphasis added)

A couple of other thoughts:

The research says mother's abuse more, because of depression, stresses, and extra time with the kid.

Child services will only take kid's away on the basis of some evidence, not considerations which may be related to abuse.

I am sorry for your shame in your nationality. Perhaps more research will show you that, in this area at least, you needn't feel that way.

Basically I'm glad Wisconsin took this step. They're catching up with the rest of the world. It may lead to an increased understanding of child abuse and aid in its prevention.

With respect,
Charles1952

OK...so answer the question.

Why is Catholicism and being a Boy Scout not included? How about home schooling? Recently we just had a case here in WI where some lunatics had one of their daughters locked up in the basement and were starving her. She's 15 and weighed 70 pounds when the found her. Pretty tough to do that if the kid isn't home schooled, right?

Again...it has NOTHING to do with child abuse. It's partisan politics and hypocrisy...as usual.

reply to post by milominderbinder

.Dear milominderbinder,

You're right, and you're asking good questions. I haven't looked to see if any studies have been done on those topics you're asking about. I hope that if they found any connection, they would jump all over those organizations (and home schooling) as well. We may just have to wait until there is more research done.

It just hit me that maybe the studies are focusing on families for a reason. I don't know, but I suspect, most child abuse is being done by a parent or an in-home caretaker. Perhaps that's where they see the biggest problem and are going after that first.

I did do a little looking for another thread and found that, at least in the US, the percentage of Catholic priests accused of sex abuse of minors was roughly the same as the US population as a whole. Perhaps the police go after specific cases and social scientists and community workers look for possible causes and suggested changes for society as a whole.

Anyway, you've got me interested, and I'll do a little more looking, thanks.

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

.Dear milominderbinder,

You're right, and you're asking good questions. I haven't looked to see if any studies have been done on those topics you're asking about. I hope that if they found any connection, they would jump all over those organizations (and home schooling) as well. We may just have to wait until there is more research done.

It just hit me that maybe the studies are focusing on families for a reason. I don't know, but I suspect, most child abuse is being done by a parent or an in-home caretaker. Perhaps that's where they see the biggest problem and are going after that first.

I did do a little looking for another thread and found that, at least in the US, the percentage of Catholic priests accused of sex abuse of minors was roughly the same as the US population as a whole. Perhaps the police go after specific cases and social scientists and community workers look for possible causes and suggested changes for society as a whole.

Anyway, you've got me interested, and I'll do a little more looking, thanks.

With respect,
Charles1952

Cool. I'm glad you see my point. Don't get me wrong...child abuse is horrible and preventing it is a good thing. I should probably mention as well that I am a big believer in two-parent households. I have two boys with my wife and both of us come from families who still have two parents which are still married.

What I DON'T agree with is this system of profiling in which 2/3 or better of the criteria being used are essentially socio-economic and ESPECIALLY when the basis for establishing this criteria is based upon statistics, given how poorly understood the subject is by Americans. Almost nobody in this entire country (including far too many PhD's) do not understand that CORRELATION does not EVER directly imply CAUSATION in and of itself. Moreover, even 100 CORRELATIONS of different vectors and/or variables do not EVER directly imply CAUSATION in and of themselves.

For example, imagine a real simple experiment of five different individuals all throwing a series of five tennis balls as far as they can in an empty field. The experimenter observes that there are many differences in the trials in terms of distance, speed, trajectory, number of bounces between each trial, but that each individuals trials tend to be MORE similar to their other four trials than they are to another individuals trials. This makes perfect sense. Five people throw five balls. Some of these people have better "arms" than the others and likewise everybody MUST have a farthest and shortest throw.

Question: Amongst all of the observable results above, what is the STRONGEST correlation in a scientific and statistical sense?

Answer: Irregardless of who threw the ball, which trial it was, how far/short it went, and how many times it bounced...100% of all trials resulted in the ball falling to the ground after it has been thrown.

Conclusion: In a SCIENTIFIC and STATISTICAL sense it would be perfectly reasonable to conclude that the ACT of throwing a tennis ball CAUSES the ball to fall to the ground. After checking out Newtonian Physics we feel double-sure of the accuracy of our conclusion as everybody knows "what goes up, must come down", right?

WRONG!!!!

The act of THROWING the tennis ball DOES NOT CAUSE the ball to fall back to the ground. Rather, the unseen force of GRAVITY is what CAUSES the tennis ball to fall to the ground.

Even though after first, second, and even THIRD glance it does not really appear that way. Even though the act of throwing is A NECESSARY AND INSEPARABLE PRECONDITION to the the "falling phenomenon", it shares absolutely ZERO causality with the act of the ball falling back to the ground...again...in a scientific sense.

Similarly, something like a "correlation" between single-parenthood and child abuse can be equally misunderstood. Hypothetically speaking, what if we found out that in 85% of all single-parent child abuse cases all households were eating a certain brand of mac & cheese for dinner more than twice per week for extended periods of time while the single parent households without child abuse never ate that brand? Would that change our opinions? Would we begin to wonder if perhaps there wasn't some type of harmful toxin in the food?

Poverty and single-parenthood go hand-in-hand in much the same way that lots and lots of mac & cheese dinners do. Unfortunately, in our laziness (in the hypothetical example) we aren't looking any deeper than the census form, simply because the vectors & variables have been pre-compiled and it makes things easier for the "researcher".

These are just quicky examples...there are millions of other possible variables as well.

Originally posted by milominderbinder

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

These are just quicky examples...there are millions of other possible variables as well.

Oh...one more thing.

Although the example of toxic mac and cheese modifying human behavior may seem a bit outlandish...the principle is sound.

For example, the phrase "Mad as a hatter" comes to us from hatmaking in 18th & 19th century (especially in europe). Mercury was used in the dyes to make the hats more vibrant...daily exposure to this lead to mercury poisoning and often dementia...hence the phrase.

Similarly, Rome in the 1st century A.D. was plagued by a series of mentally incompetent, cruel, and irrational emperors. Likewise, at this same time the aristocracy was experiencing an unprecedented rash of sterility, birth defects, and gout. The cause? The aristocracy was consuming massive amounts of food and wine which was prepared in leaden vessels...and then consumed on gold or silver dinnerware. Emperor Domitian even had a wine-spewing fountain installed in his palace made out of lead.

Although the Romans were undoubtedly aware of lead poisoning at this time (many, many, written accounts) they did not understand that the heat and alcohol (a solvent) were even WORSE than eating right off the lead plates themselves.

Thus, it seems stupefyingly obvious to us to today why it was one nutty emperor after another in the Julio-Claudian & Flavian dynasties given the combined effects of heavy metal poisoning degrading the aristocracies genome and rampant inbreeding.

Fact is...simple lead poisoning played a MAJOR role in breaking the Roman Empire.

However, the difference here is the PHYSICAL evidence we have for this line of thinking...not merely circumstantial.

Hence...perhaps we are best off with the system of "profiling" for child abuse based solely upon reports of it actually occurring?

Statistics is a SCIENCE and a ART. It produces reliable results. However this ONLY happens when the "interpreter" has the cognitive ability to truly think critically about the problem at hand. Given that our nation has not EVER taught (real) statistics as part of a required public education our society has no business delving into anything more complex than batting averages and the most simple of probability equations.

We teach Algebra, Geometry, Trig, and Calculus...but somehow the study of statistics just gets rolled into a couple of these classes for a chapter or two. Two bar charts and pie graph later we sign off on "having studied statistics". Thus we have about 300 million people in this country who have been calculating "averages" as "Sum Total of X / the # of trials" without having any idea whatsoever before you can provide an arithmetic mean you must know if you are dealing with a population or sample, and if the variable is continious, discreet or interval..because they all have ENTIRELY different equations and you end up with significantly different numbers.

Again...I'm all for preventing child abuse. However, anyone who really understands statistics and demographics knows that this is a fool's errand to do in a reliable, accurate, or valid sense.

...and I haven't even gotten started on the fact that the "evidence" for supporting the fact that more single-parent households practice child abuse than two-parent households will no doubt be cited from all the increased arrests and convictions WI has AFTER they have begun to officially profile upon this vector. "Seek and ye shall find"...irrespective of what you are looking for...you will find it if you keep looking long and hard enough. Similarly, if we begin profiling based upon other criteria...let's say being a plumber...we might expect to see enormous spike in plumber related child-abuse. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a 400% spike in plumber-convictions...we are focusing our effort and ATTENTION there.

Seek it...and you will find it.