by Lisa H Warren

Created on: May 03, 2008

Stupidity is sometimes at the root of negligence; and it can be at the root of behavior that the child may experience as abusive. It is not an excuse for negligence or mistreatment of a child. Bad behavior on the part of stupid parents, however, doesn't necessarily constitute abuse.

The parent who allows one adult to take six two-year-olds sailing without life jackets may be guilty of being "stupid" enough to believe that nothing bad could possibly happen, but at the heart of the behavior may well be an earnest wish for the children to enjoy themselves. The parent who believes a three-year-old can stay alone in an apartment may be too "stupid" to understand the potentially disastrous consequences, but that kind of negligence is not abuse. Then, though, if the child screams in fear when his parent leaves him, that child is experiencing abuse - whether or not the parent has no malicious intent.

Parents who do a stupid thing here or there may not like this, but if an authority or expert were to point out that the isolated behavior is generally considered "negligent" (or even experienced by the child as "abuse"), such parents would probably re-think the behavior (either because they had no wish to be bad parents or because they did not want to lose custody of their child).

Abuse, though, has a cold, calculating, cruel, aspect to it (even when there are intervals between abusive episodes). Even when it is not calculated and is, instead, the result of losing control, abuse generally follows a pattern. Abuse involves not seeing the child as person and/or trying to take away that child's sense of being a person. Parents can be abusive without endangering or physically harming their child at all. The parent who (even quietly) tells a child, "You are a worthless pain in the neck," is more abusive than the foolish parent who thinks it great that six two-year-olds go sailing with one adult and no life jackets. While stupid people can also be abusive people, being abusive is not reserved for only stupid people. Abusive parents know that what they do is something they must hide, although sometimes there are parents who are simply too stupid (or out-of-control) to know, or be able, to hide what they do.

When children are put at physical or emotional risk as a result of parental actions (whether or not the parent has cruel intent), and when a parent is so "thick-skulled" there will be no listening to anyone else about why the behavior is harmful, there are times when it doesn't

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