Should I say something about this strange situation? Is it even strange?

December 22, 2010 12:15 PM

What do to about a child in a potentially abusive situation?

My wife was severely physically and emotionally abused by her father. His brother eventually sexually abused her. The physical abuse was largely ignore by other family members. When the sexual abuse was discovered, that was put to a stop, and the father's side of the family was largely shunned.

Fast forward decades and my wife's brother, call him Dan, has a child. Dan and his wife eventually buy a house somewhere in West Virginia. Since the house is bit of a fixer upper, Dan has the idea of inviting his father, the one who severely physically abused my wife, to live with them for a while, so that dad can help Dan fix up the house. Dan is aware of the abuse his sister suffered, though the exact extent is unknown. The father's side of the family is large and sort of stereotypically Italian (no offense meant, just trying to describe things) where the son is highly valued, way more so than the daughters, so the father has managed to maintain some sort of relationship with Dan, his son.

This situation, the known abuser being around a small child, is disturbing to my wife and I. We've briefly discussed and fretted over it, but have not decided to do anything in particular, other than try to keep tabs on the kid. There has been no specific incident of abuse so far as we know.

What would you do in this situation? Should something be explicitly said to Dan and his wife? If so, how and what? Is there something else we can specifically do?

posted by anonymous to human relations (17 answers total)

Dan is aware of the abuse his sister suffered, though the exact extent is unknown

So he doesn't know the whole truth, and his wife may not know any of it?

I'd tell them, at the very least. It reminds me a lot of this situation, except worse, given the fact that the offender is the child's grandfather, and is living there.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:19 PM on December 22, 2010 [3 favorites]

I am a child protection social worker and I would recommend that if you suspect abuse you make a call to the local child protective services agency. You can do this anonymously. They will send out a worker to investigate this situation. It gets a little sticky since he was never reported in the past (I'm assuming). Your wife my need to describe the abuse she suffered to explain why your concerns are warranted. Either way, you fear abuse may happen and someone needs to get in there to protect the child. Good luck.
posted by crunchtopmuffin at 12:20 PM on December 22, 2010 [7 favorites]

If a monster was going to live in my brother's house, I'd be sure to give him a clear warning about just what to expect. I understand why she's kept the details of her abuse secret, but I fear that nothing short of the unvarnished truth will stand a chance of knocking her brother to his senses and keep dad far away from his kids.
posted by inturnaround at 12:26 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

I would absolutely make sure that both Dan and Dan's wife know the full extent of the abuse your wife suffered at her father's hands.

Dan may be able to rationalize this away, as he only knows part of it (though that would be enough for me to keep Dad away from the kids). Hopefully, his wife would have enough influence on Dan that she would get him to see why this is a horrible, horrible idea.
posted by misha at 12:34 PM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

OP, as worried as I am about your wife's father being in the picture, I'm more worried about his brother (the one that sexually abused her). It's unclear from your post whether he's still in the picture, whether the abuse was ever reported, whether it is known within the neighborhood that he is a sexual predator. If he's at all a part of this arrangement, I'd sound the klaxons to everyone with a child in the vicinity.
posted by jbickers at 12:48 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

I would discuss it with the father, and Dan and his wife. To the father, she can say, "I didn't know how to handle your abuse when I was a child, and the adults around me largely ignored it. But I'm now an adult and not the type to look away when a child is being hurt. I am giving you fair warning that if you hurt this child, I will call the authorities and you will go to jail."

I think it's only fair to tell Dan and his wife everything, because this is the kind of family secret that is bad to keep. They can't make the right choices to protect their child if they don't know that danger is potentially around.
posted by Houstonian at 12:51 PM on December 22, 2010 [6 favorites]

What crunchtopmuffin said. If at all possible, this needs to be flagged. This is a sufficiently risky situation to make it plain that the family members involved are just not likely to protect the child sufficiently.

I have a couple of cautions for you. First, I would be surprised if your wife's dad were willing to admit any of his behavior. Also, your wife may need some help dealing with that, and with deciding whether or not to talk about her abuse to outsiders.
posted by bearwife at 12:53 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

How is your wife's relationship with her sister-in-law? Perhaps that could be a good place to start, if your wife is afraid of confronting her father or that her brother's relationship with his father would cloud his judgement. A phone call or email saying "I'm not sure how much your husband knows or has told you - my father abused me as a child, and now he is living in the same house as your child, and I feel that you have the right to know the whole situation."
posted by coupdefoudre at 1:04 PM on December 22, 2010 [3 favorites]

I just noticed the title of your question - Should I say something about this strange situation? Is it even strange?

YES, on both counts.
posted by coupdefoudre at 1:05 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

If your wife was seeing a therapist and happened to recount that someone who had abused her in the past was now in a position to have access to another child who he might potentially abuse, the therapist would be legally mandated to report this to the county's child protective services organization. I hope that that might encourage you to do the same.
posted by so_gracefully at 1:55 PM on December 22, 2010

Depending on how close you live, send an anonymous letter to father and brother and his wife. Thats the best you can do if you dont wanna call CPS. ( use a glove, and a library to print and dont leave any trace)

That way all the adults who are involved are aware of the problem and know how to keep an eye.
posted by daveg02 at 2:13 PM on December 22, 2010

I'm sincerely confused exactly what sort of threat you think the Grandfather is, and I wish you could elaborate.


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That said, my mom is emotionally abusive and unstable, she seems to be in the BDP spectrum of things. I haven't spoken to her or seen her in over 15 years because she's kinda safety hazard for me on a lot of different levels. My brother and his wife, however, are a different story...

When they got married 5 years ago, my mother was not invited to their wedding. Any news of their nuptials was purposely kept from my mother because she was being especially unstable towards my brother's girlfriend/wife during that period of time.

2 years ago they had a son, and my mother has been welcomed back into their lives since just before his birth. When I heard my brother allowed our crazy mother to drive around his pregnant wife and MIL on errand runs, I was incredulous. Our mother is the type of person to have an explosive episode and drive the car off a bridge or into a wall with everyone in it. I bet now my brother and his wife allow my mom to babysit their son occasionally. I think they are as crazy as she is, I can't believe they take chances like that with their son's well being.

(Yes. I've talked to the bro. Mom still has severe episodes of anger and instability. Honestly, I don't get it!)

I had to realize I had no control over any of these folks. And while I hope hope hope my nephew is safe, I have to accept their is no one to call since sexual abuse isn't involved and I can't seem to convince my brother that he's making a mistake. My mother represents a terrible influence in my nephew's life, my brother seems well more fucked up now than he did back when he kept his distance from our mother - which I am sure effects his marriage and his son - but there is nothing I can do about this. It is the common pattern for abused families.
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OP what I am saying is that your wife may be out of the dysfunctional family dynamic, but her brother obviously isn't. If her brother cared deeply about that aspect of things, he wouldn't have invited the grandfather to live with them.

I have no answers. Just alerting you that unless there is identifiable physical abuse, you and your wife may not be able to convince the brother or his wife that there is any problem with the grandfather's continued close presence in their life.

Shocking, right??

Keep your own counsel if that's how your situation turns out. Keep a close eye on the child. Be prepared to act on the child's behalf if anything seems suspicious.

Good luck.
posted by jbenben at 4:08 PM on December 22, 2010

Do not involve social services if you don't know of actual abuse. Do tell the brother exactly what happened. Sadly, child protective services can sometimes create a nightmare for decent parents who get caught up in their net due to ambiguous circumstances. Don't get them into it unless you have to do, which would be if abuse is known.

It sounds like the father physically abused your wife when she was young but did not sexually abuse her— that was the uncle, who I'm assuming isn't around? Presumably, disciplining the child will fall to the parents not the grandfather, so this may not be an issue.

Of course, the guy could still be an emotionally abusive jerk and dangerous to the child that way—but is that something for which you'd want to have a child taken from the only parents they know?
posted by Maias at 5:39 PM on December 22, 2010

Is your wife willing to talk to her brother specifically about what her father and uncle did to her? Then she absolutely should.

Alternatively, is she willing for you to have this conversation, if she doesn't want to? Then you absolutely should.

The only potential problem here is if you and your wife aren't on the same page (and it sounds as if you are). If she's willing, then there is no reason whatsoever not to intervene here. It may make no difference; that's not your problem. Your responsibility (IMO) is to make sure anyone in your family with small children is aware of the specific potential threat from this/these relative/s. It's not like you're accusing your FIL of anything in relation to Dan's child; you're just giving Dan a more accurate picture of the history.

(Also: I know from experience that people with anger problems can change. NOT to downplay the abuse, but it could be that your FIL has genuinely mellowed? I would not say the same with any confidence about a sexual offender.)
posted by torticat at 8:52 PM on December 22, 2010

I think the sister-in-law should be told, but the brother knows. People should be aware. That said, depending on the beliefs driving the abuse, I wouldn't assume that he'll abuse his grandchild. I know of situations where people were abusive to their kids but not to their grandchildren.
posted by salvia at 12:27 AM on December 23, 2010

I think the sister-in-law should be told, but the brother knows.

I would not assume this in the slightest. Dysfunctional families have extraordinary mechanisms of concealment and denial, and even if the brother knows the literal facts of the abuse, he may not know that such behavior is abusive.

One of the consequences of growing up in an abusive family is that you don't "know it when you see it."

Also, whether the parents think that any "discipline" is up to the parents is immaterial, if the grandfather still believes that it's okay to do XYZ to children.
posted by endless_forms at 9:00 AM on December 23, 2010

My wife was severely physically and emotionally abused by her father
This does not equal a hearty enthusiasm for discipline.

Of course, the guy could still be an emotionally abusive jerk and dangerous to the child that way—but is that something for which you'd want to have a child taken from the only parents they know?
Requesting that CPS put this situation on their radar does not equal signing the child up to be taken away from the parents. I'd think that removing the grandfather from the house would be the outcome. CPS does not want to separate families for no reason. (Unless you live in Kentucky, in which case I'd be more careful)
posted by coupdefoudre at 9:09 AM on December 23, 2010