A Practical Approach to the Protection of the Abused Child and Rehabilitation of the Abusing Parent

Many judges and social workers feel that anyone can turn on to mothering. The fact is that some parents frankly do not like their children. They hate them. We don't find it socially acceptable to let them say so. It is tragic that we don't. We have faced the problem of parents not getting along and we call that divorce. We must acknowledge as a socially acceptable situation that a parent can admit she cannot mother her child for one reason or another. Allowing a mother or father to say in a socially acceptable way that try as they may, they cannot tolerate this child, will help us on the way to giving protection to all children. I would like to now propose the thought that the quality of mothering is a continuum of from none of it to a lot of it. By mothering, I mean not only the female term but a quality of caring for a defenseless young child, giving without limit if you please, to a tiny child, which fathers have in great abundance as well. This quality saves many lives and can be had by maiden aunts and spinsters and people who have never had a baby. For practical purposes we have to face the fact that very few of us, fathers or mothers, have it in us to be "that kind of a mother" 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long. If we have money we can arrange to supplement mothering for pay.