Children as weapons of male destruction

The mother’s personal vendetta becomes more important than her children’s welfare. She will rationalise it in any way she can. This is child abuse.

No matter what she says, she knows she was to blame for the marriage break-up. Part of the denial process is blaming others. And if she can recruit supporters, including her children, she may mistakenly believe having allies will lessen her guilt. Her denial regime also includes believing that what she wants is exactly the same as what her children want. She needs to think this to justify her abusive behaviour.

To start with, she wants her children to know how much she hates their father. In many cases, she will assume that if she feels this way, so will her children. But, of course, children love their fathers unconditionally, so many mothers have been known actually to teach the children to hate the father. This sometimes takes place over prolonged periods and is often difficult to spot and even more difficult to prove.

For example, some women tell the children their father is a loser because they all live in a nice big house and he lives in a tiny dilapidated apartment. Conveniently, she fails to tell the children that their father pays for their nice house and that after a punitive financial settlement he cannot afford anything better than his shabby hovel.

She tells them their father doesn’t love them as much as Mummy does because he doesn’t take them on expensive holidays as she does. Again, she doesn’t tell them he pays for those holidays, and sometimes he shells out for her boyfriend to come along too. Here’s another nasty tactic – some women deliberately relocate just to create more hardship for the remaining parent.

            Women have been known to change the clocks in their house and tell the children their father was unreliable and didn’t love them any more because he failed to arrive at the time was supposed to collect them. If he loved them he would have shown up on time. Behind his back children are told that their father is stupid and that he abandoned the family, even though the mother was having an affair, which led ultimately to the divorce.

Some mothers have even told their children to call 999 to say they are scared of their father. They may not be, but they are scared of their mother!

Patently, children are very easily manipulated by a deceitful parent.

 Expect a vindictive ex-wife to tell your children repeatedly about what is wrong with you. She mistakenly believes that the more bad things they hear about you, the more they will love her. If she has shown vindictiveness towards you in the past, be aware that she may attempt to brainwash your children into hating you by making false allegations of physical and even sexual abuse. Bad-mouthing is commonplace. Realise that, as most childcare is awarded to the mother, statistically it is women who educate their children to hate their fathers.

 If your children are young, they are more inclined to think what they are told to think. As children grow older the woman may manipulate or trick them into believing the father is uninterested in them, is unreliable and doesn’t love them. Sustained and deliberate alienation by one parent against another has been defined as parental alienation syndrome, or PAS. It can take many forms, it is controversial and it divides the professionals. It is essential, however, to learn to recognise any of these signs that may indicate that your children are being brainwashed or manipulated to turn against you:

·        Notice if your children become less affectionate towards you and are afraid to say what they think. Do they quickly look towards their mother to calculate what she thinks before they say anything to you?

·        If you have been denied access to your children and they are becoming more hostile towards you, it is highly possible that she is using brainwashing techniques.

·        Do they seem to hate anything to do with you?

·        Do they seem frightened of you for no apparent reason? She may be telling the children you are violent when you are not and never have been. Those lies understandably make them feel frightened of you. The father has no idea what she has been saying. Perhaps she hopes that when he finds out it will trigger violence for the first time, so that she can say: “There, I told you he was violent.”

·        The child’s regular refusal to see you may be caused by undue influence from the mother.

·        Do the children automatically and always take her side, even when you know for sure that she is wrong about something?

·        Do they scream abuse at you for no reason that you can think of or call you unwarranted names, or withdraw and appear uninterested?

·        When they are with you do they lose their sense of fun?

·        Do they expect presents but are unwilling to give you even a little respect?

·        Their mother may try constantly to reduce contact, making it increasingly easier for her to create emotional distance between you and your children. Less physical contact leads to a lower psychological connection and reinforces the mother’s belief that “nobody can love you like your mother does”.

·        Another commonly used and highly subversive tactic from the mother is to encourage the children to call you by your first name. On the surface it sounds informal and friendly. In reality, it’s often a deliberate ploy to wean the child away from thinking of you as their father and create even more emotional distance. If this happens to you, ask them what their friends call their fathers. It will be Dad, not the first name. Then you can gently explain that it’s normal to call you Dad.

·        She may promise to renew access when it’s a “better time”. That’s almost certainly a dishonest ploy to weaken even further the relationship you have.

 Taking one of the extreme measures, some women “remind” their children of that time when their father abused them. This reminder is repeated so often that eventually the children believe it must have happened, even though they have absolutely no recollection of it. This is pure brainwashing.

 By the time they go to court the children remember very clearly the abuse that never took place. It is well known that vindictive mothers coach their children to say certain things against their father during custody battles.

Extracted from “Venus: The Dark Side”. For more information visit www.VenusTheDarkSide.com

© Roy Sheppard and Mary T Cleary 2008

These articles may be used free of choice. The following conditions apply: The article may not be changed although normal editing for length is permitted. Details of the book title and the website address must be included at the end of the article.