Battle Cries. Hillary Potter

differences. Kathleen Malley-Morrison and Denise A. Hines surmise that the difficulty in measuring the amount and rate of child maltreatment within Black families arises because there has been overreporting of abusive incidents within these families due in part to overreporting by medical personnel. Malley-Morrison and Hines question whether in fact a higher proportion of Black parents do abuse their children.⁸ A recent analysis by Blanca M. Ramos and her associates found that Black and White women have similar rates of childhood physical abuse.⁹ These contradictory data surprise some researchers, as is evident in the work of Richard J. Gelles and Murray A. Straus:

      One of the more surprising outcomes of our first national survey of family violence was that there was no difference between blacks and whites in the rates of abusive violence toward children. This should not have been the case. First, most official reports of child abuse indicate that blacks are overrepresented in the reports. Also, blacks in the United States have higher rates of unemployment than whites and lower annual incomes—two factors that we know lead to higher risk of abuse. That blacks and whites had the same rate of abusive violence was one of the great mysteries of the survey. A careful examination of the data collected unraveled the apparent mystery. While blacks did indeed encounter economic problems and life stresses at greater rates than whites, they also were more involved in family and community activities than white families. Blacks reported more contact with their relatives and more use of their relatives for financial support and child care. It was apparent that the extensive social networks that black families develop and maintain insulate them from the severe economic stresses they also experience, and thus reduce what otherwise would have been a higher rate of parental violence.¹⁰

      There was variation based on socioeconomic status during childhood among the 20 women who experienced verbal, mental, or nonsexual physical abuse by parents and stepparents. Almost two-thirds of the middle-class women endured this type of child maltreatment, while fewer than half of the women within each of the other two socioeconomic classifications (low-income and working-class) did. Nine women experienced verbal or mental and physical abuse, but there was no major variation by socioeconomic class among these women, and within this group each socioeconomic class was equally represented. Nine women were subjected to verbal or mental abuse but no physical abuse, and two women experienced only physical abuse but reported no verbal or mental abuse.

      Much of the explanation provided by the women to explain why their parents abused them was expressed in terms of socioeconomic status, race, gender, or substance abuse issues. Regarding socioeconomic class, the source of the abuse was attributable to financially unsupportive fathers, the need to acquire and retain assets, and the preservation of the family’s general financial interests. The women identified the uneasy feelings experienced by mothers or othermothers who were stressed by financially neglectful fathers and who took their frustrations out on the children. The second area of economic stressors experienced by some of the women’s parents that acted as triggers for verbal, mental, or physical abuse was the maintenance of material goods for appearances (“keeping up with the Joneses”). Related to this were the pressures or failures of the parents or their children to become accomplished members of society as evidenced through education and employment. Such pressures were described as catalysts for abuse.¹¹ Keeping up appearances as a source of tension for the women’s parents was evident in all levels of socioeconomic status. Medea described the neglect by her father and stepmother, which took place in their upper-middle-class setting and was based on upper-class measures:

      Their lives revolved around clothes, a big house, cars, that kind of thing. But there was an absence of affection.… He never really wanted to spend money on me unless there was instantaneous credit in it for him. For example, when I was a debutante, I remember him saying, “Smile, that looks like a $500 dress.” Whenever I accomplished or I achieved anything, it became his accomplishment. He never complimented me. He always criticized me. Nothing I did was ever good enough.

      The final theme concerning socioeconomic class as grounds for abuse is the general pressure on the parents to maintain the household finances. Forty-three-year-old Danielle suffered from extreme verbal and mental abuse by her single mother, who used an assortment of techniques to maintain her economic well-being, which included forcing Danielle to leave the family home at the age of 11:

      She hated me. She wished I wasn’t born and she used to beat me all the time.… I got pregnant when I was 13 and had my baby when I was 14. [My mother] made me move back in when I was pregnant, and after I had my baby she put me back out and took my baby away. It hurt me. She put me out of her house again and told me I couldn’t take my baby.… It was just so she could get more money from the welfare. It wasn’t out of no care and concern. But she grew to love my kids. My grandmother told me [that my mother] gave my kids the love that she couldn’t give me.

      Billie was pushed by her single mother to secure and maintain employment simply to support her mother’s gambling addiction. Similarly, when 33-year-old Victoria’s grandmother died, she left several thousands of dollars to each of several family members, including Victoria and her mother. Regrettably, as Victoria and her mother struggled financially and her mother’s drug addiction progressed, Victoria’s mother used both her and Victoria’s inheritance, chiefly for her drug dependency.