Mothers Surviving Child Sexual Abuse

Informed by theory and research on other situations involving loss, secrecy and moral dilemmas, Carol-Ann Hooper offers a new analysis of mothers' reactions and responses to their children being abused by partners and relatives.
"I'd kill them" is often a common reaction of people thinking themselves into the shoes of a woman whose child has been sexually abused by her partner or anyone else. It signifies both an attempt to deflect the pain with a simple remedy and the instinctive response of most mothers to their child's need for protection. Faced with the reality, women's reactions are considerably more complex. The central aim of "Mothers Surviving Child Sexual Abuse" is to demonstrate this complexity, and the way it is embedded in the social relations within which child sexual abuse occurs. Using in-depth interviews with 15 women whose children have been sexually abused, Carol-Ann Hooper explores how they experience and cope with the situation. How do they find out that sexual abuse, nearly always surrounded in secrecy, has occurred? How do they decide what action to take? How do they experience the responses of others - friends, kin, and professionals - and how do they cope with their own feelings? The answers to such difficult questions are crucial both to the children's safety and well-being and to successful professional intervention.