“I Did It to Save My Children”: Parenting Strengths and Fears of Women Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is experienced by one in four women in the United States, and a wealth of quantitative research has underscored its detrimental effects on women’s mental health and parenting practices. Little research, however, has considered ways in which women exposed to IPV retain and foster parenting strengths and ways in which motherhood serves as a source of resilience for these women. The objective of the current study was to conduct a thematic analysis of IPV-exposed women’s parenting strengths and concerns as reported through focus groups conducted with IPV-exposed women (n = 22) and service providers (n = 31) in two urban areas in the Mid-West and Mid-South. Results of the thematic analysis indicated the emergence of three core themes: resilience and challenges of parenting in the context of IPV, leaving the violent partner, and intergenerational processes. Overall, service providers recognized far fewer strengths in parenting on all dimensions than did women, suggesting that service providers may be conceptualizing parenting in the context of IPV from a deficit model that underestimates the resilience demonstrated by these women. This has important consequences for the extent to which women may feel stigmatized or blamed when receiving resources and services critical to their families. Future research on parenting among women experiencing IPV would be enhanced by capturing the dynamic interplay between women’s parenting strengths and challenges, and the ways in which these capacities are affected by resource access within and across social ecological contexts.

Keywords

perceptions of domestic violence domestic violence battered women anything related to domestic violence intergenerational transmission of trauma

Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women, including physical, sexual, and psychological violence by an intimate partner, strikes not only at women’s mental, emotional and bodily integrity, but also at their identities as parents. Most psychological research on the relationship between IPV and parenting focuses on ways that IPV results in parenting deficits, overlooking ways in which IPV-exposed women excel as mothers (Secco et al., 2016). Failing to recognize the scope of challenges and strengths in parenting may result in programs and policies that do not fully meet women’s needs and perpetuate stigma associated with women’s exposure to IPV, potentially ostracizing them from critical resource systems (Douglas & Walsh, 2010). The objective of the current study was to conduct a qualitative analysis of mothers’ parenting strengths and concerns in the context of IPV exposure, as reported by mothers who have experienced IPV and service providers who work with IPV-exposed women. Analyses were guided by two research questions: (a) how do IPV-exposed women talk about their strengths and concerns as mothers, and (b) what similarities and differences arise between the perspectives of IPV-exposed mothers and service providers? The second question is predicated on Ungar’s (2012) model of social-ecological resilience, which positions community actors as resources for individuals’ resilient behavior. By offering violence-exposed women the space to share areas of excellence in their parenting, strength-based gaps within the literature can be filled. These insights also the offer the opportunity to shift deficit-laden attitudes towards narratives that identify the effects of IPV-related stress, recognize the potential for mothers to display resilient parenting, and facilitate resources that will help violence-exposed mothers feel empowered. Our findings indicate that while service providers tended to work from deficit models, IPV-exposed women’s discussion of motherhood mapped onto Ungar’s (2012) model of resilience.

IPV and Parenting: Deficit Models

Many researchers use a spillover model when examining pathways between IPV and parenting practices (Gustafsson et al., 2012; Renner, 2009; Levendosky et al., 2003). Grasso et al. (2016) observed that mothers who reported more psychological IPV were more likely to engage in psychologically and physically aggressive tactics with their children, while mothers reporting more physical IPV used mild to severe forms of physical punishment. Renner (2009) interprets the spillover model differently, suggesting that women’s emotions and moods related to IPV increase their levels of stress and spill over into their parenting. Studies of mothers indicated that IPV-exposure was linked to depression, which in turn inhibited mothers’ abilities to cope with parenting stress and was associated with harsher parenting techniques and lower maternal warmth (Gustafsson & Cox, 2012; Renner, 2009). Levendosky et al. (2006) observed that interactions between infants and mothers exposed to IPV during pregnancy were characterized by distance more often than those of nonexposed mothers, indicating potentially poor attachment bonds.

IPV victimization is an inherently stressful experience (Taylor, 2004), and parenting under stressful conditions may limit women’s abilities to parent to their full capacity. To illustrate, a meta-analysis of effects of IPV on victim parenting (almost exclusively female victims/parents; Chiesa et al., 2018) found a small, significant association between more IPV exposure and fewer positive parenting practices, noting substantial heterogeneity across findings. Nonetheless, approaching the complex relationship between IPV and motherhood through a deficit-framework is problematic in two ways. First, it risks perpetuating a social narrative in which victims of IPV are not only blamed for the effects of IPV, but also for the violence itself (see Douglas & Walsh, 2010). Second, deficit models risk reductively implying that IPV-exposed mothers are likely or necessarily at risk of becoming harsh, abusive, or neglectful parents.

Parenting Strengths of IPV-exposed Mothers

Several themes emerge from studies exploring parenting strengths among IPV-exposed women. First, in two qualitative studies with women who had left abusive male partners, women described how their partners’ violent behaviors fundamentally shaped mothers’ perceived abilities to parent (Irwin, 2000; Secco et al., 2016). For example, several mothers described how their partners would intimidate and insult them during breastfeeding, become violent if the mother was unable to soothe a crying infant at night, and encourage children to be aggressive with each other (Secco et al., 2016). A second common theme is mothers’ attempts to “compensate” for violence by increasing nurturing and compassionate behaviors (Casanueva et al., 2008; Irwin, 2000; Levendosky et al., 2003; Secco et al., 2016). Among women involved in child welfare services, Casanueva et al. (2008) found that women who had left a violent partner were more responsive, sensitive parents than those currently living with a violent partner as well as those who had never had a violent partner. Several women explained that they initially stayed with their partners for fear of violence escalating, from adherence to cultural values about marriage, and that their children would have both financial stability and a father (Irwin, 2000; Kelly, 2009).

Concern for the well-being of their children emerges as a third theme in extant literature on mothers’ parenting strengths, motivating women to leave their violent partners (Irwin, 2000; Kelly, 2009; Secco et al., 2016). Women described strategies they used to leave their partners, such as sneaking out of the house with their children at night while their partner was sleeping (Secco et al., 2016). After having left their partners, women shared ways that they would frame hardships as games to relieve their children’s worries, using creative strategies to help their children feel secure in spite of poor housing and financial insecurity (Irwin, 2000). Women labeled motherhood as a source of strength, empowering them to leave their partners and begin new lives with and for their children (Irwin, 2000).

Social-ecological Model of Resilience

Ungar’s (2012) social-ecological model of resilience offers a useful complement to the spillover hypothesis that undergirds studies of the deficit model of IPV and parenting. Within the social-ecological model, resilience is conceptualized as both the individual’s efforts to seek resources as well as the extent to which their environments make those resources available. In other words, the social-ecological framework of resilience emphasizes ways in which mothers negotiate with their environments, including violent environments, for resources needed for effective mothering. This model not only foregrounds mother’s agency and activity in seeking and utilizing resources, but it also highlights the roles and responsibilities of powerful actors and systems in making resources accessible, or inaccessible, at every level of mothers’ social ecologies. A social-ecological framework of mothers’ resilience in the context of IPV reveals nuanced dynamics in which mothers grapple with the stress, psychological damage, and social stigma of raising children with a violent partner, and in which they negotiate with resources needed to care for themselves and their children.

Much psychological research on resilience in IPV-exposed women has focused on individual and family/community-level factors. At the individual level, self-esteem, inner strength, transformation of self, cognitive and emotion regulation, and spirituality contribute to women’s sense of resilience (Bradley et al., 2005; Crann & Barata, 2016; Drumm et al., 2014; López-Fuentes & Calvete, 2015; Oke, 2008, Zamir & Lavee, 2014). Social support also has profound impacts on women’s health (Anderson et al., 2017; Munoz et al., 2017). Employing Ungar’s social-ecological model, Howell et al. (2018) found that fewer violent partners, more social support, and more spirituality contributed to women’s resilience. Taken together, this literature demonstrates the utility of considering multiple factors across social-ecological levels when conceptualizing IPV-exposed women’s resilience.

In the literature on resilience among IPV-exposed women, as well as the literature on maternal parenting and IPV-exposure, motherhood is rarely mentioned and, to these authors’ knowledge, never specifically studied as an aspect of resilience for mothers with violent partners. This omission is startling given that several qualitative studies on the subject of resilience and IPV document women’s descriptions of the key role motherhood played in their resilience, not only in their decisions to leave their partners but also in their abilities to survive while being abused, to have courage, and to nurture, care, and sustain a sense of meaningful purpose in their lives (Crann & Barata, 2016; Shanthakumari et al., 2014; Warner et al., 2004). Exploring parenting practices through a resilience-based framework, rather than through a deficit model, may shed light on IPV-exposed women’s experiences of motherhood, how they overcome barriers—including their partners’ violence—to access resources needed to be effective mothers, and the roles communities and service providers play in making resources accessible.

Current Study

Using thematic analysis of focus groups, we aimed to explore mothers’ and service providers’ reports of women’s parenting strengths in the context of IPV. From a social-ecological perspective, community services may play an important role in the parenting practices of IPV-exposed mothers. Including service providers in the study allows us to compare perspectives of IPV-exposed mothers on their parenting strengths and concerns with perspectives of community members who may hold valuable, relevant resources, such as prenatal care, shelter, counseling, and networking. Responses to the following two open-ended interview questions are the subject of analysis:

Where do women exposed to domestic violence excel in parenting?

What are some common fears and worries that women exposed to domestic violence have about parenting?

Method

Participants

In total, the data represent the voices of 53 participants across 16 focus groups conducted in the Mid-South and Mid-West, United States. Twenty-two IPV-exposed mothers (some of whom were pregnant) and 31 service providers responded to the two parenting prompts. Service providers represented several diverse organizations, including those that provide shelter for IPV-exposed women, pregnancy support centers, and organizations that offer programs for low-income families and at-risk children. Participants in the focus groups for service providers had a diverse range of experience with IPV-exposed mothers, from daily to limited interactions. Demographic information for participants is listed in Table 1.

Table 1.

Demographics of Participants Responding to Parenting Prompts.

IPV-exposed Mothers	n = 22	Service Providers	n = 31
Age	M = 27.75 (18–42)	Age	M = 39.35(28–63)
Race/ethnicity		Race
Native American	–	Native American	2
African American/Black	8	African American/Black	14
Asian American	1	Asian American	–
White, non-Hispanic	10	White, non-Hispanic	13
Hispanic/Latina	–	Hispanic/Latina	2
Biracial/multiracial	3	Biracial/multiracial	–
Participants with children	18	Female	31
Currently pregnant	10	Job description
IPV during most recent pregnancy	10	Nurse practitioner	3
Current IPV	6	Perinatal health care provider/midwife	3
Relationship status		Outreach/education/networking for moms	8
Single	9	Pregnancy/birth control/adoption services	4
Married/living with partner	7	Shelter for pregnant women	3
Divorced/separated	6	Social worker/counselor	2
		Domestic violence shelter/program	8

Procedures

Identical procedures and processes were used at the two data collection sites, which were a large urban Mid-South community and a mid-sized urban Mid-West community. Following IRB approval at both sites, IPV-exposed mothers were recruited via flyers and direct referrals from hospitals, community centers, OBGYN offices and family justice centers. Service providers were recruited from similar locations and were typically employees of local family justice centers, OBGYN office staff, or providers at trauma-focused counseling centers. All participants contacted study staff via phone and were screened for eligibility. Eligible participants were scheduled for a focus group, which was approximately two hours in length and held in a private conference room at a university-affiliated research center or at a community organization affiliated with the study. Upon arrival to the focus groups, all participants completed an informed consent and a brief demographics form. Two graduate-level research assistants cofacilitated the focus groups, with one asking a set of semistructured questions and the other taking notes. All group facilitators received training on safety and mandated reporting in the context of IPV, additional education and experiential training on focus group facilitation, and weekly supervision throughout the study. Focus groups for women and service providers were conducted separately, but all participants were asked the same questions about parenting. Other questions included in the focus group pertained to specific questions about program adaptation for IPV-exposed women as well as other open-ended questions about resilience (Schaefer et al., 2019). All focus groups were audio recorded for later transcription. As part of the transcription process, the data was deidentified by replacing participant names with unique numerical identifiers.

Analytic Procedure

For the current study, responses to the two key questions (i.e., where do women exposed to domestic violence excel in parenting? What are some common fears and worries that women exposed to domestic violence have about parenting?) were analyzed using thematic analysis. We followed Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six step guide: (a) read the transcripts to familiarize ourselves with the data, (b) generated a list of annotations, (c) organized annotations into subthemes and broader themes, (d) reviewed themes, collapsing some and removing others that had insufficient support from the data, (e) named the themes and subthemes, and (f) wrote up the thematic map and results.

Using deidentified transcripts, five undergraduate research assistants worked together with the first author on the analyses. Two of these assistants and the first author developed the initial annotations, and over the course of several meetings, we created a list of 39 annotations by combining repetitive annotations and eliminating those that we unanimously agreed were not sufficiently supported by the text. The three remaining assistants, who had not annotated the transcripts, met twice with the first author to discuss groupings of annotations under broader themes. One annotation was eliminated as too broad, one was reworded to be more descriptive, and six annotations were added, generating a final list of 44 annotations. A thematic map was then formed, where annotations were grouped into subthemes and subthemes into broad themes. Although efforts were taken to reach consensus on how to group themes, thematic analysis is a subjective process, and themes are subject to overlapping content. These overlaps speak to the complexity of narratives in the data. Themes should not be taken as wholly conceptually distinct but as linked, capturing points of emphasis in participants’ responses.

To assess coding reliability, the first author taught the thematic map to a graduate student who had not been involved in facilitating focus groups or conducting the thematic analysis. The first author and this graduate student then separately coded three transcripts and discussed discrepancies in their coding choices. They then separately coded four different transcripts, coding by subtheme. There was 88% agreement in their coding across the four transcripts.

Results

Description of Themes

Three key themes emerged from the data analysis: resilience and challenges of parenting in the context of IPV, leaving the violent partner, and intergenerational processes. Each of these themes comprised two or more subthemes, which in turn comprised two or more initial annotations (Table 2). For additional representative quotes, see Table 3.

Table 2.

Thematic Map of Parenting Strengths and Fears Among IPV-exposed Women.

Themes	Subthemes		Number of Speakers
Themes	Subthemes		Mom (n = 22)	SP (n = 31)
Parenting in the context of IPV	Challenges of parenting in a context of IPV	Mothers are distressed by partner physically and emotionally abusing child	3	0
		Mothers’ parenting abilities are diminished or compromised because of abuse in the home	3	1
		Mothers worry that the stress of parenting in IPV environment will cause them to mistreat their children	2	2
		Participant has difficulty identifying ways that IPV-exposed women excel in parenting	3	8
		Mothers are cold in their mothering due to history of IPV	1	0
		Abuse by partner causes mothers to mistreat their children	0	3
		Mothers are unable or are insufficiently protecting their children from abuse	0	3
	Positive parenting practices	Mothers are protective of their children, especially in regard to IPV-exposure	5	5
		Mothers discipline their children effectively and appropriately	3	2
		Mothers are nurturing, compassionate, and sensitive to children	10	2
		Mothers find ways to survive and cope with the stress of parenting	5	2
		Mothers work hard to provide and ensure that their families have financial and housing stability	3	1
		Mothers care effectively for children’s physical needs, such as feeding, bathing, clothing, medical care, as well as emotional needs	4	1
		Mothers express confidence about their responsibility or competence as a parent	2	0
	Mother–child bond	Mothers experience a close bond with their children and speak of children with joy and pride	8	0
	Mother–child bond	Mothers eagerly anticipate the birth of their child	5	0
	Influences of IPV on mothers’ psychosocial and physical well-being	Mothers experience depressed mood, PTSD, anger, and physical pain related to partner violence	2	4
		Mothers experience physical abuse and fear that abuse by partner will intensify	2	0
		Violent partner uses emotional abuse to demean mothers’ self-worth	2	0
		Feelings of failure as a mother and shame about staying in the abusive relationship make mothers reluctant to seek help	0	6
		Past IPV causes mothers to worry about future relationships	0	1
	Social support for parenting in context of IPV	Mothers seek therapeutic services for themselves and their children that support recovering from psychological effects of IPV	1	1
	Social support for parenting in context of IPV	Mothers desire more support from health services, specifically from the Veterans’ Association, for families coping with IPV	2	0
Leaving the violent partner	Barriers to leaving	Mothers fear losing custody	1	3
		Mothers fear not having financial and housing security after leaving partner	1	5
		Mothers fear children losing father figure and breaking up family unit	0	1
		Mothers fear losing emotional support of co-parent and becoming a single mom	2	0
		Mothers become habituated to abuse and find it hard to break free of violent partner due to manipulation	3	0
	Decision to leave	Mothers choose to leave violent partner for their children’s safety and well-being (including during pregnancy)	3	2
		Mothers are resourceful in the planning and execution of their decisions to leave their violent partners	2	0
		Mothers’ acknowledgment of their own and child’s self-worth powerfully informs decisions to leave violent partner	1	0
	Social influences on mothers’ decisions to leave	Family, friends, and other IPV-exposed women support mothers and tell them that they do not deserve to be abused	5	0
		Mothers seek services that support their ability to start a new life	1	0
		Societal messages about IPV and about women’s power and worth influence availability of support and self-perceptions of agency	2	0
Intergenerational processes	Family histories of violence and resilience	Participants’ mothers were abused	2	0
		Mothers have been affected by childhood abuse	2	0
		Perpetrators have been affected by childhood abuse	1	0
		Mom has positive association with her own IPV-exposed mother and learned from her how to parent under stress	2	0
	Influences of IPV and parenting on children’s development	Children show emotional and/or behavior troubles as result of abuse in the home	4	4
		Mothers fear that children will be abused by partner or exposed to partner violence with negative consequences	2	6
		Mothers worry that child (especially daughters) will grow up to be a victim of IPV	6	3
		Mothers worry that child (especially sons) will grow up to be a perpetrator of IPV	5	3
		Mothers teach children skills to counter patterns of violence	3	1
		Mothers negotiate with partner to promote positive parenting practices	1	0

Table 3.

Representative Quotations Organized by Speaker and Subtheme.

Themes	Subthemes	Moms	Service Providers
Parenting in the context of IPV	Challenges of parenting in a context of IPV	When [my husband] wants to yell at night, keep me up, it involves with their sleep…. My son, when he cries, I want to hold him, when he was a baby. And he’d say, “You can’t hold him; you’re spoiling him.” And that’s hard.	You don’t always know who is a victim of violence but in some of the more obvious families you see a lot of yelling at the kids and impatience, and the kids don’t look well cared for. …The word “excel” doesn’t seem to go with domestic violence
	Positive parenting practices	I think maybe victims of domestic violence, maybe they are a little more sensitive, a little more compassionate, nurturing…. I have become an excellent nurturer, a lot more patient.	One of the moms I’ve worked with has talked about just noticing anger in her own child and being really cognizant of that and trying to get him help.
	Mother–child bond	I bond with [my infant daughter] more because of everything … especially because I feel like I have to protect her….	[No reference to this subtheme]
	Influences of IPV on mothers’ well-being	Since I’ve been going through depression a little bit because of [the violence], I feel like I just want to give up sometimes and give [my children] to somebody. And I guess I keep thinking about it, and I’m just like, “No, nobody can’t have my children.”	We’ll have people that come in all the time giving these vague, weird complaints … like “Oh, it hurts here; I’m worried about this.” And … there’s nothing wrong physically; and then later you find out they were being abused.
	Social support for parenting in context of IPV	[The VA] needs more programs to help women with military families because that is where a lot of abuse comes from. I know so many women and kids getting abused and nothing gets done about it.	I have a woman currently that’s saying, “I don’t want my child to continuously see what he does to me. We are both in therapy because we both have PTSD because of the violence.”
Leaving the violent partner	Barriers to leaving	It’s so weird to detach yourself from somebody who has that much power over you…. People will get that first phone call telling you they’re not going to do it again … and within a week it gets worse….	[Moms fear that] once they break away from the abuser, that they won’t have the resources to feed, clothe, and shelter their kids…. It’s not emotional support—parenting—it’s basic resources.
	Decision to leave	You have to acknowledge that your self-worth, the child’s self-worth, is more valuable than life itself to get out of that situation….	I’ve heard a couple women say that they didn’t want [the child] to grow up to be like the dad. So, she was leaving him….
	Social influences on decisions to leave	Now-a-days, women are more self-sufficient…. We have more support. So, there are more resources than there ever were before. So, to me, taking advantage of the resources to change your life is one of the best parenting gifts you could give your child.	[No reference to this subtheme]
Intergenerational processes	Family histories of violence and resilience	Growing up my mother was in a domestic violence relationship with my father … and she paid the bills and … worked three jobs. So … she taught me things that I needed to know to take care of the home.	[No reference to this subtheme]
Intergenerational processes	Influences on children’s development	My biggest fear … is that my girls are going to not know how to choose guys…. My oldest boy … has seen guys that haven’t treated his mom really good, and he’s got anger problems already.	Transfer of victimization through the generations … but if [mothers] can use strengths and get therapy … it can impact what they offer their children in terms of empowering their child not to follow that path.

Theme 1: Resilience and Challenges of Parenting in the Context of IPV

All mothers (100%) and 24 service providers (77.4%) discussed the theme of parenting in the context of IPV. This theme comprised five subthemes: positive parenting practices, mother–child attachment, challenges of parenting within a context of IPV, influences of IPV on mothers’ psychosocial and physical well-being, and social support for parenting in the context of IPV.

Positive parenting practices. Both mothers and service providers described four positive parenting practices observed in IPV-exposed mothers: protectiveness, nurture, effective discipline, and ability to cope with stress. Two mothers clearly associated their decision to leave their partners as an effort to protect their children. One said, “At that particular time [leaving her partner], I was trying to save my children from seeing, being, hearing the negativity.” Another mother described her bond and feelings of protectiveness as deeply intertwined. Two service providers also described mothers as protective.

Nurturance, discipline, providing, and coping with stress represented important parenting strengths for mothers. One first time mother expressed her commitment to love and nurture her infant, saying, “I think being a mother, above all, is the thing I excel at. Just being there for your child and knowing that you are always one hundred percent loving them every day.” Another mom linked her experiences of partner violence to the compassion she expressed to her children, and two service providers also described mothers as nurturing.

Compassion and nurturance clearly informed mothers’ disciplinary strategies. The following mother’s perspective was reflected by several others in the group: “You have to be able to talk to your kids without being so harsh in your discipline … because you wouldn’t have learned if you didn’t make the mistakes.” Mothers also spoke about their efforts to prevent their stress from spilling over onto their children. Two service providers described IPV-exposed mothers as effective disciplinarians, and two others observed mothers’ abilities to “survive” and “deal with almost anything,” one commenting that mothers will “sacrifice theirselves [sic] in order to provide.” Four mothers (but no service providers) referenced mothers’ abilities to care for their children’s physical and emotional needs.

Mother–child attachment. A second subtheme within the parenting theme related to the emotional bonds IPV-exposed mothers experienced with their children. Interestingly, although thirteen mothers expressed strong feelings of attachment and joy when they spoke about their children, none of the service providers mentioned IPV-exposed mother’s emotional bonds with their children, whether birthed or in the womb.

Challenges of parenting in a context of IPV. The third subtheme under Parenting in the Context of IPV described parenting challenges that mothers faced related to partner violence, including negative influences of IPV on their abilities to parent effectively. The most prominent annotation within this subtheme related to mothers and service providers having difficulty in identifying ways that IPV-exposed women excel in parenting. Eight service providers and three mothers expressed this theme; one of these mothers said, “To be honest, domestic violence, and violence itself, doesn’t always, in my personal opinion, excel somebody’s parenting skills,” and instead discussed strengths of mothers choosing to leave violent relationships. A service provider shared a similar opinion. Six service providers could not think of ways in which IPV-exposed mothers excelled in parenting, with three observing that mothers did not sufficiently protect their children. Several service providers stated that IPV-exposed mothers wanted to protect their children but did not act on their desire. These comments highlight divisions in notions of protectiveness, with mothers and some service providers perceiving protectiveness as a positive quality of IPV-exposed mothers (as noted in the first subtheme) and many service providers observing a lack of protectiveness as a parenting challenge.

Several mothers and service providers spoke about complex ways that abuse directly affects mothers’ parenting, with one mother commenting that her partner used to berate her for holding her infant, saying, “‘Why you holding him so much; they’re not attached to you anymore.’ But when they’re infants, they are, because you’re breastfeeding them and you got to tend them.” Mothers and service providers also spoke about indirect effects of abuse on parenting, including some mothers’ fear that the stress of parenting while living with a violent partner could cause them to mistreat or abuse their children. Three service providers, but none of the mothers, observed that some IPV-exposed mothers actually did abuse their children but did not illustrate these statements with descriptions of the actual parenting behaviors.

Influences of IPV on mothers’ psychosocial and physical well-being. Several mothers and service providers referenced the toll of IPV on mothers’ well-being in terms of unique challenges mothers faced in parenting their children. Two mothers, but no service providers, commented on the physical dangers they faced from partners. One referenced her fear that her partner would use physical violence to separate her from her children, saying, “[My fear is] the father is going to hurt me and take me away from my kids … hurt me, possibly kill me if it gets that serious.”

Several participants discussed how psychological trauma from partner violence inflicted bodily and mental pain. Two service providers, prenatal health care providers, noticed a complex connection between abuse, trauma, and physical pain during women’s pregnancies, one commenting, “Certainly trauma, when women are pregnant; they don’t want to lose the pregnancy.” One mom described how her feelings of depression exhausted her energy for parenting, and, on the other hand, how her commitment to her children carried her through that exhaustion. Two mothers talked about the damaging effect of emotional abuse on their sense of self-worth, one explaining, “All the negativity that person [partner] has done to you makes you feel less of a woman.” Seven service providers, but no mothers, commented on feelings of shame, guilt, fears of failure, and fears of entering future violent relationships. For some service providers, these feelings were connected to fears of seeking help, one observing, “There is also a fear of just, like, being ashamed of being in the situation. A fear to seek help.”

Social support for parenting in the context of IPV. Although the two parenting prompts did not directly ask about social support, several mothers commented on the role of social or institutional support in parenting as well as in their decisions to leave violent partners (discussed within the theme of leaving the partner). One mother and one service provider commented on the importance of seeking counseling or therapeutic services that provide healing or support for mothers and children who are coping with the psychological trauma of IPV. Another mother spoke with frustration about the VA’s refusal to accept her husband’s PTSD diagnosis, asserting that lack of treatment contributed to IPV.

Theme 2: Leaving the Violent Partner

Three subthemes emerged in the broad theme of leaving the violent partner: barriers to leaving, decision to leave, and social influences on mothers’ decisions to leave. A total of 10 mothers (45.5%) and 9 service providers (29.1%) discussed this theme. Although service providers and mothers identified various barriers to leaving and shared an understanding of the importance of children in mothers’ decisions to leave, eight mothers and only one service provider identified the importance of social influences, including services, on mothers’ decision to leave.

Barriers to leaving. Seven mothers and nine service providers identified barriers to leaving the violent partner. Interestingly, most service providers identified material barriers, while most mothers identified emotional barriers. Three service providers and one mother mentioned a fear of losing custody of children as a barrier to leaving their partners. One service provider observed that mothers feared Department of Child Services being called if the violence were exposed, and another spoke of mothers fearing that their partners would try to take their children away as “retribution” by proving that they were bad mothers. Five service providers echoed this mother’s fear about having a lack of resources, specifically finances and housing. One service provider explained that some women stay in an effort to provide for their children, stating, “[Mothers] will rationalize the reasons why they’re staying. And then they will look at the fact that maybe because they do have limited resources that it is the best option for the child.” One mother echoed these fears, explaining, “Your primary fear is losing your place to live.”

Although no service providers discussed the loss of emotional or parenting support, one even noting that loss of emotional support was not a concern, two mothers mentioned a fear of losing co-parenting support from the partner. As one mom said, “Being a single mom is scary. Not having someone to support you either financially or emotionally is scary.” Three mothers talked about breaking free of psychological control as key to leaving, one noting that “[the violence] is a scary thing, and sometimes the women that go through it, they’re so used to it that they’re afraid to let go of that person, because they’re so used to their behavior.”

Decision to leave. All five mothers and service providers who spoke about mothers’ decisions to leave referenced children’s safety and well-being as a determining factor in leave-decisions and immediate post-leaving efforts. One mother said that she chose to leave her partner when she became pregnant because “if it’s just me, that’s one thing, but this is exposing someone else with their own autonomy [to violence], and that’s not my choice to make for my children.” A service provider similarly referenced a mother who had said, “it’s just because of her baby that she’s leaving.” Only one mother described her preparations for leaving, interpreting her decision as a “smart parenting choice.”

Social influences on mothers’ decisions to leave. Several mothers echoed the key roles of institutions, friends, and family in supporting mothers and their families either in leaving the violent partner or in reducing, and hopefully resolving, the violence. Five mothers referenced either receiving or giving parenting help and support around leaving the partner. One mother talked about how she encouraged her sister to leave her violent partner. Another mother, describing her struggle with depression related to recently leaving a violent partner, identified her mother’s help with childcare and emotional support as key, adding, “If I didn’t have her, I think I would have gave up.” A mom expecting her fourth child explained that her three children were in foster care with her mother and niece, allowing her to live at a shelter for pregnant women and “work towards [my kids’] best future.”

Two mothers described the power of social norms about partner violence and women’s agency on women’s decision to leave their partners. One mom, who also had a sister and neighbor experiencing severe partner violence, observed a dangerous normalizing of IPV against women, while a mom in a separate focus group identified advances in women’s social empowerment and resources as key to helping women leave violent partners. This mother also named multiple institutional and family supports that helped her leave her partner.

Theme 3: Intergenerational Processes

The third and final theme emerging from the data analysis related to intergenerational processes. Eleven mothers (50%) and 13 service providers (41.9%) discussed this theme. Two subthemes emerged within this broader theme: family histories of violence and resilience, and influences of IPV and parenting on children’s development.

Family histories of violence and resilience. Three mothers, and no service providers, referenced family histories in their responses to the prompts. Two mothers reflected on the abuse their own mothers had experienced, its effects on them, and the lessons they had learned from their mothers about parenting. One talked about how her mom was able to provide for their family while living with an extremely violent partner, teaching her skills to care for her own household; however, she later spoke about how watching her mother try to “submit” to an abusive husband had “traumatized [her] as an adult.” Another participant in the group spoke of her nurturing parenting style as a strength, later saying of her adoptive mom, who had also been abused, “She did have that, especially for the little kids, that nurturing aspect for sure.”

Influences of IPV and parenting on children’s development. Mothers and service providers shared similar perspectives in talking about the effects of partner violence in children’s lives. Three mothers gave examples of how children were mistreated by the violent partner, and six service providers and two mothers talked about mothers’ fears that their children would be abused. In one of the focus groups, a service provider shared, “The gal I know right now, she won’t leave her baby with that partner. She won’t leave it alone with him.” Four mothers and four service providers talked about behavioral problems they observed in children, relating these problems to the partner violence and abuse directed towards the children. One mom said, “My daughter, she’s having anger problems…. And I think it may be because of him [father].”

The primary fear expressed by mothers, and noticed by several service providers, was that their sons would grow up to be perpetrators and their daughters would grow up to be victims of IPV. A service provider described a three-year old client who “basically does to [his mom] what he saw his father do, like he will hit her, he will bite her, he will say ‘bad mommy’ and, you know, the same names, things that a three-year old shouldn’t be saying.” In talking about this fear, though, three mothers and one service provider simultaneously discussed mothers’ efforts to teach their children skills to learn from their parents’ mistakes, treat themselves and others with respect, and break patterns of violence.

Discussion

For mothers and service providers in these focus groups, three themes—resilience and challenges of parenting in a context of IPV, leaving the violent partner, and intergenerational processes—meaningfully intersect with parenting strengths and fears. Several annotations and subthemes from the data analysis map onto psychological research using a deficit model to understand influences of male-perpetrated partner violence on mothers’ parenting and pregnancies. Some mothers and service providers, for example, observed fears that mothers’ stress and anger, related to partner violence, would spill over onto children through harsh or abusive parenting. A few service providers also observed that mothers who were abused in turn abused their children. These stories map onto Renner’s (2009) spillover model and Gustafsson and Cox’s (2012) research linking IPV to maternal depression and, in turn, harsher parenting techniques. Perhaps the closest similarities between the thematic map and deficit model are seen in the influence of IPV on children. Both mothers and service providers reported concerns about children acting out and imitating patterns of violence or victimization, concerns that resonate with Capaldi and Gorman-Smith’s (2003) developmental-interactional model of aggression.

Even while some aspects of the thematic map support empirical studies of deficit models of parenting and IPV, others, such as the close attachments that several mothers experienced with their infants or the warmth with which a number of mothers infused their discipline strategies, contradict existing research indicating that IPV-exposed mothers are more likely to employ harsh discipline and form insecure attachment with their infants (Gustafsson and Cox, 2012; Levendosky et al., 2006). Thirteen mothers in the focus groups expressed feelings of close attachment, warmth, joy, and sensitivity when talking about their pregnancies or children. Strikingly, none of the service providers commented on the mother–child bond.

The analysis also supported strengths-based parenting research with IPV-exposed women. Most notably, qualities of nurturance and compassion mirrored themes running through prior research (Casanueva et al., 2008; Irwin, 2000; Levendosky et al., 2003; Secco et al., 2016). Mothers and service providers also described mothers’ efforts to protect children and leave their partners for their children’s safety, observations that feature prominently in past qualitative research (Irwin, 2000; Secco et al., 2016). A body of emerging research is examining women’s experiences of agency and structural violence during and after leaving a violent partner (see Campbell & Mannell, 2016; Secco et al., 2016; Velonis et al., 2017); however, only Secco et al. (2016) and Kelly (2009) specifically examine the role of motherhood in women’s decisions to leave. In the thematic map, parenting intersects with multiple issues of leaving. Mothers and service providers in the focus groups consider leaving a good parenting choice, often motivated by an effort to protect children, and many of the challenges to leaving involve consideration of children’s material and developmental needs.

The social-ecological model of resilience (Ungar, 2012) provides a useful framework for understanding relationships between motherhood and partner violence. First, IPV-exposed mothers utilize parenting resources that cross their social ecologies to overcome adversity. These include individual resources of nurture, compassion, protectiveness, work ethic, parental discipline, and coping skills; family resources of intergenerational lessons of resilience and caring relationships with relatives and children; and social or community resources of friends, helpful institutional services, and supportive social narratives about women’s empowerment. Mothers utilize these resources to navigate barriers of partner violence, unhelpful institutions, inner trauma, stress, and intergenerational patterns of violence, in order to parent their children effectively.

Moreover, mothers’ individual resources, such as their abilities to parent compassionately or to protect their children from IPV exposure, are influenced by their environmental resources. One mother, who had recently left her partner, spoke of focusing her energy on preparing a secure future for her children and giving them her undivided attention while they spend time together. These efforts were facilitated by her ability to live in a supportive safe house for pregnant women while her children lived close by with relatives. Another mother spoke of the parenting gift she gave her children in leaving her partner and moving her family across the country to safety and a new life. Her story is filled with environmental resources, including the accompaniment of a supportive mother and friend, the ability to rent a U-Haul, access to a state relocation fund, and access to housing. Ungar (2018) argues that access to meaningful resources in our environments, rather than “rugged individualism,” is key to resilience.

A few clear differences in perspectives between service providers and mothers were evident in the analysis that serve to highlight the practical implications of using a deficit versus social-ecological resilience framework. First, a larger percentage of service providers interviewed, as compared to women, had difficulty recognizing ways in which IPV-exposed women excelled in parenting. Two service providers responded to the query about parenting strengths by stating that they did not spend enough time with mothers to determine whether they were “bad mothers,” adding that they could identify “obvious” cases of IPV by incidents of harsh parenting and neglected-looking children. This subtle but meaningful shift in perspective, from talking about the destructive power of partner violence as the problem to talking about deficits within IPV-exposed mothers as the problem, constitutes an essential difference between the testimonies of most mothers and service providers in the focus groups.

The problem of protecting children also highlights differences between service providers and mothers. Several mothers spoke of their efforts to protect children from harm by leaving the violent partner and teaching their children to manage their strong emotions. At the same time, mothers who spoke of protecting children also acknowledged the challenges of preventing children from witnessing partner violence and the difficulties of leaving. By contrast, four of the five service providers who identified IPV-exposed mothers as either inconsistently or insufficiently protective, the onus for protection lay with the mother; thus, children’s continued exposure to violence was the mother’s fault, representing a serious deficiency not only in her parenting, but, in the words of one provider, in her “instincts” toward her child. In other words, mothers and service providers differed both in their characterization of motherhood in the context of IPV and in their situating of responsibility for problematic effects of IPV. Many, but not all, service providers tended to locate the onus for parenting problems with deficiencies in the mother, while mothers in the focus groups tended to situate parenting challenges and problems in their relationships with violent partners who actively degraded them, mistreated their children, and inhibited their efforts to care for and raise their children.

Both mothers and service providers attributed “leaving the violent partner” to good parenting; however, they differed in identifying the contribution of environmental resources. Five service providers commented on the importance of financial and housing resources in mothers’ decisions to leave their partners, but no service providers mentioned the roles of family, friends, social norms, or social services in supporting mother’s ability to leave. This absence is particularly striking given that these service providers intentionally played a role in the environments of mothers and families affected by IPV. By contrast, 13 mothers commented on the inhibitive or promotive roles of partner, family, friends, an array of services, and social norms in relation to protecting children, coping, or leaving the partner. For mothers, both internal and environmental resources made critical contributions to their ability to parent effectively.

Although a few service providers commented on mothers being nurturing, good disciplinarians, protective, and resilient, a majority of service providers based their comments on the premise that women’s experience of IPV necessarily implies deficits in both maternal parenting and child behavior. Unfortunately, most service providers working with a deficit model situated the problems of IPV (e.g. protecting children) as deficits within the mom, overlooking the resilient behavior of IPV-exposed mothers as well as her access to resources needed for mothering. These deficit narratives are situated within social messages and policies that perpetuate victim blaming. For example, most states in the U.S. have mandated reporting policies that require service providers to report suspected cases of domestic violence against children to child protective services, including situations where children witnessed IPV (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2016). Previous work has suggested that child welfare interventions tend to hold mothers accountable for incidents of child-witnessing and focus interventions on mothers’ perceived deficits in parenting (Nixon et al., 2007). Such policies put service providers in the position of reporting on clients and frame IPV-exposed clients as inadequate mothers who have failed to protect their children. Policies that place responsibility with violent partners and protect confidentiality between IPV-exposed mothers and service providers may help in shifting deficit narratives.

Limitations

Our study is met with several limitations. Our data are limited to the two questions posed about parenting. Had we asked questions about how motherhood intersects with decisions to leave the partner, or how IPV impacts parenting, we would have received more diverse information about these topics that may have altered our thematic map. Also, we did not collect data on whether or not service providers had experienced IPV thus cannot assess the relation between personal experience and response patterns; nor did we analyze demographic differences across mother and service provider responses to see whether race, age, or service organization influenced responses. Such analyses would be interesting and potentially informative, but beyond the scope of this study. Furthermore, mothers participating in the study represent women of low SES; mothers of higher SES may have provided different responses due to different social experiences. Our samples were also limited to two urban locations in the Mid-South and Mid-West.

Future Research Directions and Clinical Implications

In the development of future research that elevates these complexities, researchers should be mindful of implicit ways in which deficit models might shift onus onto mothers to access resources, remembering that at the intersections of social identity factors, people and institutions in women’s lives make resources unequally available to different women. Quantitative models examining the dynamic relationships between mother’s strengths and challenges, and how parenting experiences are dynamically affected by social externalities (e.g., neighborhood factors; Miller-Graff et al., 2018) are an important future direction for research.

Current research indicates that health care providers are often insufficiently equipped to screen for IPV, and that IPV-exposed women report fears of judgment, deportation, retribution, and being reported to child services (see Chang et al., 2005). Training service providers in a social-ecological resilience framework may help providers shift narratives that classify IPV-exposed mothers as “bad mothers” towards narratives that recognize power imbalance in violent relationships, understand the effects of IPV-related stress and trauma, and appreciate mothers as resourced individuals. Such a shift may empower providers to approach IPV-exposed mothers as allies, asking questions during screenings and safety-planning efforts that work with mothers’ resources to address real barriers and reduce the likelihood of separating mothers and children.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by Help for Children (Chicago, PI: Miller-Graff), The University of Memphis Research Fund (PI: Howell), and the Memphis Research Consortium (PI: Howell).

ORCID iDs

Kathryn E. Scrafford

Laura E. Miller-Graff

Author Biographies

Kathryn E. Scrafford, MFT, is a doctoral candidate of peace studies and psychology at the University of Notre Dame. Her research interests include social-ecological factors that promote resilience in women and families exposed to trauma; effects of trauma on women’s psychological, physical, and interpersonal health; and the development and evaluation of interventions for people exposed to trauma, especially domestic violence, sexual assault, and mass traumas such as genocide and armed conflict.

Laura E. Miller-Graff’s, PhD, research examines the developmental effects of exposure to violence in childhood. With a focus on children who have multiple traumatic exposures, she investigates resulting patterns of resilience and psychopathology, including the development of post-traumatic stress symptoms. Working within an ecological framework, Dr Miller-Graff's research seeks to understand how various systems (i.e., individual, family, and community) interact to promote or inhibit healthful development following violence exposure. Dr Miller-Graff has a particular interest in the adaptation and evaluation of trauma assessment and treatment as they relate to international conflict settings.

Aimee Gladys Umunyana is a current undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame majoring in Science-Business with a minor in International Development Studies. She has research interests in the exploration of the compassionate care in medicine, and women’s health development. Umunyana is currently working with Global Research and Advocacy Group (GRAG) in contesting the social and religious norms associated with Female Genital Mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Senegal. She has worked with Team Heart, Rwanda in the past to advocate for the underserved individuals in rural areas to access better health care.

Laura E. Schwartz, MS, is a sixth-year graduate student in the clinical psychology doctoral program at the University of Memphis. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at The Ohio State University in 2012. Her research interests include how risk and protective factors, both on individual and familial levels, influence child adjustment after adverse life events. A central focus of Laura’s is the role different family factors play in individual resilience after the loss of a loved one.

Kathryn H. Howell, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Michigan Clinical Psychology program and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr Howell has extensively studied interventions for women and children who have experienced violence and other adversities, including the examination of risk and resilience pathways. Her research on resilience examines individual, relational, and community factors contributing to adaptive functioning. She currently serves as associate editor for the APA journal, Psychology of Violence, and she is a licensed clinical psychologist with health service provider designation in the state of Tennessee.

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