The Experience of Mothers Exposed to the Abuse of Their Daughters by an Intimate Partner

Mothers and Their Adult Daughters

The relationship between mothers and their adult daughters was found to be the most significant and to be characterized by the greatest closeness of all intergenerational familial bonds (Rossi & Rossi, 1990; Suitor & Pillemer, 2000). At the center of this relationship are a shared gender experience and a gendered balancing act, for both mother and adult daughter, between the desire for intimacy and the need for autonomy (Chodorow, 1995; Suitor, Pillemer, & Sechrist, 2006).

Recent studies on the parenting of adult children exposed the lifetime developmental transformations of this relationship and its impact on the well-being of both parent and child (Fingerman, Pitzer, Lefkowitz, Birditt, & Mroczek, 2008; Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Specifically, parents’—and especially the mothers’—well-being was found to decrease in response to negative experiences of their adult child (Greenfield & Marks, 2006), particularly if the child’s problems are seen as resulting from the child’s own behaviors or choices (Pillemer & Suitor, 1991), and even when the other children in the family incur success in various life domains (Fingerman, Cheng, Birditt, & Zarit, 2012). This decrease in parents’ well-being may be explained by heightening distress feelings (Bullock, 2006; Knoester, 2003), growing psychological and instrumental care demands (Greenfield & Marks, 2006), a sense of failure which undermines the parental identity (Braverman, 1989; Ryff, Schmutte, & Lee, 1996), and the hindering of mutuality and autonomy in the child’s relationship with the parents (Birditt, Fingerman, & Zarit, 2010; Milkie, Bierman, & Schieman, 2008). These findings suggest that a mother who is exposed to her daughter’s IPV is likely to experience a decrease in well-being, particularly if she attributes the IPV to her daughter’s behaviors and choices.

The Israeli Context

Motherhood is socially constructed and embedded in specific historical and cultural contexts (Chodorow, 1978). Jewish Israeli mothers are exposed to the motherhood myth (Hays, 1996; Thurer, 1994), which emphasizes mothers’ instinctive ability and desire to care, and even to sacrifice, for their children. This is a dominant ideology, influenced by both national history and religion (Hacker, 2005). Motherhood is considered to be a core identity in women’s life, and women’s primary duty is seen as bearing children and shielding them from harm (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2005). In the same vein, Israel is considered to be a family-oriented society characterized by close contact between adults and their parents (Lavee & Katz, 2003), due to the country’s continuous state of war, the central place of religion, and the geographic density of its population (Lowenstein, 2007). Recent Israeli studies have found that these motherhood discourses play an important part in both women’s own experiences of mothering (e.g., Gueta & Addad, 2013; Hager, 2011; Peled & Gil, 2011; Peled & Parker, 2013; Peled & Sacks, 2008) and in the way service providers perceive their mothering (e.g., Davidson-Arad, Peled & Leichtentritt, 2008; Peled & Dekel, 2010; Peled & Levin-Rotberg, 2013).

Summary of the Literature and Research Questions

A critical examination of the available literature reveals that it usually constructs mothers of abused women as relational objects, making virtually no reference to their subjective experience. The invisibility of the experiences of these women is particularly troubling given our current understanding of the importance of the mother–adult daughter relationship and the impact of DV on exposed family members. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, no research to date has specifically examined the experience of mothers exposed to a daughter’s IPV. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to start filling this gap by learning about these mothers’ experiences. Specifically, we asked the following questions: How do mothers describe their daughters’ abuse and how do they deal with it? How do mothers exposed to a daughter’s IPV perceive their mothering and their relationship with their daughters?

Population and Sample

The research population was composed of Israeli Jewish mothers exposed to a daughter’s IPV, defined as “mothers who know or have solid grounds to assume that their daughter was or is physically abused or threatened for her life by her male partner.” We deemed the focus on physical violence and murder threats fitting to the exploratory nature of a study on a type of exposure to violence that is difficult to define. The inclusion of assumed abuse enabled the participation of mothers who could be experiencing the effects of the denial, minimization, and silencing common to DV.

The recruitment of participants posed a significant obstacle due to current lack of social recognition of the problem of mothers exposed to a daughter’s IPV. Women were recruited—either directly or with the help of their abused daughters—through community centers for DV prevention and intervention, shelters for women abused by their partner, a center for the treatment of drug abuse, and personal connections. Of the 16 mothers who agreed to participate, two canceled the interview due to scheduling difficulties, one withdrew, another did not complete the interview due to emotional difficulties with the research topic, and one declined due to her daughter’s opposition to the study. Thus, eleven interviews were completed. All of the interviewees defined themselves as mothers of daughters who were abused by an intimate partner.

The 11 participants were Jewish, lived across Israel, and all but one, who lived in a rural region, lived in cities or towns. Half were approached directly by a service manager or an acquaintance, and half were first approached through their abused daughters. Their ages ranged from 35-75 (M = 60.6). Four were married, two were separated or divorced, and five were widows. The number of their children ranged from 2-11 (M = 3.9). The age of the abused daughters ranged from 18-41. Seven participants were employed full-time, two worked part-time, and four did not work outside the home. Seven reported that their daughters’ abuse had ceased at the time of the interview, and four reported it was ongoing. Four of the women had been abused themselves by a partner. Six participants reported that their daughters’ spouses had directly threatened them with violence, and two of them had received professional support regarding their experience of violence.

Data Collection

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants in a location of their choice—mostly in their homes, and some at a DV center or at their workplace. The third author, a social worker who specializes in DV intervention, conducted the interviews, which lasted between 1 hr and 3½ hr each. Prior to the interview, the interviewees signed an informed consent form that set out the study’s objectives and procedures, the participant’s rights, and the researchers’ contact information.

The interviews were semi-structured and loosely guided by an interview protocol that includes questions about the respondent’s experience as a mother exposed to a daughter’s IPV, her view of herself as a mother, and her relationship with her daughter. The interviews were characterized by both a warm and welcoming atmosphere and a noticeable tension that eased as the interview progressed. Some of the participants were highly emotional when talking about their mothering experiences. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim in Hebrew.

Data Analysis and Quality Criteria

For conducting the data analysis, we adopted the method suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1998), which consisted of several stages. Each stage of analysis was initially conducted by the third author, and then carefully reviewed by the first and second authors. First, the transcripts were hand coded, by means of open and in vivo coding techniques, to identify themes and concepts. Then, three interviews that contained exceptionally thick descriptions and somewhat represented the different characteristics of the 11 interviewees were individually analyzed (Denzin, 1989). The three individual analyses together with the initial list of approximately 70 themes were then reanalyzed and regrouped to a list of 27 central categories into which all the interview texts were sorted. The content of these central categories was then examined for similarities and differences between ideas and experiences, and organized into analytic and thematic categories by means of a process of selective coding aimed at forming a broader framework of the findings. Throughout the analysis process, the authors sought to maintain a clear framework that would provide the most faithful expression possible of the participants’ mothering experiences as evident in their narratives, while highlighting both their differences and common features. The results were jointly discussed until the researchers deemed them sufficiently rigorous, in accordance with the quality criteria applied.

Throughout the study, and particularly during the stages of analysis and writing, care was taken to maintain the quality standards of naturalistic qualitative research (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The study’s credibility was enhanced by creating a pleasant atmosphere during the interview that permitted participants to express themselves openly and freely, by ensuring accurate and complete transcription of the interviews, and by subjecting these to systematic analysis while preserving the interviewees’ point of view. We offered all the participants a chance to receive and comment on the findings; all of them expressed their wish to do so. In the end, eight of the interviews provided comments, all stating that the findings represented their individual experience. They also remarked on their considerable emotional difficulty in reading the findings. We collaboratively engaged in critical, reflective discussions regarding our own stance to further ensure the dependability of the findings. The transferability of the findings is supported by a detailed description of the methodology and by thick descriptions of the participants’ points of view within the context of their lives.

Ethical Standards

The study was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of the Ministry of Welfare and met accepted ethical benchmarks for qualitative research studies (Peled & Leichtentritt, 2002). The interviews revolved around an extremely sensitive topic that was liable to produce some uneasiness for both the participants and the interviewer. Therefore, the importance of voluntary consent was emphasized before and during the interviews, and an effort was made to foster a comfortable and open atmosphere to enhance the participants’ sense of control over the information they were sharing. Participants were assured that confidentiality would be fully maintained, that they could stop the interview at any point they chose, and we gave them the option to contact the interviewer with any concerns or further thoughts about the interview topics, as well as a chance to receive a copy of the findings and comment on them. They were guaranteed professional support following the interviews, if needed.

Phase 1: Pre-Disclosure of the Daughter’s Abuse

Most of the participating women described times when they suspected their daughters were being abused but were uncertain whether this was true. Others knew about violent outbursts directed at the daughter by her partner, but these had been denied or silenced by the daughter, the mother, or both. The fluctuation between knowing and not knowing about the abuse in the daughter’s life was accompanied by confusion, ambivalence, and discomfort.

Neta (all the names used here are fictitious), a 44-year-old divorcee, who referred to her relationship with her daughter as a good one, described her daughter’s initial denial of the abuse and the difficulty of distinguishing violent acts from accidental injuries:

She denied it, but I had no, I had no proof because she always said everything was fine. . . . And why I suspected a little but not really, because all these things [the signs of abuse] were real, because many times she really broke her tooth on an apple or a cap . . . and if you only touch her, it leaves a mark. But slowly there were too many signs in a very short time, and I began to suspect that something was wrong here.

Rica, a 74-year-old widow, shared her opinion that couple violence is a private, intimate matter between a husband and wife that does not call for outside intervention. Other women referred to the distance created in their relationship with their daughters following their choice of partners as interfering with their ability to recognize that she was abused. Ayala said, “There was a total severing of contact with her because she didn’t call and I didn’t see a need to; I was very angry with her.”

Most of the mothers reported that at this phase, they experienced emotional distress and helplessness due to their inability to respond effectively to their daughters’ needs. For example, Yona, who was herself abused by her deceased husband, said, “[I felt] simply helpless, because for a very long time she did not share. It’s just been my feelings, and emotions are not always objective.”

Phase 2: The First Definitive Encounter With the Daughter’s Abuse

All the mothers were confronted by their daughters’ abuse by hearing about it, either from their daughter or from other people. For example, Hadas, a 75-year-old widow, received an alarming call from her daughter:

She called me and. . . said, but in a hush-hush uh, uh, uh . . . like, uh, uh, she called and . . . tells me, he is here with his friends . . . and come take the child. The child was a baby. And what did he tell her? If you go to your mother I will throw the child out of the window. That’s what he did. He took the baby and wanted to throw him out of the window and she got scared.

Rica was confronted by the severity of her daughter’s abuse while waiting for her to join the family for a holiday dinner. When she called her to see why she was late, a friend answered the phone and told the family that her daughter had been stabbed in her car by her husband when picking up the children from his house to take them to the family dinner. Mothers’ age and health condition seemed to have postponed their confrontation with their daughters’ condition due to the latters’ protectiveness over their mothers. For example, 74-year-old Rebecca learned about her daughter’s abuse only after pushing her daughter to explain why she has kept a distance from her for so long. Her daughter confessed that she did not want the information about her experience of IPV to aggrevate Rebecca’s heart condition.

The women stated that facing the abuse as an undeniable aspect of their daughters’ lives changed their own lives. For several of them, it was experienced as a turning point, or an epiphany (Denzin, 1989), which had divided their lives into the time before and the time after they confronted the abuse. The knowledge of the abuse seemed to have threatened an image they held of their family and of themselves as normal or normative. Neta described the transformation she went through this way: “Until the accident I used to be an ordinary mom.” Hadas stated poignantly,

It’s really a disaster that happened in our family. We know that we lost our daughter as if she left us. You can really say it that way. This is not the daughter we have dreamed to have. We wanted her to be happy, to have a normal husband.

Despite previous suspicions, the mothers described facing the abuse, and particularly the risk to a daughter’s life, as overwhelming. Yona said,

It did not surprise me . . . because I knew it can happen in any house . . . but I did not expect him to threaten her with a murder. I expected everything, like raising a hand to her, more annoying phones calls, or repeating annoying things, but I didn’t think it will come to threatening with murder.

The women’s immediate emotional response to the realization that their daughters were severely abused involved feelings such as stress, terror, and helplessness. Hadas said, “I was in pain, because I knew she was suffering.” Rica described driving to the hospital after learning that her daughter was stabbed: “I don’t know how we got there . . . I . . . The . . . road didn’t end.” These initial reactions to the abuse further developed as life in the shadow of the daughter’s abuse continued. However, two of the mothers, Daphna and Neta, reported feeling also a measure of hope that once the abuse was revealed and confronted, their daughter might act to stop it.

Phase 3: Living With the Daughter’s Exposure to IPV

All of the participants described a long-lasting experience of living with the exposure to a daughter’s IPV. Some of the mothers were exposed to incidents of their daughter’s abuse by her partner that occurred in their presence; some were directly victimized, physically and verbally by their daughters’ partners. Three central dimensions of the mothers’ experience in this phase were positioning vis-à-vis the abused daughter, the emotional burden of long-lasting exposure, and negotiating maternal identity.

Phase 4: The Aftermath of the Daughter’s IPV

Seven of the 11 participants shared their experiences following the cessation of the abuse toward their daughters, mostly due to the daughter’s separation from her partner. Feelings of relief and cautious optimism notwithstanding, many of the women continued to experience an abuse-related emotional and caregiving burden.

The Mothers as Secondary Victims

Mothers who are exposed to a daughter’s IPV, as depicted in this study, are “hidden” or “forgotten” victims of DV; thus, they warrant attention and support in their own right. For some, this exposure was combined with a history of being abused by their own partner. A few of the mothers also described instances of violence directed at them by their daughter’s abusive partner (see also Goodkind et al., 2003; Riger et al., 2002). The findings outline two major dimensions of their experience as secondary victims—the psychological and sometimes physical impact of the abuse on them, and a sense of isolation.

The exposure to a daughter’s IPV seemed to have had a wide-ranging and lasting effect on the mothers’ sense of self and well-being. The reported responses of shock, confusion, terror, denial, self-blame, and helplessness are similar to those experienced by victims of trauma, in general, and by women who are abused by their partners, in particular (Jones, Hughes, & Unterstaller, 2001). Furthermore, some of described symptoms, such as flashbacks and avoidance reactions, are consistent with findings on secondary traumatization of family members of sexual abuse victims and of children exposed to IPV (Figley & Kleber, 1995; Hill, 2001; Plummer, 2006; Wolfe et al., 2003). As noted by Remer and Ferguson (1995), “victimization has a ripple effect, spreading the damage in waves out from victims to all those with whom they have intimate contact” (p. 407).

The social invisibility of the mothers’ experiences of exposure to a daughter’s IPV was accompanied by feelings of isolation and resulting distress. To date, both the public and the professional community have overlooked the powerful and difficult experiences of participants in this study and women like them. Mary Gergen (2004) noted that in the absence of a cultural narrative to draw upon to impose meaning on their life experience, the well-being of individuals suffers and they lack crucial components of resilience with which to face adversity, as “when narratives are missing, so are potentials for living” (p. 280). Accordingly, in the absence of a public narrative and terminology to describe and validate their experience and a formal support system targeted at their particular plight, these mothers are left to struggle alone with the consequences of their exposure to their daughters’ plight.

The Mothers as Caregivers

An additional dimension of the mothers’ experience was that of caregivers to their abused daughters. Like other (Jewish Israeli) mothers, the participants in this study measured themselves against the “motherhood myth,” which charges mothers with the primary responsibility for the physical and psychological well-being of their children (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2005; Hacker, 2005; Hays, 1996; Palgi-Hecker, 2005). Indeed, most of the interviewed mothers referred to their support of their daughters as a given and as a natural response in the face of the abuse. Even the mother whose behavior as a passive witness to her daughter’s IPV seemed to contradict the motherhood ideology explained and justified this response, thus reinforcing the centrality of this ideology. The mothers’ responses seem to differ from the struggle of other network members to define their roles with respect to the abuse of a friend or a family member (Latta & Goodman, 2011). This difference may reflect the powerful impact of socio-cultural expectations of mothers as caregivers and protectors of their children, even at the expense of their own well-being (Bassin et al., 1994; Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2005). Such a response may also be explained by what McGuffey (2005) called “gender re-affirming” behavior of parents of abused children, who excessively adhere to traditional gender roles in an effort to restore the “known” order in the face of the chaos caused by child abuse.

Unlike previous dichotomous conceptualizations of network members as supportive or unsupportive (Fanslow & Robinson, 2010; Moe, 2007), the findings of this study portray the mothers’ caregiving role as complex and dynamic (Latta & Goodman, 2011), involving negotiation of their maternal identity. While the participants took their obligation to support their daughters for granted, they debated the extent to which they could function as caregivers to their adult daughters and the appropriate ways to do so. The answers to these questions seemed to be influenced by the mothers’ cultural contexts and attitudes, the mother–daughter relationship, and the mother’s own life experiences. For example, mothers’ attitudes toward supporting their daughters appeared to be influenced by social norms related to motherhood and also those norms that construct couple violence as a private intimate matter between a husband and wife (Fernandez, 1997; Hoff, 1990). The issue of mother–daughter individuation (Goodkind et al., 2003) was raised in relation to a daughter’s decision to return to her abusive partner in opposition to her mother’s wish. In reaction to this choice, the mother disengaged herself from her abused daughter. Finally, the findings suggest that a mother’s own experience as a victim of DV may affect her involvement in her daughter’s life, either by avoiding or by taking action to stop the abuse.

The mothers in this study were challenged to support their abused daughters while maintaining privacy or secrecy in a society that idealizes mothers as omnipotent, ever present, and protective of their children (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2005; Lavee & Katz, 2003). Their efforts to succeed in this enormous task, together with ongoing reflection on the quality of their mothering and, at times, their sense of having failed to meet the social and personal expectations of a “good mother,” seemed to distress them, scar their maternal identity, lower their self-esteem, and, in general, intensify their burden of care (Braverman, 1989; Ryff et al., 1996). These “unhappy” mothering stories are subversive in challenging the motherhood myth regarding the satisfying and fulfilling aspects of maternal caregiving (Hays, 1996), thus contributing to a growing body of literature that reconstructs motherhood as a social concept by incorporating it into the experiences of marginalized mothers (Gavriel-Fried, Peled & Ajzenstadt, 2015; Gueta, 2013; Hager, 2011; Maushart, 1997; Peled & Parker 2013).

The discrepancy between the intensity of the mothers’ caregiving efforts and common expectations regarding the mothering of an adult daughter may have further increased their sense of burden. Understandably, the research participants seemed to expect that the work of mothering and the dependency of their daughter would lessen as she matured. They wished for mutual care and even, as they got older, for their daughters to take care of them (Suitor et al., 2006). Yet, their burden of care continued and even intensified. A recent study by Levitzki (2009) on a general sample of Israeli parents found a related dialectical tension in parents’ perception of their role as parents to grown children. The parents were oscillating between their tendencies to view their grown children as extensions of themselves to perceiving the child as an independent entity, as well as between supporting the children and the parents’ wish that their grown children will reach independence. This tension was explained partly due the Israeli cultural context that is influenced by both Western individual culture and Middle Eastern collectivist and familial heritage. The burden of care has been increasingly emphasized over the past decades with regard to parents of adults suffering from various emotional, physical, and behavioral disorders (Greenberg, Seltzer, & Greenley, 1993; Maskill, Crowe, Luty, & Joyce, 2010), but such discussion is missing from the DV literature.