Abuse of People with Disabilities
Risk factor # 3: Adolescent Mothers
Having three children, aged 11, 12 and 15 years when the new baby was born has given me grave concern about any child born to an adolescent mother. My children are as good as can reasonably be expected, and, yet, not one of them can manage to take care of the baby for more than a couple of hours without calling me, wherever I might happen to be, to "COME TAKE THIS BABY"! Emotionally, the average adolescent is just developing an identity, figuring out what he or she wants to do in life, what values are important, and so on. Being prepared to pass on those values to another person is a developmental task that usually comes much later in life. The maturity to put someone else's needs before your own, to control your temper, to plan ahead to be sure that whatever the baby might need is provided -- all of these characteristics develop throughout adolescence and early adulthood. My children frequently whine, "Why can't she just be quiet?" or "What about what I want?" None of them have ever actually physically abused the baby (as proof, there is the fact that they are all still alive), but they have stalked into my room in tears, plopped Julia on the bed and burst out, "I can't take it any more! I fed her, changed her, gave her a bath, walked her, and she just won't stop crying!" In addition to emotional immaturity, including frustration tolerance, patience and all of those other qualities which are supposed to improve with age, adolescents also have to cope with lack of experience and cognitive immaturity. An adult (me, for example) might have thought of a few other possibilities, such as putting orajel on her for teething, putting her in her swing (maybe she's tired and can't get to sleep), etc. When I see the difficulty my children have coping with a baby, and they only have to deal with her for a few hours at a time, with no other problems in their lives, then I really fear for the children of the average teenage mother. Perhaps that is a really politically incorrect thing to say, but it is true. The only thing that I can hope for them is they have someone, whether it is a parent or preschool teacher or whoever, there when they need someone to TAKE THIS BABY!
Risk factor # 4: Developmental Delay, Prematurity or Handicap
If you think it is terrible that anyone would abuse a baby, then you will like this fact even less - babies who have developmental problems are more likely to be abused than healthy babies. Perhaps this could be explained by behaviorism as well. Mothers seem to need some reinforcement of their efforts (as you will learn shortly in the section on attachment). A baby who just lays there, and does not show any response to the mother's talking, cuddling or attempting to feed him or her is not very reinforcing to the mother. A normal baby responds to being picked up and fed by cuddling to the mother or father, often gazing into the parent's face with a look that says, at least to the parent, "I think you are the must wonderful person in the world." How could you not love a baby? Some babies, on the other hand, due to prematurity, cocaine exposure or other problems in development are hypersensitive. When you pick them up, they arch their backs, scream as if stuck with a pin and push away. A baby who is visually or cognitively impaired may not look at the parent at all. Some parents, particularly those who have other of the risk factors above, such as youth, lack of social support and limited knowledge of child development, may interpret this behavior as "I am a bad parent" or "My baby doesn't like me."
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