After the release of my study of parental figures who create child sexual abuse material (CSAM) of their children, there was significant debate on social media about our finding that 28% of cases involved the biological mother.
Some readers insisted that these women must have been coerced or forced into the abuse of their children. We did not find this in our study, and my own and others research has consistently highlighted the presence of mothers who collude or participate in sexual exploitation in the absence of violence or threat against them.
A survivor who followed these social media exchanges contacted me with some reflections about her own mother’s role in her abuse. With her permission, I’ve published her words below.
The vast majority of mothers in the world are good-enough mothers who love their children and who would protect them fiercely from harm. This emotional experience, coupled with normative expectations that mothers are naturally nurturing, must be part of what makes it so difficult to comprehend the malevolence of some women toward their children. It seems that society expects that only men could be sadistic abusers of children. The problem is, this reluctance to believe the mother’s role in severe abuse paves the way for the invisibility of survivor experiences, like mine.
This essay is about bringing home the reality that there is a small but significant percentage of mothers who willingly participate in the abuse of their children and who play an active role in the production of CSAM. In their study exploring parental involvement in the production of CSAM, Salter et al., (2021), reported that the victim’s biological mother was involved in 28% of the cases.
Speaking from my own experience on the role of the mother in extreme abuse:
*Note: while I am using first person singular for simplicity, there are many different parts of “me” who endured these abuses.
I always knew my mother hated me. She hated me, probably before I was even born. It wasn’t until my 40’s when my therapist said, “your mother really hated you” that I felt validated. Believe it or not, hearing this was a relief. Not the other words I’d heard lifelong: she must have loved you somewhere in her heart; she must have loved you and just didn’t know how to show it; she must have loved you but was too damaged to express it…. No. I was a commodity to her. I was not loved. I was an object to be manipulated by both my mother and my father. I was a source of income. I was sexually abused by both of them – and used in the production of CSAM. My mother actively participated in this – not as part of the CSAM itself (that I recall) – but in the form of taking me places, dropping me off, doing my make-up and hair, all kinds of physical grooming to make me presentable. My mother kept the books and tracked the money. And, my mother enjoyed seeing her children in pain – it made her laugh. So, while my father was my main abuser with the legacy of multi-generational involvement – he and my mother were co-conspirators in every sense.
I have been putting a lot of pieces together about my life and abuse in the past few years. One particularly painful reality is the sickening role of my mother in all of this – and in the ongoing management of me as an adult. It wasn’t until recently that my therapist pointed out that my mother is “my handler” – a statement that resonated so deeply for all of the experiences it links up and the ocean of grief that lies beneath.
It was my mother that took me to lunch after an initial disclosure/confrontation (very ill-advised) in my 20’s that I call, “The 101 Reasons You Made All This Up Lunch.” It was my mother who sent me Elizabeth Loftus’s book, “The Myth of Repressed Memory” when I again rose out of dissociation enough to create distance in my 30’s, and it was my mother who sent me audio tapes of interviews with survivors who ‘recanted’ their abuse.
It is my mother who repeats and repeats phrases about “what a great imagination you have.” It is my mother who initiates lifelong routinized question and answer sequences, asking me if I remember this family event, that family trip; the intent of which seems to be to assess my memory of the façade they so carefully constructed. It is my mother who calls me now, to this day, using guilt and emotional manipulation, who sends unwelcome and triggering text messages, emails, and gifts. These tactics are designed to keep me close, to provoke me into re-contact with them or to trigger sequestered traumatic experiences that terrify me and make me feel like I can never get away. Her manipulations make me feel like I cannot trust my own mind or sense of reality.
Of course, my father perpetrated some of the most heinous acts, the most sadistic abuses which are beyond unspeakable. In some of these experiences and memories of my fathers’ abuses, I can see my mother, watching. I think she enjoyed it.
I do not want anyone to have a mother like mine. But, in the world of CSAM production, there are some like her. And, in the world of organized and sadistic abuse, there are even more like her. When survivors tell you their stories and they include horrific abuses perpetrated by their mother – believe them, please. And don’t blame it all on the father. There was no “domestic violence” in my home. My mother and my father were – and still are – a team. They are thick as thieves and in deep together, for a lifetime.