Counter-Parenting: Accurately Naming and Blaming “PAS” – DVSur5r (Domestic Violence Survivor)

In the years of advocacy work I have performed for adult and child victims of domestic violence, I have observed enough parent-child interactions to know this basic truth: it is not a child’s “natural state” to hate a parent. Even children who are horribly abused yearn to love the abusing parent, and will minimize, deny and overlook all kinds of harms for the remote chance of any show of affection or love from a parent who mistreats them.

A second truth I have observed is this: children instinctively understand that they are a blend of both parents, and to hate one or the other of them is to also hate themselves. Although children are vulnerable to absorbing messages of self-hatred (for their gender, looks, status, sexuality, gender expression, etc.), “hate-parent-by-proxy” is not a phenomenon that I can identify. Yes, children–teens, tweens, and terrible twos, in particular–are known to have the occasional “I HATE YOU” temper-tantrum, but this temporary angst is not the kind of “hatred” I reference; this post is about the deep-seated, utter rejection of a parent in the wake of unrelenting anger, resentment, fear and hopelessness shoveled upon a child by a perpetrator of domestic violence.

In the past, this parental hate phenomenon was labeled “Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS),” its true nature mischaracterized by a poisonous man whose intentions in doing so were suspicious at best–Dr. Gardner was a divorced man who espoused pedophelia and other paraphelias, and ultimately committed suicide, reportedly by stabbing himself to death. In the very least, he was an incredibly sick man with ulterior motives; at worst, he engaged in countless acts of vengeful “psychological familicide,” destroying vulnerable child/mother bonds by successfully advocating for their separation (primarily in New Jersey family courts) to feed a god complex. It is unquestionable that he was an avid ally to perpetrators of domestic violence who wreaked havoc on their adult and child victims.

When children experience both parents as healthy and loving, no amount of manipulation, bad-mouthing or distance executed by one parent will convince those children to hate the other. As it is a child’s homeostasis to want to love both parents, the mere presence of any child’s antagonism towards or refusal to be in relationship with a parent should automatically cause any third party looking in to “rule out” significant family dysfunction, somewhere. The issue then becomes, “Where?”

In my experience, this level of hatred results from the tactics of counter-parenting by abusers. Yes, there have been a few times that I have observed children directing rage and rejection at a parent for untreated/active substance abuse, mental illness, or other toxic issue, but–by far–the most common reason I have seen for children’s desires to permanently separate from a parent is because of the counter-parenting associated with domestic violence.

Polarization is the common thread through the predictable hallmarks of cultivated parental hate (formerly known as PAS, but from this point forward will be called more accurately “counter-parenting”), which include:

A set of parents who are engaged in what intervening community professionals routinely identify as “high conflict divorce/custody”; AND
Any reports or concerns of domestic violence or child maltreatment surfacing, either as the initiating cause of parental separation, or after; AND
Polarized parenting: there is rarely (if ever) any agreement about rules, routines, or parenting decisions, small or large. “Different parenting styles,” “unable to communicate,” and other code phrases describing the parties’ “inability to co-parent” pepper court orders and professional reports; AND
Polarized parent/child relationships, such as:
- Exhibiting emotions of fear, hatred, or disgust towards one parent, but tightly bonded to or protective of the other; OR
- Regularly voicing to third parties negative emotions (fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc.) over spending time with one parent, but quickly “recovering” in that parent’s presence; OR
- Reporting concerns about one parent to third parties, only to retract statements if they fear that parent will be told; OR
- Being blatantly disrespectful (name-calling, physical assault, swearing, etc.; fear-driven behaviors should not be included here) towards one parent, while the other makes no attempt to intervene, or otherwise appears to enjoy or encourage the hurtful behavior.
Polarized reports of children’s behaviors “while in my care”: often, perpetrators of domestic violence report ‘perfect’ behavior by the children, while victims report the children being ‘out of control’; AND
Polarized professionals: those intervening can’t come to consensus about who is the problem, and why (typically, father is characterized as ‘a nice guy,’ while the mother is described as some version of ‘bitter, violent, lying, lazy, crazy, drunken, drugging, money-grubbing slut’). Any mention of domestic violence by professionals is likely to be minimized or ruled as “irrelevant” to parenting.

Because of the totality of these “symptoms,” plus: 1) family courts’ bias favoring the discredited “Parental Alienation” concept, 2) the lack of domestic violence education (no, four to eight hours IS NOT ENOUGH), and 3) the lack of time or desire to look more than skin-deep into the family dynamics, more often than not family court officers and judges find it all too easy to pin the toxic nature of counter-parenting on the parent who appears to be most resistant to the other parent having time with the children. Regularly, the “resistant” parent has reported reasonable fear of the other parent’s capacity for co-parenting or parenting, often because of experienced or witnessed physical, sexual or psychological assaults, of the children or personally. Their concerns for the children’s safety often cause the “resistant parent” to become anxious, depressed, hyper-vigilant and irritable–further alienating family court players.

In this context, it is absurdly easy for the perpetrator of domestic violence to come out as the custody “winner.” In my observances of 2000+ families impacted by domestic violence, abusers deliberately choose to parent in a manner completely antagonistic to the adult victim’s style, wishes or rules for no other purpose than to maintain their dominance, and exact retaliation through the children. In an abuser’s mind, children are chattel to utilize to their advantage, and they are as disposable as the mother. They eagerly make the children collateral damage, if for no other purpose than to maximize the mother’s pain–contributing to the high correlation between domestic violence and child abuse and neglect. Even if the abuser doesn’t physically harm their children, they neglect their children’s needs, fail to keep promises (except during litigation), lie to the children (especially about the other parent), use the children as spies, deprive the children of their social connections and activities, sabotage the children’s relationships with others–in essence, they put themselves before their children. The protective parent feels she is left with no other choice but to fight for the children’s safety and wellbeing–to the point of physical, emotional and financial devastation. The perpetrator is willing to expend as much money as necessary to “win” (it is routine for domestic violence perpetrators to claim that they “can’t afford child support,” but somehow they are able to find the funds necessary to get an attorney). Ironically, the legal system–whose purpose should be to resolve conflict–perpetuates this cycle as there is no incentive to stop, and every financial incentive for attorneys, evaluators, guardians, counselors, mediators, etc., to keep the parties in conflict.

To ask the victim parent to engage in “co-parenting” or “parallel parenting” seriously minimizes the deliberate nature of abusers’ harmful parenting, and ignores the fact that the abuser will willfully take the opposite stance voiced by the victim parent to keep the victim trapped in this no-win cycle. Sure, he will “express” frustration at the length of time in court, but the only option he will give her to stop the madness is for her to bow to his every demand. To acquiesce keeps the children unsafe or poverty-stricken, so the victim continues to fight (there are a few abusers who are happy to walk away from the kids, if the protective parent will give up the children’s right to his support).

In the meantime, this counter-parenting takes its toll on the children, physically and emotionally (read up about the A.C.E. studies, released in 2011). Children stuck in this cycle are commonly diagnosed with: anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADD/ADHD, ODD; they are often symptomatic with stomachaches, insomnia, irritability, and a plethora of other issues (see “Children Living Domestic Violence“). When the pressure of constant conflict becomes too great, children often “split” their loyalty–they embrace the victim parent, and reject the abuser; or they align with the abuser, and mimic his behaviors, attitudes and beliefs of the victim. In either scenario, the children are devastated–even if they are given to the protective parent, they still must cope with the devastation of hating or rejecting half of their “selves.”

But adding insult to injury, in cases of “high conflict” (which is almost always domestic violence), most family courts give abused, neglected and vulnerable children to the very perpetrators that they fear, relegating them to a life of fear, confusion, abuse–and sometimes, even death.

It is time to shed the destructive myth of “Parental Alienation,” and recognize abuser parenting for what it is: another mechanism for continued dominance over and retaliation against the adult victim, called Counter-Parenting.