To be very clear for you, neglect is extremely harmful to children. I personally know of children that have been removed from their biological home due to neglect. The trauma cause by neglect comes in many forms. Unfortunately, the act of removing children from their biological home is also extremely traumatizing. I find it unfortunate that in the cases where the neglectful abuse could be remedied by therapy or BASIC economic security there is no option for that in out social systems.

This a very important point about raw counts versus rates. This data is not in a form that lends itself to drawing useful insights.

It’s also worth noting that this data contains counts of neglect, which can often come from poor economic status. That compounds with your point about the employment differential, to further wipe away the idea that this data implies mothers are more physically abusive to children.

Did you really look at the data that close? This data includes much more than physical abuse. It also includes neglect driven by poverty. Mothers are more likely to be left with children and the poor are more likely to be visited by child protective services for harmful neglect. So of course mothers will be at the top of this list, but not because they are more violent toward children. This data does not support that conclusion.

From the Supplementary Notes “Each state has its own definition of child abuse and neglect based on standards set by federal law. Child abuse is defined as any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk or serious harm.”

My experience: Foster parent to one teen for less than a year. Tried to be prepared by taking lots of trauma-based parenting classes and reading, because studying is what I am familiar with. It helped, but I doubt anyone is ever really ready.

My perspective: Children’s behavior is complicated. I’d caution against assuming you can look at their behavior and guess what the cause is. Even when you’re in the middle of it things are difficult to understand. Also, the behavior of deeply traumatized children is often misunderstood. There are no easy answers.

There are a lot of commenters here mid-reading this data to mean that mothers are the most likely person in a child’s life to PHYSICALLY abuse them.

It seems that many do not realize, that “neglect” is an abuse counted in this data (as it should be). If you accept that there is likely a positive correlation between poverty and single-mother homes then the presence of mothers at the top of the list is easily explained by that correlation.

This data is not evidence that mothers are more likely to hit their children. It is a small glimpse into the reality that the US system has a bias toward taking children from homes rather than providing the economic support we all deserve.

-Foster parent