What's in a Name? Reflections on the Term "Non-Abusing Parent"

The article discusses the use of the term non-abusing parent and its negative consequences for policy and practice. The term has been widely adopted to refer to one parent, usually the woman, where a child has been sexually abused by the other, or to both mother and father where a child has been sexually abused by a non-parent. The use of the term non-abusing parent has somewhat mixed implications. Children's needs in the aftermath of child sexual abuse are considerably more complex and wide-ranging than simply to have the offender absent from their homes. Responsibility for meeting the needs cannot be left solely to their mothers or even to their mothers and fathers without detriment to children. The mothers and fathers have their own issues which need to be differentiated and attended to following child sexual abuse. Feminist perspectives have been critical of the tendency in policy on child abuse, at least until recently and sometimes still, to treat parents as a unit, equally the problem by definition. It is particularly unsatisfactory for child sexual abuse, where abuse is often kept secret from all but the offender and the child and the majority of incidents of abuse are not perpetrated by either the mother or the father of the child.