How Can You Tell If Your Significant Other Might Abuse Your Future Children?

The man strangled his little boy because the boy stuck his tongue out at a Christmas pageant. The mother told the attorney that he strangled him two other times, and that the man threw his other boy by the neck three times. The father's idea of "spare the rod" is physical force that can have fatal consequences.

This was in divorce litigation that I was proofreading. I couldn't help but think, "Before people get married, don't they ever discuss how they think kids should be raised?" Or are they afraid to broach this topic?

"Honey, if we have children, what would Junior have to do to provoke you into physically punishing him? And what would the physical punishment consist of? A spanking? Or could you ever get so enraged at a child that you'd actually pick him up and slam him around? Really, Hon, I am serious. Have you ever given thought to how easy your buttons can be pushed by a feisty child?"

And it's not just the woman's responsibility to query her boyfriend. The man has equal responsibility, because many child abusers are women. Let's not stereotype men as being more prone to physically assaulting a child. Men should ask women, long before they propose to them, what kind of mothers they think they'd be. Please don't tell me, "Well, Jillita, nobody can predict how they'd react under circumstances that have never happened."

A human adult should very well be able to make this kind of prediction, because the adult human brain is developed enough to! Furthermore, people know if they are prone to temper tantrums. They know if they can easily be set off. They know whether or not little things in life (a child sticking out a tongue) could make them go ballistic.