Child and mother sabotage – or CAMS – is a different way to describe a form of coercive control where dads try to alienate children from their mothers. It’s sort of parental alienation adjacent, but it’s important to be careful when you use the words parental alienation. While I recognize that parents can and do use their influence to damage their child’s relationship with their other parent – which is an alienating behavior – it’s not as simple as using these words anymore.
Parental alienation, as a concept, is one with a complicated and storied past; in many cases, it has been effectively weaponized against protective mothers.
In a typical parental alienation (or ‘PA’) case, we often see abuse allegations made by a mom and then, in response, an allegation of parental alienation from the dad. He’s saying, basically, “I didn’t abuse the kids; she’s making a false allegation to harm my relationship with the kids and weaponizing the family court against me by trying to take my parenting time.” In something like 81% of cases, when moms and children report sexual abuse of the child(ren), the court sides with dad. When the courts believe mom has alienated the kids, even sometimes when courts acknowledge that abuse has or may have occurred, moms often lose custody. In fact, I’ve seen estimates that range from 50% to 73% of the time.
I don’t mean just in Virginia; the ‘parental alienation’ phenomenon is something that is happening across the country. In extreme cases, the children are ordered into reunification therapy – sometimes, reunification camps – where they’re forced to ‘repair’ their relationship with their ‘alienated’ parent. It’s pretty crazy stuff.
In any case, you might not want to describe the way he’s treating you as alienation. If he’s engaging in alienating behaviors, it may be more accurate to describe it as child and mother sabotage.
What is Child and Mother Sabotage (CAMS)?
In a true case of Child and Mother Sabotage, a pattern of coercive and abusive behaviors has existed long before the divorce, separation, or breakup of the parents.
After the separation or breakup, though, the father engages in a wider campaign to isolate the mother from her support system, including through making disparaging comments to people in the family’s social network – teachers, coaches, religious leaders, neighbors, professional contacts, friends, family members, and others – who might otherwise support the mother through the divorce and/or custody dispute. The end goal is to make the mother seem crazy, vindictive, over emotional, ridiculously protective, drug-addicted, abusive, or otherwise dangerous, often through outright lies.
These allegations often play on stereotypical beliefs about women – that we’re overprotective, that we’re just crazy, that we’re hysterical – and that there’s no basis in fact for her level of craziness. One of the reasons that people find this compelling, I think, is because many people don’t believe that abuse on this level could exist. They think there’s no way that dad is engineering this entire thing for dramatic effect. Instead of, “Oh, gosh, that’s an evil man,” they think, “well, where there’s smoke, there must be fire.”
This creates an unstable environment for the mother and child – and the saboteur will stop at nothing to further destabilize the mother, physically, emotionally, and professionally.
I’m not the only one talking about this; you can read about it, too.
What about the men?
If you’re wondering about men, and what they can do to protect themselves against mothers who are trying to alienate them from their children, well, you’re in the wrong place. Far and away, the evidence shows that the most aggressively abusive behaviors are taken by men; in fact, in a study done in England and Wales, the perpetrators of coercive and controlling behavior were men over 97% of the time.
There is little evidence that mothers deliberately sabotage relationships between their children and their fathers, especially not through made up allegations. This attitude persists despite relevant evidence – and, in fact, despite much evidence that suggest otherwise. Misogynist stereotypes are prevalent and exert a strong pull against mothers.
CAMS creates a dangerous environment for women and children – and it’s time that we started talking about it more (and started talking about parental alienation a lot less).
For more information, to schedule an appointment, or to register to attend an upcoming divorce or custody seminar, give our office a call at 757-425-5200.