# Co-sleeping and sexual abuse?



## Siana

I've been recently presented the opinion that under no circumstances should parents and children of different genders sleep in the same bed, which I assume is related to the fear of sexual abuse of the child from a parent of the opposite sex.

I started doing some research and found this interesting tid-bit:

Quote:

Western observers even today often notice that Japanese mothers still masturbate their young children during the day in public and at night in the family bed - in order, they say, "to put them to sleep."(156) The average Japanese today sleeps with his or her children until the children are ten or fifteen years old,"(157) - one recent Japanese study found daughters still sleeping with their fathers over 20 percent of the time even after age sixteen.(158) Even when the home contains a dozen rooms or more, parents and grandparents feel "lonely" if they sleep apart from
the children in the family, and therefore go to bed with some child every night (the mean age in one study of children sleeping alone is 12.7 years).(159) Since so many families still practice what is termed dakine co-sleeping - with the parent or grandparent sleeping while physically embracing the child, a practice said to be beneficial to the health of the adult"(160) - and since most Japanese parents still regularly have sexual in-tercourse while the child is in bed with them,(161) one wonders how scholars can continue to maintain that nothing sexual usually happens to the Japanese child in the family bed, particularly since none have yet ask-ed the children themselves about their sexual experiences.
Source: http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/06a1_incest.html
I don't know how credible this source is, but the parts I read were "interesting". I don't know enough about the publication or subject to make a good judgement.

I thought I heard once that when children and parents are more emotionally connected (and cosleeping increases this), that chances of abuse are reduced. I don't remember the source. Anyone have any clues?

Personally, I'm not concered about this aspect with us, because frankly, I can't forsee either my partner or me doing such things to our kids! I also hope that we have healthy communication lines with our kids where they feel safe to tell either of us if something that someone is doing is making them uneasy/uncomfortable.

Perhaps someone else can shed more light on this issue?

Siana... co-sleeping mama to my two monkeys.


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## Siana

This article is more to my liking, but it doesn't delve in to this particular issue in that much depth:

The Family Bed: An evolutionary approach to family sleep
by Katie Allison Granju
http://www.breastfeeding.com/reading...amily_bed.html

I know this dilemma is just another one of those instances where of course some people who co-sleep will sexually abuse their children just as some who don't will. It's the connection between co-sleeping and _increased_ sexual abuse that upsets me. I don't like when people make unsubstantiated accusations like that against co-sleeping, but I also need to get my facts straight (if enough evidence exists), even if they don't stack up in my favour.


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## BelovedK

Well that certianly is a disturbing study. I wonder how they were "observed"? How scientific could a study like that be? I can't wait to see what some others think.


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## BelovedK

I was speaking of the first Japanese study, I'll read the other one (thanks)


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## loveandkindness

As an abuse survivor I am disgusted by the insinuation that co-sleeping and sexual abuse are related. Abusers do not need to sleep in the same bed to find ways and times to abuse children.


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## Siana

loveandkindness
You have a very good point there.


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## boheime

Studies I have read actually found that abusers almost NEVER commit the abuse in their own beds. They want to distance themselves from it. In that frame of mind, people should be looking at situations where the children are in their own beds in another room.


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## Marsupialmom

I would like to know were they got the information about Japanese openly masterbating their children.


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## krizty

I dont think so. I live in Japan. There are far less sexual abuse/molestation cases in Japan than there are in the USA. I wouldnt believe everything you read.


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## IncaMama

well i think that's a bunch of hooey. an abuser is far less likely to abuse in the *family* bed because there's a friggin *family* in it. it's out in the open. not exactly the primary choice. behind a closed door in a child's own bedroom is typically where these things happen.

as for the insinuation that extended family members sleeping together is somehow wrong, i'm deeply offended. my family in peru does this and there is nothing wrong about it at all. it's a beautiful expression of *healthy* closeness. my cousin slept with our grandmother until abuelita died...my cousin was 19 years old.

they can bite me.


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## velochic

My first question would from whom you were recently presented this opinion and why. Then I would wonder why you found only a single data point (one article) supporting the claim... and how they can make these statements without statistically qualifying them. Finally, I don't like statements like "children sleep with parents until 10 or 15 years of age"... you're talking about the difference between a child of 10 and a person who is sexually mature - you can't group them together for studies like this. It always makes me think "Hmmmm" when I see articles like this. If you are confident in your parenting style of co-sleeping and you're not abusing your child(ren), then I'd ignore such information.


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## merpk

My gut reaction to the OP's link is that it's a crock. I dug around on the guy's website for a few minutes and am not impressed.

Would also like to know where he gets that stat about Japanese mothers. Sounds like racist bull**** to me. Have also heard about the markedly lower Japanese abuse rates from family who lived there. So it just doesn't gibe with what I've heard previously.

As a matter of fact, I'm finding the whole thing more and more offensive the more I think about it.


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## blessed

That whole website creeped me out bigtime. I kept thinking there'd be a link to NAMBLA at the bottom.


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## merpk

Okay, now I know why the name of the website was bugging me. As a sci-fi fanatic, should've picked up on it sooner, but the whole family bed=abuse scenario had me blindsided.

Wikipedia's entry on psychohistory.

Here's Wikipedia on the producer of the research in the OP's link.


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## Kathryn

Umm...gross! That's just racist! Japanese mothers masturbate their children, yeah right.


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## Greenie

Quote:


Originally Posted by *loveandkindness*
As an abuse survivor I am disgusted by the insinuation that co-sleeping and sexual abuse are related. Abusers do not need to sleep in the same bed to find ways and times to abuse children.

ITA!! That was my first thought too. I'm a survivor and sleep with my darling boy, and would NEVER dream of hurthing him. Especially like that.


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## IncaMama

omg...http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/05_history.html
that is the most ridiculous piece of racist CRAP i have ever read in my entire life.
i'm gonna write to this sack of poop and give him a piece of my mind.


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## BelovedK

GO Michele !


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## la mamita

.


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## blessed

He gave that as a speech at The National Parenting Conference in Boulder CO in 1997?

What kind of parenting conference is that? Listening to reams of questionably credible accounts of child sexual abuse described in uncomfortable and awful detail? Gee, that's educational. I'm sure the participants all walked out of that room better parents for that experience.







:

I wonder who was the genius in charge of booking that guy as speaker. Afterward everyone was probably going 'Hey, uh, for next year's talk, don't even worry about it! We've got it covered! We'll take care of everything!'


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## Siana

Thanks everyone for your replies (sorry to respond so late







)

Yeah, there's no wonder I couldn't find that info. from the speech anywhere wlse. He's a crackpot! Thanks for the links merpk


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## jadzia's_mommy

Quote:


Originally Posted by *michelemiller*
well i think that's a bunch of hooey. an abuser is far less likely to abuse in the *family* bed because there's a friggin *family* in it. it's out in the open. not exactly the primary choice. behind a closed door in a child's own bedroom is typically where these things happen.


I had that same thought. It seems like the openness of the arrangement would be more likely to prevent abuse than cause it. Not to say there couldn't be sexual abuse in a co-sleeping situation, but I would think the non-abusing parent would be more likely to be able to identify and respond to something like that more quickly.


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## ~*SugarMama*~

Quote:


Originally Posted by *loveandkindness*
As an abuse survivor I am disgusted by the insinuation that co-sleeping and sexual abuse are related. Abusers do not need to sleep in the same bed to find ways and times to abuse children.

ITA. That is just as bad as saying that not weaning your child from bf'ing by their first birthday is "sexual abuse" and that it makes young boys have an increased awareness of the female anatomy.

Personally, I don't see the correlation between AP and sexual abuse.


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## TSamara

I've written this 3 times now in hopes of finding a more active thread! I still co sleep with my 13 year old son and the CAS is telling me to stop. All sorts of questions and insinuations from them about 'this sounds more like a husband and wife thing than mother and child'. Can they make me stop?


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## pookel

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TSamara*
I've written this 3 times now in hopes of finding a more active thread! I still co sleep with my 13 year old son and the CAS is telling me to stop. All sorts of questions and insinuations from them about 'this sounds more like a husband and wife thing than mother and child'. Can they make me stop?

Maybe you could request some kind of formal psychiatric evaluation (preferably from a friendly psychiatrist), so you would have documentation to back you up that what you're doing is healthy and normal?

Also, if you can afford it, you should talk to a lawyer about this.


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## TSamara

We've been involved with psychiatric services in the past, and psychiatrists are probably of the same opinion that my son and i need more space because, as our former counsellor put it, we are "too close". This was back when my son was 9. i doubt if I could find a psychiatrist to back me up, frankly, and I don't really care for their opinions all the time.


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## REDBREAST

That is crazy! You know what, my ds therapist who is Japenese recently expressed concern over my dh and I co-sleeping with dd, however, her concern was that we would have sex while dd was in the bed, as if we hadn't come up with more inventive ways to do our thing? Perhaps she read that study, since I was surprised that she thought co-sleeping was wrong, since she comes from a place where it is the norm.


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## TSamara

I didn't know you could be "too close" to your child. My son and I share an incredible bond. He's very affectionate and can tell me anything.

I don't know if people are jealous or what. That counsellor, it sounded like she had some sexual concerns, but when i asked her, she said no.

Now I've got CAS on my ass and they're insistent that I make my son sleep in his own bed. This time they are being open about their sexual concerns, which quite frankly, the questions she asked me disgusted me. But what disgusted me more was the questioning that my son, in another room with another CAS member, was being asked.

I was so angry about this. Is this something they do to everyone as a matter of course?

So obviously the one talking with me had concerns cause we sleep (SLEEP) in the same bed, but the other one was asking my son about did his mother touch his private parts - like - out of nowhere.

Is what we do illegal? I can't find anything on the internet that says one way or the other that co-sleeping is harmful. ............. ???


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## Bad Mama Jama

what a crock of _____ (you fill in the blank). He's a racist and I can just see some nut thinking, "yep. that's why so and so co-sleeps..." just sickening...


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## IncaMama

tsamara - get a lawyer! now! seriously. i'm so sorry this is happening to you.


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## IncaMama

tsamara - get a lawyer! now! seriously. i'm so sorry this is happening to you.


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## blessed

Unfortunately, I'll bet that for every child that CPS does an investigation on for possible sexual abuse, there are ten more kids who are being abused whom no one is looking out for.

I can't imagine that co-sleeping in and of itself is grounds for action, regardless of age. What prompted the concern about the sexual abuse, do you know? Was it something the psychiatrist reported?


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## TSamara

as far as I'm aware. She just asked me where we sleep etc. and she told me that my son, 13, is too old for it. As for my son being questioned by the other worker, it just seems like that's what they do. He asked questions about whether I take drugs, have I ever touched his private parts, etc.
They got involved in our lives because my son isn't attending school every day.


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## ACsMom

Quote:


Originally Posted by *blessed*
Unfortunately, I'll bet that for every child that CPS does an investigation on for possible sexual abuse, there are ten more kids who are being abused whom no one is looking out for.

TSamara:
I work in the mental health field as a child therapist and I can tell you that the above is true! Also I agree that you will not likely find a psychiatrist who will help your case. How did CAS get involved with your family in the first place?


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## ACsMom

Oh, sorry - I just read the reason in your previous post. I think this whole bias against co-sleeping is a cultural thing. Western culture is obsessed with individual independence, and in order to promote that we have to pathologize the parent-child bond.

If I were you, I'd set up your son's room to make it look like he sleeps there and tell them you're transitioning him to his own room. Then continue doing what you think is right for your family. Co-sleeping is not illegal and if they can't demonstrate that any abuse is going on, they will eventually get off your back.

AP moms tend to co-sleep because we believe it's good for our children. An abuser does it to meet his or her own needs.


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## mbravebird

Quote:


Originally Posted by *loveandkindness*
As an abuse survivor I am disgusted by the insinuation that co-sleeping and sexual abuse are related. Abusers do not need to sleep in the same bed to find ways and times to abuse children.

Yes. People don't just fall into abusing a child. It's a choice they make that has little to do with sex or nakedness or sleeping proximity, and everything to do with their own crap.

The reason it's offensive is because it implies that there are logical reasons to let abusers off the hook of responsibility. "I couldn't help it...s/he was so close"?? Come on. That's not how those decisions get made.

Bleah.


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## Storm Bride

Even if every observation in the originally posted paragraph were proved to be true, the author's conclusions are _weird_. How does the fact that I have sex with my husband while my baby is sleeping have anything to do with my odds of sexually abusing said baby?? We don't take our sex life into other rooms, because my 13-year-old ds1 might stumble over us, and _he'd_ have trouble coping with it. DS2 doesn't care!

I've heard before that moms in some cultures "masturbate" their baby boys to help them fall asleep. I have no idea if it's true or not. But, even if it is, equating something like that, practiced openly in a culture that accepts it, with fondling children out of some deviant sexual kink is bizarre! I'd be very uncomfortable if I saw such a thing - but I've met people who think that stroking a baby or small child's back is "weird", because they put a bunch of sexual connotations on the motion. That doesn't mean that I do it out of some weird sexual thing.

A father sleeping with his 16-year-old daughter? That sounds odd to me, but how much of that is cultural conditioning (my guess - LOTS). Don't the Japanese have social bathing as part of their culture? I couldn't do that, but it doesn't make it sexual or unhealthy...just something I've been programmed to be uncomfortable with.

This author's a sicko. He's WAY too hungup on sex and sleeping. Personally, I prefer to have sex when I'm awake, so who is _sleeping_ in my bed has nothing to do with anything. I know plenty of people who were sexually abused as kids, and _none_ of them coslept.


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## wonderwahine

some people just arnt comfortable with sexuality and co-sleeping. Which is why co-sleeping became unpopular 200 years ago......i was insinuated by the purists that people were unclean if they slept in a family bed. And only the rich could afford the new "guidelines"....so the norm up until 100yrs ago was co-sleeping, but its amazing how fast people forget and are brainwashed by the "modern" conveninces.


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## kallyn

My family has always co-slept to some degree. I'm the firstborn, and when I was younger I slept with my parents. Then my sister was born, and we BOTH slept with my parents. Once I turned about 5, my sister and I got our own room but we slept in the same bed. Then my little brother was born, and after a year or 2 of sleeping with my parents, he started sleeping with my sister and me as well. I slept in the same bed as my siblings just about every day of my life until I moved out. Even when I was in college and visiting home, the 3 of us would sleep together (me 19, sister 16, brother 9).

I think that sleeping with another human being next to you is very natural and comforting, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Luckily, I got to go pretty much straight from sleeping with my sibs to sleeping with DH.







No lonely beds for me! When I have children they will definitely be sleeping with us. People who think that co-sleeping is a sexual practice are the ones that need serious evaluation for even having their minds in such a frame of reference.


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## TSamara

Thanks, that sounds like excellent advice to me.


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## Siana

TSamara, I'm sorry this is happening to you









The CAS's assumptions are very much based on cultural biases. If I were in your shoes, I'd expect their questing to be unquenchable, at least for a while. As a culture, we're so obsessed with "making" our children independent, that it wouldn't suprise me if that's the real underlying concern. Then again CAS probably sees abuse a lot, and it's easy for them to assume that this must be the case with you. afterall, there are no benefits to your child by cosleeping with you







:

Good luck and do keep us updated. I'm really hoping they'll get off your back soon.


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