Voronezh mother beat one-year-old after divorce

In Voronezh, a new scandal is unfolding, centered once again on a young mother who, according to investigators, abused her child. If in April one woman left her daughter for four days without food or supervision, now another — beat a baby.

A Voronezh1.ru correspondent attempted to understand why such cases are occurring more often.

Independent life from age 13

Maria (all names have been changed) has lived in a house on Grodnenskaya Street for at least nine years. And all that time, since age 13, the girl was alone — her mother moved out to build her personal life.

Nevertheless, Maria completed nine grades of school and even enrolled in a medical college. However, she did not finish it and dropped out. At some point, living without adult supervision, the girl met a boyfriend who turned out not to be from the best company.

Neighbor Tamara recalls that Maria and her beau were constantly driving a car around the courtyard, and she does not rule out the presence of alcohol in the teenagers’ lives. Maria’s relationship with the young man did not last long — he dumped her.

— «Then Masha disappeared for a while. When she appeared again in the courtyard, we started talking, and she said she had attempted suicide,» Tamara recalls. — «Her mother had her admitted to Tenisty, and she stayed in the hospital. After that, she, as it seemed to me, spoke with a kind of pride that she had been given a diagnosis… she had some kind of disorder.»

— «She walked around joking that now she had a certificate,» another neighbor confirms.

«One tantrum, two tantrums»

After grieving her fickle lover, Maria met Anton, and soon they started dating. The girl married him and became pregnant.

Maria gave birth at 21; at first, things in the young family were more or less normal, the child looked well and was cheerful. But in the spring of this year, Tamara says, Anton started appearing at home less often. Against this backdrop, Maria began having hysterics.

— «One tantrum, two tantrums, Anton would come back. But then he said: “That’s it, we’re getting a divorce” — because he was tired of his wife not taking care of the child,» the neighbor continues. — «The boy could be in an overfilled diaper, and she would be happily glued to her phone.»

On 9 May, the couple split up. The girl also took this breakup hard.

— «That day we saw the following scene: she’s sitting in the yard not on a bench, but on the ground. Not in a very adequate state. The stroller is standing nearby, and the child is sitting on the rubber surface of the playground,» says Tamara. — «She’s howling hysterically that she has neither a husband, nor a mother, nor a friend. Some girls approached her and began to calm her down. <…> We gathered her up, took her to the fifth floor. But literally 15 minutes later we already hear that the music in her apartment is blaring so loudly it’s audible outside.»

After this, staff from guardianship authorities and Juvenile Affairs inspectors began appearing at Maria’s home. Neighbors say the husband had contacted them, claiming he received threats from his wife that she was ready to kill both herself and the child. However, these inspections led to nothing.

Another neighbor even claims that the husband, seeing what was happening with his wife, took the child to live with him. But the guardianship authorities returned the son to his mother. A Voronezh1.ru correspondent asked City Hall about the actions of the guardianship authorities, but they declined to comment.

— «In the summer there was a moment when I approached the child outside and said: “Sasha, Sasha.” He reaches his hands out to me, and half his face is blue. I ask Masha what it is, and she replies: “He fell,”» says Tamara. — «But I’m the mother of two children; I know how kids can fall.»

«Maybe they decided to force her out?»

The climax of this tragedy occurred on 23 September. According to neighbors, Maria again beat her one-year-old son. Apparently, realizing what she had done, she called her mother, and the latter arrived quickly. At ten o’clock in the evening the child was taken away by ambulance. He was admitted to intensive care. And the girl, neighbors say, did not even go with him to the hospital.

The next day Maria locked herself in the apartment. She did not open to either relatives or law enforcement. In the end, the door was forced, and the girl was taken away. In the evening she appeared in her apartment again, but already in handcuffs and accompanied by investigators.

The mother of the beaten infant is now in SIZO (pre-trial detention center). She has been charged with the intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm to a child. For this she could go to a penal colony for 10 years.

The child is now with his father; he is doing well. Anton himself told this to a Voronezh1.ru correspondent. He declined to give any other comments.

But not everyone in the building on Grodnenskaya believes that Maria could have beaten her child. According to a woman from the first entrance of the building, if the girl had any conflict, it was with her neighbors.

— «She’s my son’s former classmate. How did she beat the child? I come home from work between 12–14, and she’s always here taking care of the baby. <…> She’s a very good girl. The neighbors were eating her alive for leaving the stroller on the first floor (she herself lives on the fifth floor. — (she lives on the fifth floor.)). Maybe they decided to drive her out of here? Idiots! No. That’s not true.»

«The principle “I’ll mind my own business”»

Over the past six months in Voronezh, young mothers who abused their children in different ways have twice become the focus of public attention. In the previous case, a woman left her daughter without food and water for several days and went out to party. In this story, a woman decided to vent her anger on a toddler because of a divorce from the child’s father. Note that in both cases the young women had serious problems with their parents.

We decided to discuss the nature of such behavior with psychologist Artem Sazykhin:

— «Every child, when growing up, voluntarily or involuntarily uses patterns of behavior learned from their parents. That is, a parent not only raises a child and says what is good and what is bad, but also by example shows how one should live. If you take a child who is a year and a half to two years old, he looks at his parents and sees: dad is hitting with a hammer — he also crawls over and wants to hit with a hammer. Mom is sweeping with a broom — and he tries to do it.»

Similarly, a child copies patterns of behavior that concern relationships within the family. If a girl did not receive motherly love, then she herself does not know how to be a mother, the psychologist believes.

— «I worked a lot in orphanages, and once I came to one where there was a girl who had been left there by her mother — also a former orphanage resident. And this girl ran out at 18, very quickly had a baby by some boy from a disadvantaged family, and she left her child at the very same orphanage where she herself had grown up. And that child will carry this relay further.»

Artem Sazykhin also insists that such cases in Voronezh have not become more frequent. It is simply easier to talk about them now on social networks.

— «Another important point is that many people, unfortunately, in principle do not care about their neighbor. Many people live by the principle “I’ll mind my own business.” <…> They will only film it, laugh, and post comments. But to find out what is happening with this girl… She didn’t have a baby immediately after school. For example, she previously led a more or less decent life, studied — why not try to help her then, offer her a job, guide her with a kind word <…> to prevent this situation earlier? Unfortunately, many people don’t get involved.»