Media reported this month that a one-year-old boy nicknamed Kai Kai (愷愷) died as a result of abuse in December last year at the hands of a woman surnamed Liu (劉), who was his foster caregiver, causing much public anger.
Ironically, Liu had written a comment on social media in support of the idea that “the death penalty is the only punishment for child murderers.”
However, there is another important aspect of the case.
As a licensed nanny, Liu would have looked after many children without incident; that is, apart from Kai Kai.
On her social media pages, there is also evidence of the passion and attentiveness she had for childcare.
So what psychological mechanism made it possible for her to become a child abuser and even a killer?
Liu might have a pathological tendency to be a so-called “justice warrior,” with an abnormal sense of mission.
Before she became Kai Kai’s nanny, she must have known that the child’s father had lost contact with him and his mother was in prison.
For her, his family history was his “original sin.”
It is inevitable that a one-year-old would be a little naughty or difficult to communicate with. For other children who were that way, she might have seen them as “active and smart,” but perhaps she saw Kai Kai as “a bad child with criminal tendencies.”
She might have thought: “As the nanny of this bad child, I should educate and punish him to prevent the offspring of criminal parents from also harming society when he grows up.”
The morbid tendencies of a justice warrior might have allowed Liu to rationalize her abusive behavior as disciplining a “bad” child.
She even shared her philosophy on discipline with her younger sister online.
For nannies and the children they care for, there is already a gap in psychological maturity.
As for a justice warrior nanny, she is more likely to be self-centered and take on the responsibility of educating and disciplining a child inappropriately when faced with incessant crying, ultimately leading to regrettable events.
Training courses for nanny licenses should teach the legal responsibilities of the job, the penalties for child abuse and the scope of appropriate discipline. That would establish proper conduct and help prevent tragedies such as those perpetrated by the punishment of a justice warrior.
Another way to improve the social safety net would be to improve the single-person tracking and counseling methods of social workers, promote random visits by supervisors and recruit “secret visitors” — workers who enter the homes of carers to observe their behavior without the carer knowing they are being scrutinized.
Public sensitivity to child abuse incidents also needs to be bolstered.
By improving the social safety net, every child can have the chance to grow up in peace and security.
Tai Shen-feng is a professor in National Chung Cheng University’s department of criminology.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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