Eduardo and Marcelina Mendoza lived in a white, two-story frame house in Highland Park, what could be considered a perfect setting to raise their three children.
But the Mendozas setting was anything but ideal. They shared the house with 11 other people, 10 adults and one other child. And the house was so squalid that it was condemned by city authorities.
The Mendozas were charged with first-degree murder last week in what some Lake County authorities are calling the worst case of child abuse they`ve ever seen. Eduardo Mendoza, 23, and Marcelina Mendoza, 22, allegedly beat, kicked and whipped their 3-year-old son to death.
On Monday, experts said such things as poor housing conditions, job problems and marriage woes are often contributing factors in child abuse cases. A parent becomes so stressed at that a crying child or a wet diaper can propel them into a rage.
”It`s a combination of environmental stress and personal stresses that leads them to that point,” said Tina Rzepnicki, an associate professor at the University of Chicago who deals with child abuse. ”The child does something minor, but in a crisis situation, it`s enough to break the parent.”
But such everyday stresses can hardly explain the Mendozas` alleged brutality and other parental abuses. Rzepnicki and other authorities said there is no classic profile for an abusive parent; rather, they said, there are a number of common threads such as poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, low self esteem and a history of living with violence.
”It`s a little more common with people who have less money and education but it`s not confined to them,” said Matthew Chancey, the Lake County prosecutor handling the Mendozas` case. He said reasons for the abuse range from inability to handle stress to mental illness.
Nationwide, there are 2.7 million reported cases of child abuse or neglect each year, said Joy Byers of the Chicago-based National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
Last year, there were 1,383 deaths attributed to child abuse, which comes out to about four deaths a day, she said.
In Illinois, there were 77 deaths of abused or neglected children last year, most of them in Cook County, state officials said. Statistics for this year are not available.
John Stokes, a clinical social worker who handles cases for the state`s Department of Children and Family Services, said abusive parents are bothered by the same things as other people. But where most people would control their anger or maybe yell at the child, an abusive parent turns violent.
”Some people yell at the kid. Some people slap the kid. And some people really wallop the kid and it`s abuse,” Stokes said. ”They lose control of their impulses.”
Stokes said most of the abusive parents he has dealt with are under a lot of stress and have a quick temper. They often focus on one child who is doing something bothersome and become increasingly frustrated with the child`s behavior.
One common problem is potty training, authorities said. Parents set high expectations of when their child should be able to use a toilet. When the child fails, the parent gets frustrated and lashes out, a move that usually exacerbates the problem.
Rita Justice, a Houston psychologist who has written several books on child abuse, said most abusive parents were abused themselves and carry a hidden rage.
”Most often it`s an acting out of what happened to them as children,”
Justice said. ”There isn`t anyone who expresses that type of rage who hasn`t experienced it themselves. . .They have no parental models.”
In the Mendozas case there`s nothing to indicate they were abused as children, said Chancey, the prosecutor.
Drugs and alcohol do not appear to be a factor in the Mendozas` alleged abuse, he said.
The Mendozas were arrested last Wednesday, two days after they dropped their battered son off at Highland Park Hospital. They told medical staff that the boy, Eduardo Mendoza Jr., had fallen off his tricycle two days earlier.
The boy was transferred to Children`s Memorial Hospital in Chicago because of the severity of his injuries. He died there on Wednesday, only three weeks after arriving from Mexico, where he had lived with his grandparents.
Eduardo Mendoza Sr., an employee at a Highland Park carwash, told police that he hit and kicked his son in the stomach and on the back more than two dozen times after the boy vomited and soiled his pants. He also allegedly whipped the boy with an extension cord.
Marcelina Mendoza allegedly bit the boy until he began bleeding. She told police she bit her son for disciplinary reasons.
Highland Park Deputy Chief Tod Rottman questioned the couple`s initial story, saying the boy`s grandmother told police that he was potty trained. Rottman said authorities still are wondering what set off the Mendoza`s behavior. Their other children were not harmed.
Chancey said he hadn`t reviewed police reports yet and didn`t know details about the Mendozas` living conditions. But Justice said no matter how bad the living conditions, it couldn`t justify such abuse.
”A lot of people live in houses with 16 people in other parts of the world,” she said. ”They don`t kill their children.”
