Because child abuse victims learn to abuse children in this manner quite directly, they are filled with a sense of the moral righteousness of what they are doing. The internal injunction in an abusing parent has a kind of moral imperative associated with it which is hard to match. His sense of the righteousness and justice of the act derives from the fact that he himself was so punished in his childhood, and developing the sense that such punishment is legitimate and even righteous was the only way in which he could accept it. One of the greatest obstacles in dealing with a child-abusing parent is this feeling that the actions were justified. Psychologically he has a license from the superego to abuse his child, which is irrevocable, handed down to him at the time he was abused by his original superego figure.
Simple imitation is a factor.
Patterns of child-rearing appear to be based on the care received as a child. Such parents have a tendency to subject their own children to similar losses and to experiences that will engender the same attitudes. 20 Lakin, in the study already cited, found that mothers of colicky, crying infants displayed much greater tension and hostility with respect to their own mothers than did the mothers of the children who were normal. The word bastard is interesting from this point of view. The word literally means a person whose birth is illegitimate, the offspring of a mother not married, a person who has no claim upon a specific father for support and care.