Here's yet another story of homeschooling, false imprisonment and unlawful confinement, this time about a girl living in a filthy house, and allegedly being sexually abused by a stepfather, held against her will, living in a dog crate for an entire year, and chained up in a bathroom .
It has so many similarities to the Turpin case, the Kimberly Sullivan case and somewhat to the Kornegay case.
The story also includes, as so many of these child abuse cases do, other children living in or visiting these families. These "other" children are not abused, proving that scapegoating at least one child goes on in most child abuse cases and for now, it seems only this child was treated this way according to the story in The New York Times written by Sarah Maslin Nir (with photography by Rachel Wisniewski).
Homeschooling is another commonality among these more egregious cases. The message seems to be that if you want to commit this level of crime against a child, you need to homeschool the kid to get there, have constraints such as a securely locked room, chains, an alarm system, or a dog crate to keep the child from running away from this kind of torture (and what kind of message does that send to other parents who feel the incredible need to take child abuse route to this level? Just homeschool them and the persecution will go according to plan?).
What I found interesting about the Kimberly Sullivan case and the Gloria Williams - Brian Coulter case is that the defense for letting abuse get to this level was about normalizing, enabling, sycophancy, and the brainwashed mind. Egregious abuse got so normalized even when both adults worked, and were absent from each other to think of other alternatives to abuse?
Apparently the mother served as a dog handler who attended dog competitions - that's scary. Who wouldn't have extreme anxiety thinking about this kind of person handling their dog?
And the stepfather is a rail conductor for the greater Philadelphia area. Who would want to ride that kind of train, especially with a child?
Apparently neither the mother or stepfather thought to stop the abuse. And if one of them did, was it so inconvenient to go to the police? Is it hard to find a way to get a child out of the home and into safety?
Or did they think there was nothing wrong in treating a child this way?
Or did they feel during the escalation process of abuse that they didn't want to partake in it any longer, but let their partner do it without interference or protest?
How much enabling, brainwashing, sycophancy, and fear can really be taken seriously as a defense of criminality in cases like this? But time after time, lawyers keep trying for this kind of defense (possibly because lawyers can't find other defenses and just have to think, even with this kind long-shot, that it is the only way to go, the possibility that the defense may be reviewed?).
Like: "My husband (or wife) told me to do it!" or "taught me to do it!" with "Am I in trouble now? Wasn't I brainwashed? How about that? Can't we use that as a defense? What about the other children and the animals in my house that I loved? That makes me a good person, doesn't it? I just made this one mistake with this child, a child that I was taught to see as a demon! At the time I thought it was an act of kindness to let her use a bathroom instead of a bucket and that I should have been praised for it. Was I wrong to think she was ungrateful?" - is this how this kind of defense is verbalized?
Another thing we find in common is that so many of these kinds of parents live in squalor. Not all of them, obviously. Either their houses are obsessively cleaned, or it's filthy - it is what I've seen. And how do they defend the squalor?
Another thing: so many of these children aren't allowed to use the bathroom. Either a bucket is provided for them, or they find a way to eliminate it out of a window, or they mess themselves because they are chained up.
And why is any of this happening in the first place? Is all child abuse rooted in how much a child gives a parent narcissistic supply?
Do parents like this expect a child to flatter them and then the child can't or isn't believed because the child is being tortured? Is it that kind of double bind?
Does the shame-rage spiral of a dark triad parent get to a point that the more shame they feel, they feel the inclination to abuse in a blame-shifting manner, the more they have to hide the abuse, the more shame they feel, and the more they spiral in their shame-rage spiral, the more they hide the abuse, which produces more shame, the more they have to make it the child's fault, the more they feel they have to abuse the child, which produces more shame, and the more child abuse happens?
Do people like this think they need to torture someone? And does it go to a child because they are easy to hurt, or easy to imprison? And is the overwhelming desire to torture so great, so overwhelming as to require holding someone hostage, against their will? Is having a child with a will so threatening to them?
Most of these headlines don't cover these kinds of questions. Perhaps psychologist, Dr. Todd Grande, takes a stab at them (double entrende done on purpose), but he also admits his analysis is conjecture as to what "could be happening" from a psychological perspective. However, the narcissistic supply analysis makes the most sense to me in these most egregious of cases, however this too is conjecture, and only based on what I know about narcissistic supply and how it manifests if a narcissist can't get flattery or doesn't believe in what a child says to them.
Most of us don't have a shame-rage spiral and perhaps that is what sets these cases apart from how most of us treat children. Most of us don't rage or start a campaign of abuse and engage in defamation of character over narcissistic supply deficiencies, but narcissists often do.
Perhaps some day I will have some clearer answers on this phenomenon.
As usual, I will keep you updated on this case as it progresses.
New Jersey couple accused of abusing, confining child in dog crate and bathroom for years - by Tom Dougherty, Scott Jacobson, Raymond Strickland, Will Kenworthy, Madeleine Wright for CBS News
18-year-old girl escapes from New Jersey home where she was allegedly forced to live in dog crate and abused Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, of Gloucester Township, were charged with kidnapping and Mosley with additional counts of sexual assault, prosecutors said. - by Marlene Lenthang for NBC News
Mother, Stepfather Arrested After Girl Escapes from Home Where She Was Allegedly Held Captive, Kept in Dog Crate and Abused: Police
The teenager, 18, also claimed she'd been "forced to live in a padlocked bathroom while being chained up," before escaping on Thursday, May 8, police say - by Becca Longmire for People Magazine
Prosecutor: Gloucester Township couple charged with abusing, confining child for years
During the investigation, the victim told detectives that Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, had been abusing her since approximately 2018. - by the staff at News 12, New Jersey
New Jersey couple accused of abusing child for years to stay in jail until trial: "domestic torture" - by Madeleine Wright and Alan Wheeler for CBS Philadelphia 5/22/25
NJ couple accused of abusing teen in dog crate to remain in jail
Brenda Spencer and Branndon Mosley will remain in jail after they allegedly held a teen girl captive in a dog crate and abused her for years inside their New Jersey home. - by Hayden Mitman and David Chang for NBC Philadelphia
I have concerns about public school a la John Taylor Gatto, but homeschooling worries me, there's so many abusers and creeps who exploit it to have total control over their kids and abuse them. I find unschooling suspect too, just a lazy parent who doesn't want to deal with the getting up in the morning. I know this lady who unschooled her kids and both are on my social media. They are in their late teens and can barely spell, and I think to myself they will be starting their lives with a huge burden. My life as a child would have been even more hellish if homeschooling had been a "thing" back then. I probably would have just literally been made into a Cinderella 24/7 instead of just a few hours. School probably keeps some parents more measured, the wealthier ones don't want to lose their jobs to little Sally or Joey showing up at school with a bunch of bruises. Homeschool gives complete control and domination and isolates the kids to the max.
ReplyDeleteYou can see endless videos of psycho parents, [the few who get caught] being arrested for locking up their kids in a cage, and extreme abuses. I saw one youtube video where the parents had a whole chaining system strewn throughout the house and each kid's bed had a chain and padlocks on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY_ZW6M8K9g&t=22s
I don't know why these videos came up in my video feed but there seem to be Turpin like psychos all over the place locking their kids up. I got locked in my room of course, with no chains.
Why are so many psychopaths having kids and then abusing them especially in the days of plentiful birth-control. These wretched people make the kids all live like animals. I have noticed the weird bathrooming stuff too, that probably is to dish out the most pain and humiliation possible.
I also notice a lot of messed up pets like pit bulls and biting animals seem to be something that shows up too. The animals are probably abused too.
Poverty of a rural kind [they own old farms and beaten up houses] seems common in some cases though I saw a few cases like in the South West where the abusive parent seemed to be an OCD fanatic, and they lived in a mansion and were at the millionaire level. They got videos all over Youtube of cops rescuing kids from abusive, neglectful parents, some are substance abusers, but others are Dark Triad types.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vak5K0VWbE continuing....
Re: "Why are so many psychopaths having kids and then abusing them especially in the days of plentiful birth-control."
DeleteBecause psychopaths are inherently sadistic and anti-life. The destruction of the family unit, going on for decades, has been a deliberate scheme by the ruling gang of exploitative psychopaths and they're ruling globally --- see https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
"... we speak of “a rise in the standard of living” as though there has been a real bettering of life, when in reality it has been little more than technical – better machines making available more material goods. The result has been that the household’s need for two salaries instead of one splits the mother from the home, especially if she may not like mothering." --- Bishop Richard N. Williamson, December 2023
Thanks for the link, I want to read more. I added zinc to vit C by the way. I believe we are ruled by psychopaths. So I agree. They did have the agenda to destroy the family and are doing so now. It looks like we have a similar world view. I certainly have said the same things about "the elites" on my blog Fivehundredpoundpeep Standard of living is now falling in America. It reached a peak with the boomers but notice that there's no more efforts for ease in life or inventions to help with work loads, it's all surveillance and adding to the expectations and crushings now. I question a lot of the so called Counter Culture. The corporations got their two for one deal and it destroyed private lives and home lives and even took the people away that used to help and keep the community running, taking care of sick people, civic engagement, dinners, etc. I'm old enough to remember when life was different but they wiped so much of the good stuff away during the course of my life.
DeleteI did see one case where this autistic kid got locked in a cage and they build a giant cage downstairs in this middle class house. I thought that was messed up. How many people saw that cage and didn't report it?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9W92-x-csU
Wimply enablers abounded especially weak men who let a crazed woman abuse the kids. Often they would state "I was at work" as the worse went on. Sometimes both partners joined together in the abuse.
There are so many of these videos on Youtube, it was scary. Power, control and domination were all themes. There's something really wrong with parenting in the USA. I never have had kids but something has gone very awry even beyond these personality disordered sociopaths, psychopaths and malignant narcissists.
I often wondered why did these people have kids to begin with. Why didn't they give them up to the state? I think some of the darker personality disordered ones probably had the kids to begin with to have someone to abuse.
One odd thing is I have been reading this "regretful parents" board on reddit, they are not all abusers but I found myself thinking why do people hate being parents so much? They can't stand their kids. It's kind of a dark place to read. Most regret toddlers and babies the most but some say their adult children gave them nothing but misery. I have noticed the theme of failure to launch kids being given no tools and just condemnation over there. I bet some childfree read over there in relief they missed out on the mess. I never have been a parent so can't comment. I have to admit, I hated the confrontations while babysitting, and my last job as a residential counselor made me know I didn't have the resources to pull it off.
The lack of sleep, no money, lack of support, noise etc, seems be some of the biggest issues. Some say "we didn't know what we were getting into". Some write over on there they don't love their kids. That's sad. I find myself thinking I wish that kid could get out of there.
They ban non parents from posting over there, sometimes I just want to write, "give your kid up to someone who will love them" instead or is more suitable. I fear more abused kids. Some do "right" by the kids, and say we provide care and hide our real feelings but that's sad too. I thought of writing on this topic, do people hate being parents now but then thought I've never had a kid so how would I even get into this topic? It did have me get some thoughts about my own parents. Would they have been happier people without children, I think so. They still were bad people but it's like the situation of having children, made them WORSE people. The pressures of this society do not go with having children, that's getting worse. They made parenting out to be a horror show.
continuing....
ReplyDeleteIt made me think about all these psychos, I read about like the Turpins, and the videos I saw on Youtube. Why did these people have kids? We are no longer in the pre-birth control era where kids just came and back then people couldn't choose so much to not have kids. Why do they make the kids live like animals and not feed or take care of them? Some of them have money, and aren't poor people who can't afford to take care of the kids. I did see some cases, where you could tell the parent was poor as dirt and desperate. They made stupid decisions like leaving a 2 year old home alone during their work shift. Still insane, and wrong but being young dumb and desperate you can see how things went that way. Some were just evil, they loved the control and domination. They wanted ultimate control. I think the helicopter parenting, and expectations and demands have made for more psycho parenting. Kids became trophies, and status symbols on social media, so some of the appearance focused ones couldn't handle a kid with some faults, or was disabled or didn't add to their social status, and the poor kid suffered accordingly. If a kid doesn't give these types enough narcissistic supply or add to their status, the kid will be punished by them. I saw that in a lot of the videos. The anger of the parents. The autistic and disabled kids in these situations were really in it. The resentment and anger off the charts. I think severely autistic kids may be better off in decent institutions reading some of that regretful parents board, about their autistic kids.
One can see a trend too where the abusive parents are kind of dumb, they always "fight" the cops, so they add charges to their roster, instead of just being quiet, and dealing with the lawyer later. AKA no self control, no ability to plan, tempers off the charts--the cops in the videos I saw were professional, a few made quips but none were abusive, these parents were spazzing out, rolling around on the ground, etc.
There's something that has gone really wrong in this society, you can see old fashioned family connections and can I use a word like "duty"? or even "connection" within a family just dying out. Sadly I think crazy abuse cases are going to increase. Domination and control became the leading way to raise children just across the board, add narcissism and psychopathy to this mess, some kids are really going to suffer.
Wow. Thank you so much for providing all of these links. I think you could write an excellent blog post on this, and I might try to look into it too.
DeleteI have read articles in newspapers about how "family" keeps going down, and down, and down on the list of priorities. In one study it wasn't last, but it was somewhere in the middle of the bottom quarter for most people. For youth it was even further down. And I also remember another study where only 4 percent of participants said it was the most important part of their lives. And guess where most of the people said it was "the most" important lived? In the midwest where church and religion was also high on their list.
And I've also seen surveys on people in their twenties where jobs and income rate first on importance, romantic relationships were not particularly important to them, and family even much, much less important.
I wish I had saved some of these findings via URL, but I probably can find them again doing a lot of searching.
I think the issues as to why it is trending this way are complicated and incredibly various. They can range from society's worship of status, money and oligarchs (USA), an economy where you have to work incredibly hard just to make ends meet and pay high taxes on a run-away national debt and don't really have time to take care of children, the attitude that only rich folks can afford to have children, the rise of authoritarian leaders as well as an even greater rise of sycophancy to despotic tyrants (which has the effect of teaching a population to adopt these kinds of goals in their families), the rise of narcissism (especially covert narcissism), the rise of scapegoating and disenfranchising both in the family and greater society (which has a chicken-and-egg effect), resenting children for not helping to supply the necessities of modern life, and probably so much more than we are even considering.
You mentioned "Kids became trophies, and status symbols on social media, so some of the appearance focused ones couldn't handle a kid with some faults, or was disabled or didn't add to their social status" - that seems true from all I've seen.
You also mentioned "no self control, no ability to plan, tempers off the charts" - seems to be part of it too. And growing up, I especially saw this with single parents. Divorced parents came next. Happily married couples not so much.
You also mentioned "The lack of sleep, no money, lack of support, noise" - also a probable contributor.
The one thing I see in this society (USA) is how busy people are. They don't have free time on their hands for much of anything, even people who have retired. They're still bringing up kids who are in their forties or fifties, or putting them through rehabs, or buying a car or two for them, or raising grandchildren or helping out so much that they might as well be raising grandchildren. The working population seems to be investing in the easiest things to invest in and that return the biggest awards and it doesn't seem to be children.
It seems that this could take two years worth of research full time as the research done so far is scant. Is it worth doing for the sake of our country? I'd say yes. For me it is a bit off the beaten track, but it is definitely worth putting thought into it.
Forums are always good places to start - it is how I started my own blog, looking through those first because psychologists seemed to be missing the mark on some things - for instance that narcissists become less abusive as they age (nope, not according to the overwhelming number of adult children of child abuse: their parent got so much more abusive, menacing and threatening as they aged, and now it's been acknowledged by the professionals - finally!).
Anyway, you've done some very good research so far into this topic, and it's also good for readers to know about this.
Thank you!
Hi Lise,
DeleteThanks so much. That is going to be my next article, "Do People Regret Having Kids". I am going to tie in narcissism and other matters into the article and my own perceived regret of my own parents. Family is dying especially for white middle class and upper middle class and especially among those who fell down the ladder. I see some of the old school families, my first good IFB church was full of those. I have some of those people on my Facebook, and their families are happy. I know one family where one happily married couple goes to visit the in-laws and takes vacations with them. What does cousins, aunts, uncles etc, mean to me? Everyone lived far away. Distance ruins family as I have said many times even beyond the abuse and narcissistic issues. The young who would be children of millennials and Gen X now probably had parents who already were no contact, or everyone lived far away from each other so ties disintegrated along with travel money and leisure time. I think that can last for ONE generation but 2 generations and 25 years unless people have travel money and economic stability that's over with. The Midwest is more family based but probably with boomer generation dying out, that's ebbing away. The jobs aren't stable enough even in rural areas to keep the extended families intact.
continuing...
It's sad jobs have become the highest priority now, and the jobs have no loyalty either, they'll vaporize on a dime. Income, yes everything is about money here. Thanks for telling me about those, I can go search and see if I can find those studies too.
DeleteThis place has a ruined culture in IMO. Dog eat dog, rise to the top, only the super-stars count and now the super-stars are getting less in number. I'm surprised things are holding together, you'll see what I wrote today about them crushing people and my wondering how far they will take it.
The way the economy and job world operates here is one principle driver of the destruction of family and putting children last. It's destroyed immediate nuclear family and extended family as well turning Americans basically into nomadic slaves to the corporations. Now they won't even guarantee food and a home, with so many now living in their cars or in the streets. I'm noticing the conservative Republicans some of whom are right about the two for one deal the corporations got when they sent women into the work force, seem to have no interest in addressing these problems either. They just want to make things worse. The people who can afford the nice small town life with close knit families where they can take care of kids etc etc, are going to get far smaller in number. Dads away at two jobs and Mom's working 12 hours a day. No one's making pot roast and no one can make it over to Wednesday night church service or can take a whole day to visit Grandma.
They've destroyed social ties and Robert Putnam who wrote Bowling Alone wrote about how social engagement has dropped and some of the effects that would come 20 plus years ago. The whole society has become nothing but a Hunger Games competition fest. Children aren't going to thrive in this. Parents will turn the kids into objects and often now the kids are just another status tool for competition. If a kid fails nowadays, woe to them. I may write about that, the endless pressures. Families are not bastions of comfort and care anymore but a competition club. Well I guess in some societies that happened like royal houses were brother fought brother. You are right this has been affected by the rise of scapegoating and narcissism. The busyness is crazy, most are overworked. How many people with 2-3 jobs can have a private life at all? the whole "bucket" list thing is wearing. Being disabled took me out of the running so to speak. I and a friend talk about this all the time, how they drive us crazy with paperwork and useless tasks especially related to technology, and I joked and said, they want you too busy to think. It is interesting you mention that children are resented, I think that's true. Kids in the past contributed to the farm. Many of the outraged parents seem angry, this tone of "you little parasite" beyond some of the words. You can see the anger of the helplessness of babies even. The ones who fail to launch, [my god some of these parents were absolutely useless in talking to the kids about making a living or going to Vo-Ed or something] are seen as nothing but millstones around the neck of the parents. I saw that attitude proliferate in the 80s and only worsen. People from other countries remarked, how Americans didn't want to team together with their family or help or how multiple generations had resentment while living together.
DeleteYes the trophy kid thing is a real phenomenon. We had stage mothers in the 1980s but this seems to be the majority. I wanted to tell you one weird thing my sister said, this reminds me. I was breaking away starting my no contact and in one of the last emails she said, "I don't know why you don't want to see your nieces and nephews in their celebration of life". I found it weird, I wasn't expected to be a participant in their lives, that never happened. They truly are strangers but an OBSERVER of it. Does that make sense. I've thought about that statement recently.
DeleteYes the angry ones, and there's lots of angry divorced and stressed single mother, seem to be getting angrier. Here the economy smashing people down reverberates out to the children. Not right but it is what is happening.
A lot of retired people are taking care of all the young who are far poorer and whose economic realities do not match the expectations. Gen X is pretty poor, but even probably are having to take care of poorer millennials and Gen Z who can't even afford the crummy apartments and life with the milk crates. This is one way the economic destruction has destroyed family life. The sociologists have ignored the falling down the ladder and what it has done to life, and family relationships. There is so much anger and resentment towards the kids that have failed by the way, even the older adult children. I would sit in churches and I was a silent observer [this wasn't the UU, most were monied enough in there for their kids to be stable] but evangelical churches hearing boomers talking about their grown children--Gen X adult children and millennials, it got kind of vicious. One lady at a bible study complained about her always unemployed daughter. I couldn't handle sitting there. These people didn't know my circumstances, I think we were more stable that year but on the broke side. They hold their adult kids responsible. That goes back to the gaslighting I wrote about today where "America is a rich nation", the "failures are at fault" instead of anyone asking why so many of the adult children failed to get stable lives. I know people in their 60s-70s-80s having 30-50 something adult children living with them. If generations are seeing children fail like this, [whether their fault or not of course] the next generation will be less interested. Even the children will take care of you thing when you grow old has been turned on it's head. I think the psychologists and sociologists are too out of touch especially with how lower classes live, they are missing so much. Maybe there's no interest in following these trends in academic, I'm not sure. The gaslighting about the economy means gaslighting about reality in many sectors. I'm glad some woke up about the fact narcissists do get worse as they age. Thanks Lise.
You said "I have read articles in newspapers about how 'family' keeps going down, and down, and down on the list of priorities."
DeleteJust yesterday I was reading this article in the NY Times by Michal Leibowitz that covered a lot of these issues you brought up. URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/opinion/therapy-estrangement-childless-millennials.html
It starts out with these lines:
"They mess you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you."
It's part of a poem written by Philip Larkin and supposedly it's a favorite poem among shrinks.
Anyway, Leibowitz's article covers issues from why 1 in 3 Gen Zers don't want kids. Here's stats on that:
https://www.newsweek.com/genz-millennials-young-people-dont-want-children-birth-rate-declining-1977238
It covers why 27 percent of Millennials are estranged from a parent (known estrangements via mental health workers' stats - the rate is probably quite a bit more). 26 percent of Gen Zers are estranged from a parent so it seems to be following the trends of Millennials (again, it's probably higher for them too).
The reason why so many are estranged? Here's an excerpt:
"Americans have redefined 'harm,' 'abuse,' 'neglect' and 'trauma,' expanding those categories to include emotional and relational struggles that were previously considered unavoidable parts of life. Adult children seem increasingly likely to publicly, even righteously, cut off contact with a parent, sometimes citing emotional, physical or sexual abuse they experienced in childhood and sometimes things like clashing values, parental toxicity or feeling misunderstood or unsupported."
Gen Zers are also much more in touch with what constitutes abuse than previous generations because they go to therapists far more than any other generation in the history of the U.S.A. They also know what constitutes trauma much more than any other generations too. The definitions also changed with that generation not only to include emotional abuse and verbal abuse which had been legitimized for the later-born Baby Boomers, Gen X and Millennials, but for Gen Z psychologists included on that list not being heard or seen as being traumatic (i.e. being ignored a lot, not being taken seriously, the child's feelings being minimized, not being understood, their words taken out of context, parents who mis-interpreted or re-interpreted their children's words in ways that never got to the truth of what was happening, constant frustrations with a parent's comprehension of what was going on, etc). None of these are small matters, so trauma therapists were right to list these as traumatic events especially if you lived a whole childhood full of them.
One thing the article overlooked was the fact that 30 percent of Gen Zers identify as LGTBQ+ in America (they also tend to be progressive liberals, unlike Gen X who come in at 21% liberal, and Baby Boomers at 44%).
In terms of LGBTQ+, Millennials identify at 14% (half of Gen Z). Gen X identifies at 5%. Baby Boomers identify at 3%. The Silent Generation identify at 1.8%. Some of that and drastic political loyalties and identities from the youngest generation is causing rifts.
Cont ...
Cont ...
DeleteIn terms of the article I wrote above, I somehow don't think this is a factor in these more egregious cases. It seems more to do with what this article says:
"'Everyday Sadists' Are More Common Than You Think" by Kelly Dickerson for Business Insider (taken from professional research papers).
https://www.businessinsider.com/sadistic-tendencies-are-common-2013-9
and
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/study-sadism-more-common-than-people-think.html
While studies vary in terms "why" some people want to inflict pain on others, the more important fact is that enough people do to make it seem that being amongst human beings are like going through minefields. Some of them are going to be perfectly nice, but there is a pretty good chance that a lot of us will encounter a sadist at some point in our lives.
I also think sadism is one of the more perplexing parts of human beings, especially when it comes to torturing their own children, or imprisoning them. It seems to be a "brain matter" in certain individuals:
https://www.google.com/search?q=sadism+reward+centers+in+the+brain