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Instead of a gift, flowers or even a card, two Jersey City teens gave their mom a beating on Mother's Day, according to Jersey City police.

The 14-and 15-year-old brothers were arrested for simple assault Sunday after sending their mother to the Jersey City Medical Center for treatment of cuts and bruises, Sgt. Edgar Martinez said...

...The 31-year-old Van Horne Street mom said her sons attacked her about 11 a.m. because she refused to give them cash to buy expensive clothes, Martinez said.
"They didn't even say 'Happy Mother's Day' that morning," she said sadly.

"We were sitting there watching TV and they started asking me for $100 sneakers, jeans," she said inside her apartment yesterday. "When I said no, they started cursing me, telling me they hated me. Then they 'mushed' me into that wall."

The boys then punched and kicked her, chasing her and continuing the attack even after she fled into the hallway, she said. The beating stopped when a concerned neighbor called police and the boys fled.

Later that afternoon, they came back to the apartment and tried to kick down the apartment door. Police then arrived and arrested them, taking them to the Hudson County Youth House in Secaucus.

She said police offered to release the boys and return them to her custody, but she refused to take them in, saying she has to protect her 5-year-old son from them.
"I'm too scared for my baby," she said. "They're my kids, why did they hit me? I tried to buy them nice things, Nike, Timberlands, but I'm a single mother."

The mom said her oldest son, a freshman at Lincoln High School, punched her in the mouth a month ago and gave her a black eye after another argument over expensive clothing.

She said the father of all three boys is in prison for aggravated assault for beating her, as well as drug charges.

Peter Herbst, director of the Hudson County Child Abuse Center, said the family is living in "an atmosphere of violence."

"To beat up one who's weaker than you - for the dad, it was mom, for the kids, it's mom," Herbst said. "If you are a boy who sees your father beat up mother for not doing 'the right thing,' then if mom doesn't do 'the right thing' for you, the rationality is 'Why not? That's what Dad did.'"

The teens are now staying with their father's sister, who said she hopes to take custody of them.

"They didn't punch her, they just pushed her," the aunt said. "She didn't give them anything. They didn't have their own TV, nice clothes."