A Dad Cautions: Spousal Abuse is Child Abuse
August 19, 2010
by Karen
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Children need a secure and loving environment in order to mature into emotionally and psychologically healthy adults. When a father abuses or injures the mother of their children, the children also feel the effects. A child’s primary source of love and security comes from the parents. When one parent attacks the other, whether verbally or physically, this attack removes the sense of love and security that the child needs at home. A young child loves both the mother and father. When they fight, the child’s love is torn between the two. Sometimes, this love is shattered and must be repaired.
Bill Patrick who worked at a visitation center became aware of this issue after hearing a toddler scream at his father to stop hitting his mother:
A lot of [the fathers] loved their children deeply. And their children loved them back. But this issue became very clear to me the day when I saw a three year-old boy confront his father with the heartbreaking phrase: “No hurt mommy!” No father should ever put his child in that position.
Bill Patrick has listed many things men do to hurt their wives or ex-wives that also hurt the children.
Yelling at the children’s mom.
Calling her names.
Being cruel to her.
Being disrespectful to her.
Threatening her.
Harassing her.
Stalking her.
Shoving her.
Punching her.
Leaving the vast majority of the childrearing responsibilities up to her.
Being “late” with the child support.
Trying to bury her financially by dragging out court proceedings.
Hiding assets to make sure that she does not get a fair deal.
Maliciously threatening to take custody of the kids
So, before you do anything, please think about how this will affect the children.
You can check out Bill Patrick’s blog, bill’s profeminist blog, here.
Bill,
This is exactly what I experienced growing up in my household over 30 years ago. My father abused my mother, but even worse, my mother then put me in the position to protect her in a variety of ways that were unfair to me. Until I ended my relationship with my parents one year ago, she continued to do so, telling me that if I did not do certain things or behave it certain ways he would abuse her. I felt the responsibility for so many years, but I have finally let go. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Carol,
I came from an abusive home too, where my stepfather physically and mentally abused my mother. While she didn’t put me in the position your mother did, I can honestly say I understand why your mother may have done this.
Once I had grown up and left home, I began to realize the horror my mother lived in everyday with my stepfather, who was an alcoholic, never knowing when he was going to turn on her and scream for hours and then end up slapping her around. I remember being angry with my mother for not leaving him. However, after being away for a number of years, and then, when I was old enough, taking her out of that situation, I saw my mother for the first time without my stepfather’s influence and understood why she didn’t leave him. I also saw this wonderful, gentle woman hiding within herself and unable to have any kind of relationship with anyone else because he had destroyed any friendship she ever tried to have and she didn’t know how to connect with people any longer.
After getting her out of that house and bringing her home with me, I had finally come to realize that I was wrong to be angry at her. I realized that it was my stepfather who deserved my anger. She was the victim and did not deserve my anger at her for not leaving.
She died at a relatively young age, but I have never gotten over how I blamed her for staying and not standing up to him for his terrible misreatment of me and my brothers and I regret with all my heart not giving her the understanding and love she totally deserved for a situation she had no power to change because he had beaten down her self-estem down to a nub and said he would kill her if she left. She had lost all hope of leaving him on her own. Also, this was at a time when society turned a blind eye to domestic abuse as a “personal problem”. She had no family other than me and my brothers. She had no where to go.
While I am glad that I did get her out of that situation, I lost a lot by blaming my mother for staying, instead of choosing to understand and forgive.
carol and Kathleen, thanks for sharing your stories.
Karen the link to Bill Patrick’s site is great. he also gave a talk in Canada with the topic of the evolutionary myth of rape. very good data to use in it.
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