GET A MOVE ON!

GET A MOVE ON!

I really have to apologize for not posting sooner. I have been totally inundated for the last almost six months. Most of it family related and may even end up providing topics for further use. It certainly isn’t due to a lack of material to write about. In fact, some of the problem is that there is too much to write about especially as I am new to this. Every time I open a newspaper I see something else I want to address and learning how to “file” it away for the future is not easy.

One topic that keeps coming up is due to feedback I have been getting about being male and addressing the problem of domestic abuse. Time and time again I keep getting comments made to me personally or in writing, about how refreshing it is to see a man talking about these things. That’s sad, really sad. Until men who feel like I do start writing and speaking on this subject it is only going to keep getting worse. Yes, I know there are professors and therapists and psychologist and psychiatrists writing on the subject but until the rest of us speak out then domestic abuse will still remain the subject of lectures and publications. By the “rest of us” I mean men who are tired of seeing their mothers, sisters, daughters, neighbors, and even ex wives being subjected to this inexcusable behavior.

According to a recent study I mentioned in a post entitled “This Has Got to Stop” on another site , one in four women were subject to abuse. This, of course got me to thinking about my own children. At the time I mentioned that I had four daughters. This means the statistics indicate that one of mine was abused, probably by her husband. I was recently re-acquainted with my daughters after over 20 years had passed. The reunion was beautiful, everything a father who thought his children lost could hope for. Unfortunately, as the history of the past years was brought up this wonderful reunion had a dark side.

One of my daughters hadn’t been abused. In a father’s worst nightmare I found that all four of them had been abused. Some, not just by their partners but also by their step-fathers physically and sexually. Before I was just angry, now I am outraged. While there is no way I can feel the pain they had to go through I can certainly feel the pain of being a father whose daughters had to suffer the kind of brutality that went on in those homes.

IF YOU ARE A FATHER, BROTHER, OR SON THEN SPEAK UP! It will never stop until we do. It will never stop until we let the abusers around us know that we find their behavior unacceptable. It will never stop if we continue to turn our heads because it isn’t our mother, sister, or daughter. It will never stop if we continue to call friend, the man who abuses the women or children in his life. We cannot wait for somebody else, or some agency, or some focus group to fix it. We are the only ones who can show the world we will no longer tolerate abuse of women.

We need to get a move on, it needs to stop now!

Heeess Baaack!

For those of you kind enough to visit, I must apologize for the hiatus in posting. First of all, I should have known better than to start a blog during the Chrismas and New Years holiday. Secondly, I had a major reunion with some family I hadn't seen in years. So, I've knid of been taking care of family business. Have faith, more is coming in the next few days, I promise.

THINK WHAT IT WILL DO TO HIS CAREER!

One of the most irritating, gag reflex inducing, red rage generating, phrases in existence. That sentence in itself should be considered abuse because it is a slap in the face to women everywhere.

Many times it’s spoken by people who know the abuser and his victim. Often it’s used in an attempt to dissuade the victim from reporting the abuse, BY THE VICTIMS OWN “FRIENDS”. People who don’t want to face the fact that someone they know, maybe even like, is physically abusing his wife. The “Think what it will do to his career.” argument is one of the most used excuses for just letting it go. I don’t know how many times I have heard or read long, rambling discussions from these so called friends about how the victim is making it hard on everybody, that she is forcing people to take sides (heard this before?). She shouldn’t have to make people to take sides; they should have already done so.

I knew (or thought I did) a man, a man I called my friend. We helped each other cut wood, shovel snow, fix our trucks. My wife and I sat next to them in church; I shook his hand and called him “Brother”.

Until the day he put his wife in the hospital. The day we found out it had been going on for months. The day we all realized he was a dirt bag

Maybe she’s a nag, maybe she’s cheating on him, or maybe she’s nagging him about cheating on her! Maybe she spends all their money on clothes, drugs, alcohol. Fine, shame on her, perhaps her or they should be in counseling, maybe they should consider a divorce. Whatever she is doing there are no acceptable excuses for violence.

If you have any integrity at all, you know it is wrong! The person who is creating the problem is not her for reporting it; it’s him for doing it. Physical abuse of a spouse is against the law! It’s a crime. If he were beating up some stranger he met in a bar the police would haul him away. It’s no different if he is beating up his wife or girlfriend, actually it’s worse because he is supposed to be someone who protects her, not harming her. He should be thinking about what it will do to his career. He should be thinking about what it will do to his partner, the mother of his children, the woman he said he loved! He should think about what it will do to his children who see him beat his wife, their mother, unconscious.

We should think about not covering it up, not letting it go on another day.