Well, I was wrong, and I actually broke a promise. Something I don't like to do. "nuff said", I need to get to what I wanted to post.

Domestic abuse has hit closer to home. Much closer than I ever wanted to see. A close member of the family has just spent over a year in an abusive relationship. There is a certain expectation to the old tradition of a Father giving away a Daughter in marriage. The father is in effect saying. " I have loved, nurtured, protected, and sustained this Daughter. She is now marrying you. I am no longer the person directly involved in her well-being although I will still continue to love her and provide anything she may still need from me. Here is the important part. It is now your job to love, nurture, protect and sustain her I expect you to do this. I expect you to respect the person she is and not try to mold her into some vision you have in your mind. If she is not good enough for you as she is, you need to marry someone else. If you do not love her as she is, you need to love someone else. DO NOT HARM MY DAUGHTER IN ANY WAY, PHYSICAL OR MENTAL. She has been raised by someone who was grateful to have her and sees her as an equal, not a piece of clay to be shaped into some kind image of what you think she should be. I will write more later when my anger has cooled.

Father's Day

I wrote this on my Facebook page for my children and friends to see. I think it is important for others to see this also.

"Another Father’s Day,

Again I wish to say that it is wonderful to be appreciated by one’s own children. But it is also a day that (should) remind a father of the importance of being one. It is a tremendous undertaking and one with a huge amount of responsibility. A father should always be a person their children can look up to. A person that sons and daughters both can look up to and admire. A person of integrity that can be trusted to be the person he says he is. A person of honesty that is truthful in his dealings with his family. When a girl becomes a woman she will be blessed if she was raised by a father who treated her mother with love, honor, and respect so that she has learned to expect that same treatment from the person she has chosen as her life’s companion. A son needs to see the demonstration of love, honor, and respect given by his father to his mother so that he will learn to treat his life’s companion in the same manner. Both children need to see their father treat all women with respect so that they will both  expect and demand that when they are grown.

Children want to love and respect their parents. It causes almost irreparable harm if their parents loose that love and respect. This is why being a father is that tremendous undertaking, it is incumbent upon all fathers to be worthy of their children.

My children are an indescribable blessing to me and have brought me more joy than I have words for. I can only hope that I am worthy of mine.

Today I have received several messages of love from my children and I want all of you to know that I love you beyond measure."

Fathers, if you cannot see this, if you do not understand the importance of treating women and children with respect then you need to re-examine yourselves and think of what kind of damage you do to your children and the women in your lives.

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.

Why Am I Here

For years I have either witnessed or read about violence against women. For a time, I said nothing, did nothing, but as the years went by feelings grew stronger and I have reached the point where I must speak out. In the last couple of years I started making comments on other blogs. Eventually some of them invited me to post on their blogs for which I am grateful beyond words and on which I will continue to post. One of them suggested that I start my own blog and thanks to her and the others I now have the courage to do so.

Rape is on of the most degrading acts that can be performed on another person. It is devasting to the victim who often becomes the target of demeaning and even antagonistic treatment for reporting the crime. Although it does happen to men by far and away women are the targets. Think for a minute, these are our mothers, wives, sisters and more. It is beyond my comprehension how we as a society and as individuals can allow this to continue.

Domestic violence is inexcuseable. The home is supposed to be a place of refuge. A safe haven for all the members of the family. Commonly the wives and children see the husband as the protector. When he turns to violence as a means to control or as targets of his frustration in life he becomes less than a man. He who would destroy the sanctity of the home is one of the lowest forms of life. There is no excuse for abuse!