The War Within the Home
What is the biggest threat to “the family” and yet the one thing you rarely hear on the frontline of any presidential campaign, especially the current one? Domestic violence.
So many of our tax dollars are spent on waging wars abroad and ineffectual wars (against poverty, pre-marital sex, drugs, cancer, etc.) but what about the war within the home? What about the war zone that children wade through every day wondering if their father will kill them/himself /or their mother or if their mother will kill them/herself/or their father? What if we took even a fraction of the “tax break” for the rich to devote to ensuring social safety nets to not only treat victims and survivors of domestic violence but also to prevent it entirely? Can you imagine how many families would be protected and thriving with some intelligent and compassionate policy making? Yes I know that feminists have had a long history of working to change policies around domestic violence but this is not just a “women’s issue.” So please, don’t try to dance around it just because some call it a “liberal” or “feminist” issue with a demeaning, accusatory tone.
This is personal and political. The Clothesline Project is an amazing testament to the ability and will of victims to survive. What so many people forget is that domestic violence also deeply affects those who witness it most, the children. I spent many years of my childhood watching my mother being beaten, humiliated, and called every cruel, dehumanizing name imaginable. She was often forced to beg her husband, on her hands and knees, for money to feed her children. I remember being very young and small but putting myself between them to try and keep her from being killed. I truly believed she would be killed at any moment. Though I was never hit by my stepfather, the reality of living like that, in a war zone in my own home, meant that I was always afraid. We lived in a perpetual climate of fear. Would he come home tonight in a good mood? Would he force her to have sex with him? Would he beat her into the floor again? Would he demean her for being “an ugly, stupid bitch” before or after she did some "stupid thing to piss him off"? Why didn’t she just leave? Why did she go back when she finally managed to get away? He didn’t physically force her to stay, unless of course you consider force, the threat of death, should she leave.
***
I thought things would change after I left home. I thought that I was the primary source of their tension, being that their tension was primarily the economic strain of having to support three people on minimum wage. When I returned five years later, I found my mother anorexic and an alcoholic. My stepfather had become even more brutal. Now he beat her no matter who was standing there. The last straw for me was when he threatened to hurt my son, my two-year old son, because he had the audacity to scream at him “Grandpa, please stop hurting my grandma!” I remember my mother crying to us to “run, to leave now, before he hurts us.” We ran. It took years before I’d stop running.
I have not gone back. I am, however, politely numb when he speaks to me on the phone. My mother says, “He is so proud of you. He considers you his daughter, you know. He loves you and your family.” Only recently did I find the courage to say tactfully, I really don’t care what he thinks he loves. I said, “I do not remember him ever being kind to you. I do not recall him ever touching you lovingly, except when you left him and he was afraid and wanted you back. When your son (and his son) died, he was not there. He used to call him “Crip” short for crippled when he was in a bad mood. Your son only lived to reach 1st grade, but I remember when you were pregnant, how he tried to beat the baby out of you. I remember how he kicked your belly until you bled, trying to force your body to abort your child. When I think of these things, I want to hate him. The fact that I want to hate him hurts me more and more.”
The images fall in silence.
“I’m sorry.” I say. Still afraid, I’ll hurt your feelings. Still afraid that all you had left to make you feel human was my silence and reassurance.
“I don’t know how yet. I haven’t learned yet how to forgive him for all of the years he has and continues to hurt everyone he is supposed to love.”
***
I am grateful for the Clothesline project because it is an undeniably visible expression of the suffering that so many have endured in silence. Whenever I see one of the shirts that a child has painted I want to cry, for my brother, for my mother, for myself. Most of all I want to take that shirt and hang it on the wall of every political office so that every legislator and every candidate can think of those who desperately need sane policies. I want them to consider every tax dollar sent to finance the military-industrial complex or to build “smarter” weapons, as each of these diverted dollars takes resources away from families. So you say you want to protect the family, I want you to prove it. Prove it to that child whose red palm prints on the white t-shirt drip beneath the words, Why is Daddy hurting Mommy? Prove it to those of us who are adults now and who will stand in your doorway and not go away or go quietly. We ask you to please think about those who have no voice politically and whom your policies will affect most. After all, we can wage wars on every damn continent if we choose, but we can only ignore this war for so long before the social costs tear this nation apart.
So many of our tax dollars are spent on waging wars abroad and ineffectual wars (against poverty, pre-marital sex, drugs, cancer, etc.) but what about the war within the home? What about the war zone that children wade through every day wondering if their father will kill them/himself /or their mother or if their mother will kill them/herself/or their father? What if we took even a fraction of the “tax break” for the rich to devote to ensuring social safety nets to not only treat victims and survivors of domestic violence but also to prevent it entirely? Can you imagine how many families would be protected and thriving with some intelligent and compassionate policy making? Yes I know that feminists have had a long history of working to change policies around domestic violence but this is not just a “women’s issue.” So please, don’t try to dance around it just because some call it a “liberal” or “feminist” issue with a demeaning, accusatory tone.
This is personal and political. The Clothesline Project is an amazing testament to the ability and will of victims to survive. What so many people forget is that domestic violence also deeply affects those who witness it most, the children. I spent many years of my childhood watching my mother being beaten, humiliated, and called every cruel, dehumanizing name imaginable. She was often forced to beg her husband, on her hands and knees, for money to feed her children. I remember being very young and small but putting myself between them to try and keep her from being killed. I truly believed she would be killed at any moment. Though I was never hit by my stepfather, the reality of living like that, in a war zone in my own home, meant that I was always afraid. We lived in a perpetual climate of fear. Would he come home tonight in a good mood? Would he force her to have sex with him? Would he beat her into the floor again? Would he demean her for being “an ugly, stupid bitch” before or after she did some "stupid thing to piss him off"? Why didn’t she just leave? Why did she go back when she finally managed to get away? He didn’t physically force her to stay, unless of course you consider force, the threat of death, should she leave.
***
I thought things would change after I left home. I thought that I was the primary source of their tension, being that their tension was primarily the economic strain of having to support three people on minimum wage. When I returned five years later, I found my mother anorexic and an alcoholic. My stepfather had become even more brutal. Now he beat her no matter who was standing there. The last straw for me was when he threatened to hurt my son, my two-year old son, because he had the audacity to scream at him “Grandpa, please stop hurting my grandma!” I remember my mother crying to us to “run, to leave now, before he hurts us.” We ran. It took years before I’d stop running.
I have not gone back. I am, however, politely numb when he speaks to me on the phone. My mother says, “He is so proud of you. He considers you his daughter, you know. He loves you and your family.” Only recently did I find the courage to say tactfully, I really don’t care what he thinks he loves. I said, “I do not remember him ever being kind to you. I do not recall him ever touching you lovingly, except when you left him and he was afraid and wanted you back. When your son (and his son) died, he was not there. He used to call him “Crip” short for crippled when he was in a bad mood. Your son only lived to reach 1st grade, but I remember when you were pregnant, how he tried to beat the baby out of you. I remember how he kicked your belly until you bled, trying to force your body to abort your child. When I think of these things, I want to hate him. The fact that I want to hate him hurts me more and more.”
The images fall in silence.
“I’m sorry.” I say. Still afraid, I’ll hurt your feelings. Still afraid that all you had left to make you feel human was my silence and reassurance.
“I don’t know how yet. I haven’t learned yet how to forgive him for all of the years he has and continues to hurt everyone he is supposed to love.”
***
I am grateful for the Clothesline project because it is an undeniably visible expression of the suffering that so many have endured in silence. Whenever I see one of the shirts that a child has painted I want to cry, for my brother, for my mother, for myself. Most of all I want to take that shirt and hang it on the wall of every political office so that every legislator and every candidate can think of those who desperately need sane policies. I want them to consider every tax dollar sent to finance the military-industrial complex or to build “smarter” weapons, as each of these diverted dollars takes resources away from families. So you say you want to protect the family, I want you to prove it. Prove it to that child whose red palm prints on the white t-shirt drip beneath the words, Why is Daddy hurting Mommy? Prove it to those of us who are adults now and who will stand in your doorway and not go away or go quietly. We ask you to please think about those who have no voice politically and whom your policies will affect most. After all, we can wage wars on every damn continent if we choose, but we can only ignore this war for so long before the social costs tear this nation apart.
Peace!
"They gotta war for me They gotta war for you!!!"
"We Don't Stop"-- Michael Franti/Spearhead
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