I have a lot of things to say about a lot of things. Often, my mind is going a mile a minute with words about things that need to be talked about. And they aren't. Because it's uncomfortable, because someone might get mad. There are so many secrets kept in the world, so many lies, so much left unsaid. People are afraid and people are getting hurt. It's time to stop that. What I am thinking about now is the bullying of women and children by men. Let's call it what it is: abuse.
Your children are not your property or your accomplishment. They are not here to make you feel loved or worthy. If you come to parenting feeling that way, you damn well better figure it out and get it fixed or, guess what? You will have children who feel unloved and unworthy. People who feel unloved and unworthy can tend to do stupid stuff; they might make bad decisions and get in trouble with the law. They might hurt people. Often, the people they hurt the most are the ones they profess to love. If you are the kind of father who was a bully in school and treated your girlfriends badly, you will likely be the same kind of husband and father.
If you yell at the mother of your children, call her names, scare her and basically bully her into doing whatever you want, whenever you want, you are an abuser. If you smack your kids in anger, call them names and generally terrify them so that you can feel bigger and in control, you are abusing your children. Plain and simple. Guess what else? You are teaching your children to be abusers as well. If you treat their mother this way, you are abusing her.
The single most important thing you can do for your children is to treat their mother well. They will learn how to treat women (and people in general). They will internalize that love. They will learn respect from being taught respect. (Newsflash: Fear and respect are not the same thing!) Your children grew inside the body of their mother; they were literally ONE for 9 months. What you do to her, you do to them.
Have you ever been afraid? I mean really afraid? Like your life could now end afraid? Did you have someone 2 to 4 times your size standing over the top of you? Screaming at you? Maybe threatening to hit you or just screaming at you with such a look on their face that you thought they could completely lose control? I am talking about terror. And when that terror is perpetrated by one of the people who is supposed to love you more than anyone else in the world, your world is changed. You are changed.
If you are doing this to your children or girlfriend or spouse, you are abusing them. You don't have to hit them to be abusive, but there is a really good chance that you will do that too. Some day. Abuse is progressive and the more it is allowed and kept silent, the worse it gets. Do you "just" throw things? That is abuse. Do you threaten? Rant and rage? That is abuse. Do you want them to be afraid of you? You are an abuser.
The way I see it, you have very few choices here. First, get help. Fast. There may or may not be any help for you. I don't know. I used to think that anyone could be helped if they wanted it badly enough. Now, I am wondering if there are some people who have just gone on too long and had their brains so hard-wired to behave a certain way that it is hopeless. Maybe you need to be struck by lightening or something. If you have been raised this way yourself, get help before you become a father.
All of those years of feeling helpless and worthless are liable to come rushing back to you when you have a child and think you "deserve" respect (read: fear). If it's too late, as are the cases I am considering, maybe you should consider whether or not they would be better off without you in their lives at all. Just a thought. I don't think you should be hurt, I have never wished ill onto anyone in my life. I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Seriously, I have spent hours upon hours praying for you to get better. But, your children, your girlfriend, your wife all deserve to feel loved and cared for. And if they feel that they are in danger around you, then they should not be around you.
The number one human need is to feel safe in the world. The number one person or people to provide this feeling of safety to a child is their parents. Don't you get it? If they are not safe with you, they may never ever feel safe in the world. With anyone. They will have to work at it, and figure it out and struggle and wonder what in the world is wrong with them. Do I write as if I know whereof I speak? I do.
I have spent my entire life being understanding
of the bad behavior that I have not only been a recipient of but also a
witness to. I have made excuses for them: "He had such a hard life. Look at how bad he feels about
himself. It is so sad." Yes. Yes it is. I am a very compassionate and empathetic human being. But it has to stop
somewhere. It has to stop now. We need to begin looking to the next 7
generations and not just the moment we are living in. If there is abuse
in a family, and you could look back in time, there is a very very good
chance that the abuse goes back for generations. Look at it this way:
If you get help and you stop the cycle now, with your generation, you
are literally saving thousands of people in the future from the same
fate. Have you ever looked at your family tree? There are lots of
people there. I am not exaggerating. Thousands. If you are the victim and your children are victims, you can get out now and get help so that the cycle is not perpetuated.
If you are a victim of abuse or are not sure if it's "really" abuse, here is a good resource to read a list of behaviors that are abusive. What is abuse? You may be unpleasantly surprised to find that you are, in fact, being abused or witnessing abuse. If you are ready to get out, this site has some resources to help you. Leaving Abuse.
If you are too scared, call me. I will help you. I will do anything I can to help you. But you have to want to change. You have to want help. If you are the victim, and you have children, please do it for them if you can't do it for yourself. I love you.
It is a pleasant surprise to see a voice speak out, from within, that expresses so much truth about a situation that is quite delicate.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that this issue is left unsaid, and I feel that an unwritten rule is created where the abuse continues to happen and the person feels helpless, alone, and too scared to say anything. It becomes a behavior that the person can avoid, something that they can "work around". It is a situation that is learned and perfected, but hardly resolved.
Children, the innocent beacons of future generations. As you had mentioned, they can take a positive change that can put to rest abuse towards them and their loved ones. The insecurity of the abuser is unloaded unto them in frustration, a slight hope in their eyes that they will know, understand. But that isn't right. A child, mother, sibling, or partner cannot take the responsibility of their sorrows, something that has left the abuser to lash out in anger, never realizing that the answer lies within themselves.
We are all worthy of love, and to those abusers, they can gain so much strength from understanding their pain, to know that they can heal the mistakes that hurt them, to let go of the pain that has troubled them so.
The only people responsible for giving you respect, is you. You can give yourself the respect and love that you are worthy of sharing. We are human, equals in a world where we are all connected.
As different as we may seem on the outside, our hearts are all the same, we feel the same sorrows, fears, happiness, laughter.
Your words are inspiring Lori, and oh so true. We are all blessed with the power to heal. To heal our wounds, heal our lived ones, and share our love.