Domestic Violence Victims
“Let’s get ready to leave for father’s day service! We’re late.” Her teen daughter’s voice is screeching from her room, “You’ve got to be kidding me! I’m not going to honor a man who is so cruel to us. Mom, what are you doing? Don’t you live here? Don’t you see? Why are you doing this? Well I’m not having any part of this charade. I’m staying here!”
What do you do? You are Mom and what do you do when faced with your daughter’s truth; A truth about which you have been in denial? She is goading you. She is asking that you do something no, she is begging that you do something. She is begging you to stick up for her; that you keep her safe. She is appalled that you are celebrating someone that makes your lives miserable every day.
As it turned out this Mom did not understand her daughter’s anger towards her. Her daughter always seemed to be so angry. This Mom did not know why. Why her daughter wasn’t more respectful. She could sense that her daughter thought she was weak. Her daughter swore she would not grow up to be anything like her mother. Her anger is understandable only when you can appreciate what the mother has done to her daughter. She has let her down. She should be keeping her daughter safe and instead it would seem as though she has conspired with her abusive husband to maintain the façade of a happy home rather than the truth of a safe home.
You can never underestimate the personal self-esteem challenges that it takes to have a woman marry and stay with an abusive husband, but when you are confronted with a daughter that has guts to say what she sees rather than keeping those feelings inside and bleeding or purging them out, it should give you a reason to pause. Her daughter’s anger is justified. Parents are supposed to keep their teens safe, not put them in harm’s way.
If you know of a teen that is enduring abuses, please do what you can to change their environment. It is the one way you can change the teen. Sometimes you can recognize it when they take their anger out on others while other times you will see them direct it inwards as depression, cutting or addiction disorders like drug abuse. If it is not safe, call the police, call protective services, offer a safe haven, or give safe resources in the community, pro bono lawyers, organizations that help battered women and their children. Whatever you do please do something. These teens are suffering and if they can’t depend on their parents in order to restore their faith in themselves, they should be able to depend on an adult in their community.
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