Archive for March 2009
Does IPV, DV talk stop it? 2 Australians Talk about this.
Actually, “speak” would be more accurate than”talk.” I have put together two links on this topic. The 2nd was a referral, the 1st inspired today’s blog to which I, a U.S. Citizen, respond.
“Shining a light into the murky depths of partner violence”
An update on IPV in Australia that came to my attention. The article is posted in full below.
My next blog is my viewpoint on the migration of ideas from afar, also pointing out that foggy vocabulary can be intentional, or careless, but either way, transmigration of bad ideas “happens.”
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Katie Dunlop [credits below article] talks like me, which is why I posted her whole article here. With feedback interspersed. I do not share her optimism in the general public’s will to do something about it, if only they realized what IPV really was, if only the media would get it straight.
BUT She notices the discrepancy between what “IPV” represents, visually, in real-time injuries and deaths. She is THINKING about the topic with a view to addressing it.
When “IPV” (yes, that’s a euphemism) becomes “IV” (intravenously injected into your life, either directly or vicariously association) there are only two options: ACTING or NOT ACTING. The only way I can guess how people choose NOT ACT is that they have become adept at NOT THINKING, possibly as a survival skill.
Commentary:
When a known batterer not only has, but has been given, one’s children (case in point) (was I “gender-neutral enough” in that statement?) this not thinking about it is somewhat harder. I have also watched my family figure out (with apparent grace & ease) how to “not think about it.” They refuse to interact with me (probably because in most contacts, I focus on some version of “where are my daughters?” or “Why are you continuing to support someone who refuses to comply with any court order, give any account of seeking work, let alone who used to smack me around in front of them?“). These are not pleasant topics for any of us, naturally, and I feel that polite small talk is inappropriate for what are to me heinous (and insulting) crimes. In my family circle, any interaction using the words properly (legally) identifying the situation are tabu. This was how I determined my particular family of origin’s religion (if its secret, whatever belief sustains this practice of “we won’t talk about it.”), by tabulating the tabus, and taking note of who was sacrificed for what cause. Like many other religions, the sacrificees include women, elderly, and small children.
Another analogy that came to my mind in this matter, and in these societies, are simple packs of dogs. Once pecking order** is established, fighting and posturing are reduced. And face it, laws against domestic violence (IPV), or “hitting [primarily women] in the home” challenged the pecking order (**YES, I realize I have mixed-animal metaphors here; like any good bird dog, I cast about for words that smell right).
I have all along had irreconciliable differences with being hit in my home, and since then, irreconciliable differences with historical revisionism on the same. It’s also occurred to me that batterer fathers sometimes snatch the kids partly in order just to retain an stray female in the extended circle of influence, which certainly must be gratifying to the ego, I suppose. She’s not going to run TOO far if he has her kids.
Transcontinental Evolution of Ideas?
I feel for Ms. Dunlop, a certain innocence in thinking that the process of reporting and assuming that all parties, or the majority of the populace WANTS it to stop. Perhaps Australia has not yet gone through the shut-up or lose-your-kids process as thoroughly as here in the USA, where it is a war for proprietary use of the words Parent, Family, Child, and Abuse. I know the process happens, I have been reading.
This post on talking about IPV seems an appropriate time to reference “offourbacks.org,” and its classic “The Grammar of Male Violence.” Grammatic preference for indefinite concept nouns over actual actors shifts the focus from what happened to the theoretical air. For example:
“Domestic dispute costs 5 lives, again.”
Oh, really? No it didn’t. “Domestic dispute” is a word-label, and words do not directly shoot, stab, kill, behead its 3rd wife, or drop a 4 year old (female) child off a bridge to her death. A dispute doesn’t stalk. A dispute doesn’t cause one parent to adhere to court orders and another to break them. Or to issue orders that ignore safety issues. As hate-talk can incite violence, generic-noun descriptors for awful, graphically bloody or emotionally devastating, cash-flow-freezing, household switching, community-disrupting, taxpayer funds wasting events.
Generic nouns are the crime scene cleanup crew, on air. Now, a lot of us use words carelessly, but I DOUBT this is the case with either politicians, major news media [many of which are monopolies in the U.S.], or policymakers — i.e., anyone who has something that must sell.
So, Let’s Get Honest: Do not get caught with your pants down depersonalizing domestic violence or shielding an offence with the language of mutuality, at least when conversing with me, or within range of my blogs.
Thank you Ms. Dunlop, for speaking up, though.
[My comments inside brackets]
“Shining a light into the murky depths of partner violence”
Katie Dunlop
March 20, 2009
DOMESTIC violence, family violence, violence against women, intimate partner violence: we definitely have a range of phrases for the abuse men inflict on women and children within what ought to be relationships of trust and love. [Indeed, that is the real travesty, and very disturbing and disorienting once it begins] Pity we don’t use them to describe the murders we often see on our front pages — the kids driven into the dam or gassed in the car, the wife or girlfriend stabbed in her kitchen, thrown off a cliff or shot in scrubland.
[Well, I do! But yes, these terms are much more graphic, vivid and telling. And this is one reason I posted your article…It tells this.]
Aberrations? Love gone wrong? No. These instances of violence are just the tip of the iceberg. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is everywhere, even if you don’t know it. It seems the subject of IPV is taboo, so those who experience it assume the abuse is their problem [I’m glad you have qualified “it seems.” Speaking personally, I never assumed I caused “the abuse” (my ex to assault me), but because I lived with it, it became “my” problem.] and not the social and public health issue it really is. We need to start talking about IPV and we need to do it now. [Who, exactly is the “we”? These people already are. I just googled “Intimate Partner Violence in Australia” and 38,500 results arose, 3 of them scholarly articles.] I have long known that relationships could be abusive, but it had never occurred to me that IPV was a common experience for so many Australian women. […”until I – – – – – .” Thank you for the refreshing honesty. But I’m curious what pivotal factor got you involved? Was it a friend? Was it you? A relative? A poster somewhere? A news article. I would have liked to see the end of that sentence, giving more detail.]
Well, I didn’t know either, til it hit me, in the face. Not even until after I got out, years almost later, and read, and networked, did I realize the extent of it. This is because (#1) one facet of abuse is isolation. Like mold, it grows in the damp & dark privacy. It is NOT unnamed, it is simply called something else: “obedience,” “submission” “leadership” etc.. A true dilemma exists, because generally speaking homes SHOULD be private, but still this happens. Another reason (#2) may be that it’s simply not pleasant cocktail conversation.
Therefore, people who get involved are usually intensely personally involved. These typically fall into one of about three campaigns: (1) Like you, stopping IPV, and discussing how to, or (2) Stopping the Discussion of IPV. This cat is already out of the bag internationally; talk [more like clamor, debate, accusation and cross-accusation] IS happening, the general tactics of group#2, with whom I am unfortunately familiar, are to rename it, or divert the conversations on it into something less offensive and personal [to the abusers}, as in Richard Gardner, high-conflict (vs’ “violent’) and “alternate dispute resolution.” In MY book, me flat on the floor, or that family just slaughtered is NOT a “dispute,” nor was it before it happened, either. It was not a dispute, it was a battle. FYI, (1)s don’t talk with (2)s, they flood each other’s blogs, report about each other’s activities and try to stop each other’s forward progress, as in any good (?) political campaign.
And the (3)rd camp, alas, is simply opportunistic and recognizes a market niche when it sees one. The hallmarks of this general camp are pride on “not taking a side” (while doing exactly like that). Ships of state are indeed large, and although rudder sWILL steer a large ship, that rudder has to be properly placed. The rudders involve such things as words, money, and political connections / policy. Policy in the USA has to supposedly be based on something to help “the people” (that’s, for example, us poor suckers than need intervention of some sort from abuse, or homelessness in order to help fund these ships). As such, studies MUST be done to justify the policies. Here is where universities (Harvard et al), foundations, and nonprofits producing reports for the same come in. This is far more complex than saying “IPV is wrong and costs lives.”]. More than a third of Australian women who have had a boyfriend or husband experience abuse. Most shockingly, IPV is the leading contributor to death, disability and illness in women aged between 15 and 44.
[Where’s the citation? Mine is http://www.acestudy.org (to the right on this blog) and many, many other sources confirm.]
Since I began working with women who have experienced abuse, the reality of IPV has become even starker. Rather than numbers on a page, these are real women with faces and histories. Each of them has a unique but common story: of living with control, fear and abuse, and courageously doing all they can to look after themselves and their children who, as IPV witnesses and victims, also suffer devastating effects.
[The operative word here is “them.” Please produce their stories — and perhaps pay them something for it as well, once facts are checked. Now that would indeed help directly, as well as crisis intervention.]
If you are surprised at the extent of IPV, you are not alone. Our awareness of IPV in Australia is very poor. According to a recent Victorian study, many [many who? many women, many men?] think that women abuse their partners as much as men (false: men are the perpetrators 98 per cent of the time) or that IPV is excusable if it represents a “temporary loss of control”, or if the abuser subsequently apologises (false: many IPV incidents, especially murders, are premeditated).
How can we work together to solve a national crisis if a significant portion of the nation is unaware of the crisis in the first place? [According to your report, assuming women are perhaps half the population (DNK about Down Under), approximately 1/6th of them, not including children, already are, by virtue of experiencing it. However, to name it is one step, to leave it quite another.] In an atmosphere where IPV is shrouded in silence and myth, asking for help involves the risk of being judged or misunderstood.
We must aim for a society in which women can ask for help, secure in the knowledge they will be supported and respected. [I would like to change this paradigm and address the absent noun — the men who hit (not all men do). Why “women”? ????? [hint — the question marks are a link, also see blogroll…”The Grammar of Male Violence” has been on this “offourbacks.org” site since 2004. It still applies. Let’s help keep each other honest. Get off MY back and, in the discussions, grammatically, REFUSE to use generic nouns, passive verbs and an abundance of references to women followed by the verbs such as “need, are, become,” and other things which are reminiscent of panhandling which is what we get reduced for when we must go too many rounds asking for ‘intervention,” without the full data on who is doing this and with what agenda.]
Why not aim instead for a society in which such men fear and hate to beat a woman, because there are SOCIAL consequences, and/or possibly PHYSICAL, including that he might suddenly find himself on the receiving end of a return defensive volley? or FINANCIAL — institute and enforce IMMEDIATE financial penalties. upon conviction.**] [I know a lot of women (I’m 50+) and barely a one of them qualifies as helpless and waiting for it. The term “women can ask for help” is not specific enough.] [**This may not be wise, as we have seen that some abusers will die rather than stick around to take the consequences of an escalation in abuse, especially when it goes lethal.]
Re: this phrase:
We must aim for a society in which women can ask for help, secure in the knowledge they will be supported and respected. [This one phrase stood out as the most inappropriate, though it sounds great. Who is “we”? Do you not realize that what may appear to be a “we” actually includes a great many individuals in high authority who don’t necessarily agree that violence against women IS unacceptable (in private). ?? These exist in the exact same quarters that didn’t talk about it (when knowing it happened) to start with. Is there a way in Australia to hold THOSE authorities accountable also? How about the religious institutions, the courts, the schools, the law enforcement — there are many areas where men who batter women live. Are they all going to undergo a housecleaning process?
When I filed my restraining order (it took time and wasn’t easy), yes, temporarily, I was a women receiving respect and help. There was a lot of repair and rebuilding, principally (but not only) profession! BUT, when I then proceeded to go about my life peaceably, and at a safe distance– setting boundaries and refusing to take orders (after a point) that weren’t in backed up by a court order, the father of my daughters (who was seeing them weekly, when he chose to, a very generous arrangement granted to him via mediation) other entities came in, advised my husband to bounce the case to family court, and as I speak, I have been unemployed for over a year, and not seen my daughters, basically, for almost three ( glimpse here and there) Seeing them is held in abeyance by two factors: 1. STILL, a concern for physical safety, and 2. STILL, economic duress. This is now close to 20 years of my adult, prime-time life when people are attempting to establish a livelihood that may support them now AND later, if not for children. I had to stop and duke it out in a court system. In retrospect, it MIGHT’ve been better to stay and duke it out with him in a different matter .]
Being equipped with the information and ability to talk about IPV also allows us to recognise and respond to the signs of abuse in our own relationships and in those of our friends and family. By transforming our silence — which implicitly accepts and condones IPV — into a loud and clear conversation, [Beautiful phrase, thank you. One of the most telling books I read was called “Transforming Abuse” and it addressed this silence.] we create a society where IPV has few places to hide. We create a society that expresses zero tolerance for violence against women.
[I am so sorry. This sounds great, but you LOST me at “create a society.” No thank you. I am not in that “we” and I wouldn’t be in the US either. If you are going to “Create a society,” first you have to define who is the “creator”[and as I’m a Christian you just lost me] and who is the substance being created. This kind of elitist thinking that started the compulsory school system in the US to counteract, it appears, influxes of Catholics from Europe. President Obama declares this can be turned around if “we” just try harder and spend more, especially on pre-school education. I have been looking for a way to tell him (and my local representative) that in my opinion, we need LESS school not MORE . That any institution that is over 100 years old and has basically drained the populace of time and money, resulting in trailing the industrial nations in results does NOT need to expand. That children’ don’t learn as well in herds as they do in smaller units, and those smaller units are FAMILIES that have time to network with each other, and so become integrated into their communities. That, plus internet, plus taking them OUT of more school and INTO more arts, dance, science projects, and so forth, will get the job done IF the job you are actually intent on doing is “Education” (in its true sense), not behavioral modification. I am an educator, and feel I have a right to say this.
I believe as to THAT organization, the flaw is inherent in the design, and that intent to recreate a society instead of take care of your own folks, locally, is part of the problem.
This would be off-topic were there not so many similarities in attitude, execution, and processes between our educational systems and our court systems, primary of which are who runs them and who funds them, as opposed to who they “serve.”
SO, [no offence taken, the terminology is in the air, so if you inhaled some, or envisioned a great society, I understand.]
FYI, I have been tracking these things, and yes, people are in some world views (and circles) viewed as substances to be manipulated, means-tested, and randomly sampled. In others, they have God-given inalienable rights they will FIGHT for, one of them is NOT to be someone else’s creation, but their own. If you want to “create” become and artist, architect, or maybe a mother, and please obtain prior permission from the subjects manipulated.]
[Question: Is this possibly the paradigm such abusive men are also fighting against? The concept of being formed and fashioned into something not of their choosing? Or, was this just how they learned it growing up?]
The reality is that the creation of this type of society is within our capacity. [In other words, you’re a progressive who does not believe there are flaws inherent in human nature, for which laws exist and — I say — a Redeemer was needed…I realize this is thin ice publically, but even so, I find that the “our” almost never includes the primary stakeholders — the women leaving abue, the women going through the court system, and beyond that, children who MOST need protection and help and are being sexually abused by their fathers after divorce, AFTER reporting it, too. Do you want to address the overlap between domestic violence and child molestation in the major media? Good luck!] Often the media contribute to the silence on IPV by failing to discuss it constructively or not discussing it at all. Rather than leaving us at an impasse, this points us to a valuable opportunity. Imagine the possibilities for socially responsible reporting that would arise out of a collaborative relationship between IPV experts, survivors and volunteers and journalists.
[The IPV experts ARE the survivors and volunteers. Some of the survivors and volunteers also journal. The experts making a nice living off this subscribe to journals I myself cannot afford. i do get abstracts of many of them from
The IPV service community should provide journalists with training on IPV issues and support the media’s coverage of IPV incidents. It should offer information about IPV, advice on sensitive and educational reporting, and the opportunity for journalists to personalise each story by drawing on the perspectives of IPV survivors [DO they lack that opportunity? They’re journalists. They can ask questions, right? They have access to Internet, and have likely heard of the term IPV before. EVERY story has a spin. The question is, which one?] . Media collectives of this type would help smash the silence on intimate partner violence by ensuring that, where it is present in the fabric of society, IPV is also present on the pages of our newspapers. This is one small idea, one small step, but one that might make us a bit more aware of IPV and with that, a bit more eager to act on a phenomenon that is destroying the hearts and bodies of so many Australian women and children. No idea is a silver bullet: solutions happen when small ideas act in concert. If we take this idea of IPV media collectives, add some national, ongoing, school-based healthy relationships education and opportunities for adults to engage with the issue of IPV in a constructive and personal way, I have great faith that we will be taking our first steps in a society where IPV is taken out of the hiding place that to date has afforded it protection.
[Again, Ms. Dunlop, thank you for your outreach work in the Eastern DV Crisis Center. Please LISTEN to the women not only in that crisis center, but also women like the one who designed “Anonymums” and many more. Think about the family law issues. I have been been, and my studies repeatedly show that damaging standards and paradigms in the US also exist and are thriving in Canada and also Australia. Please learn from our mistakes and struggles, and maybe save some bloodshed down under, or simply reduce the trauma.
I will say it again, and I hope loudly enough. I am NOT part of someone’s great society, or a willing participant in this dream. I long for the day when I have the wherewithal to tell quite a few re-creators (of my lives and relationships) to take a hike, get a life, get real, and let me get back (with what’s left of my years, strength, stamina and nerve) to my own. Perhaps after the crisis centers, you can speak with women a decade or two out of domestic violence and incorporate their wisdom into your ideas. We are SICK, I believe, of being someone else’s market niche, professional career, and while I’m at it, publishing credentials.]
[Thank you for noting IPV, doing something about it, and envisioning a zero tolerance for Domestic violence. I was just wondering where were the people who thought about self-defense for women as part of basic marriage counseling, or perhaps catching them further upstream — financial independence as a part and parcel of marriage. Those TWO factors — can’t protect herself, and can’t support herself while fleeing the guy — are crucial. I told people who didn’t want me to live separate from this man to Go Take a Hike, and I went back to my business. They ignored me, went behind my back, and through (as it happens) the child support system in this country, helped him cut back on his support before I was in one place. It was a multi-faceted attack on independence. Right now, my mother (elderly & frail) is also involved, unwillingly, but she has no choice. I still don’t have (yet) a safe choice for her when i do not myself have this. Many, many times, I have looked back on my marriage and wondered if I’d been stronger earlier, or taught as a woman that’ it’s OK and feminine to fight back; If I had NOT sought help from outside the home (at all), but made damn sure that there would not be a second assault.
Instead, female-like, Christian-like, I went to someone in authority — consistently, for years — and asked for intervention. This did not come, and about 7-8 years later, my teeth were knocked loose in an assault, by which time I’d stopped reporting and was focusing on exiting. What DID help me out and survive was simply reading stories of other women who did and HOW they did.]
Katie Dunlop is an outreach worker with the Eastern Domestic Violence Crisis Service and is a contributing author of The Future by Us, published this week by Hardie Grant. If you are experiencing abuse, the Women’s Domestic Violence Crisis Service is a 24 hour/7 days a week telephone service providing support, information and accommodation. Call 9373 0123, or Country toll free 1800 015 188
NEXT TOPIC: When there are kids:
Anonymums
The issue of IPV naturally entails the obvious fact that “intimacy” (a.k.a. sex) sometimes leads to pregnancy sometimes leads to children. The links below, also from Australia, addresses the “mums” aspect of trying to LEAVE domestic violence, or worse (worse?), protect one’s children from it, or from (worse, although it overlaps), child sexual abuse. Darn, another “tabu.” Well, folks . . . . .
On Anonymums links page, See “Leave them alone: she is protecting her children.”
In the U.S. this can be cause for imprisonment. Committing the acts which occasioned her to seek protection may or may NOT be cause for imprisonment. Again, enforcement is a gendered issue when it comes to child-stealing. If you don’t believe me, post a comment, and I’ll respond. Here’s the “background” to the article. The link (above) has a link to more background
Background (Preamble):Swedish mother Ann-Louise Valette and her two sons Frank Oliver Valette, 11, and Andre Nicholas Valette, 9 have been plastered all over the newspapers as being “abducted”. A revealing article states that she was concerned about child sexual abuse that had not been substantiated.Anyone who has gone through the courts and worked in this area knows that most cases of child sexual abuse are underreported and the chances of getting help to substantiate it in the middle of a family court battle are minimal – The police won’t even go near it and child protection passes the buck saying that its family courts area.
Lawyers filter these things because they know legal aid finds protecting children “expensive”. The facts are:
False Allegations of child abuse in the family court are as low as 5%
For years the Family Court has been systematically ignoring substantiated child abuse and domestic violence.
Family Violence and Child Sexual abuse are underreported.
Australia is one of the highest rate male dominated police force in the world. Since the “No Fault divorce”, it is mainly mothers who are running with their children, Since the shared parenting bill, homicides increased by 14% in 2006.
There is no domestic violence homicide review team in Australia. Most mothers run with their children because of family violence and child abuse.
Summary/Opinion:
USA’s bad policies go worldwide FAST. Those who can fly abroad to run conferences on how to run families (back to the abusers they left, which can be into the ground, either literally or financially). Women attempting to keep a low profile (not antagonize abuser), or flee violence, are not present en masse in these conferences: Either we are not asked, we can’t afford to attend, or they are membership-only, closed-corporation processes (see “AFCC” for one) and intended NOT to have our input.
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Wait a minute! “IPV,” “DV”– Social Scourges or Euphemism and Oxymoron?
Vocabulary Analogies.
I was tempted to call this “in which I discuss the dissemination of obfuscation,” but it’s not really a laughing matter when people are dying over this, weekly, and around the globe.
I am not of the belief that utopia is possible, at least as enforced by any state agency, government, religion, NGO, or anyone else. When I hear someone wanting to “help” me, at least someone I don’t know and didn’t personally solicit to do so, I try to head for the hills, and highly recommend this.
Unfortunately, with the advent of the Internet, the Language Police lurking around every corner, and our children being CAUGHT, practically, as they exit the womb by someone funded by someone fanatically suspicious of the mother/child relationship (i refer NOT to the practitioners — thank you, mine were born in a hospital — but to the premises behind some of the policies) — there are fewer and fewer hills left.
This includes hills and pockets of time as well, and that is almost nowhere as true as when a woman, with children, tries to exit a man, who has threatened and hit her, with institutional intervention.
Just as, thanks to the increasing attempts to criminalize “homeschooling” (another misnomer) in my home state, there is less and less time available to the average citizen — whether parent, teacher, commuter employee, or child, unless it is built into one’s profession. I have some perspective (age, profession, and parenting) from which to say this, but have not as yet decided to share identifying go public in more blatant identifying detail (see topic, leaving domestic violence…)
So in general, people do lack either time, or motivation, to address IPV and DV unless we are typically involved by personal association. It is, after all, less pleasant than stopping to smell the roses; in fact it’s profoundly disturbing.
But I say, how about time to stop and smell the vocabulary? Those most inclined to do this are those who have tasted its fruit, where that fruit is sometimes stale and putrid. Maybe you could from the safety of your home (I’m not asking for money, or for you to call your legislator, am I?) might stop a moment to consider.
Some of these terms have become SO proprietary they are almost meaningless, although I am VERY grateful for the women and men before me who passed laws to criminalize “IPV” and “DV” and I am VERY very grateful that I had at least one opportunity to evict someone who had battered me in the classic definition of the word and was engaging in a pattern of what is called “domestic violence.”
IPV for the uninitiated is a version of “Intimate Partner Violence,” itself probably a linguistic migration from “DV” (Domestic Violence). Trust me, there is nothing domesticated about violence, it is per se a refusal to be domesticated. Nor does it only occur domestically (in the home). It’s a lucky person that can domesticate a few cats, but who can “domesticate” a person that has taken to hands (or other handy implements) to intentionally: tame the shrew, or beat/threaten/punish the woman (oops, “partner”) in the process of teaching gender differences DO rule, and some divides were ordained by God (yeah, right) and not cross-able. Note in that concept the transference of protesting hitting one’s (in this example) opposite-sex partner (with whom one has engaged in sex) to illustrate the girls do NOT rule, Boys do. [This is a particularly religious thing, though not limited to it].
Intimate PARTNER? Now that I think of it, when the relationship is He hits Her (or He hits Him, She hits Her, or She hits Him for the politically more correct than I am feeling today), it is the precise opposite of what the word “partner” means. I mean, there’s a “partners in crime,” a humorous phrase used sometimes of a rapscallionly escapade that’s not really a crime. I was mugged twice myself –outside the home. I didn’t go back and “partner” with the guy who made off with my purse.
Why then would I attempt to with the guy who made off with my children? Can we not depart in peace, or get some assistance in this process, eh?
More to the point, why would some agencies in Washington, D.C. and (yes, I looked) Colorado, as tested in a variety of states, usually including California, determine that my doing so would be good for the overall populace? It really goes against nature and common sense. WHO was it that didn’t respect boundaries to start with, generating what’s called some form of separation?
Therefore I say, Intimate Partner Violence has GOT to be some kind of triple oxymoron non-think that has just wormed its way into our vocabulary, nonprofit [and governmental] organizations to distinguish it from stranger violence.
Well, folks, IPV is far WORSE than stranger violence. Stranger violence, if you AND yours survive it, and are not maimed, is not statistically likely to reoccur and escalate to death. Stranger violence has the concept of accidence in it, you could MAYBE have avoided it, or it was unavoidably bad luck. Not so with “IPV,” which when magnified through the institutions designed to (but in general failing to) put a stop to it, is closer to a total blood transfusion, and entails a personal, specific, and persistent hostility and will to hurt from a specific individual specifically against another.
Anyway, words don’t just drop down from the sky. Many of the times (at least in the U.S.) they are federally mandated. Like “Access Visitation” — but that’s another topic for another time.
Once these words have been mandated, and promoted, from “on high” (that’s called, government of the people, by the people, and for the people — or it seems I once heard it was….) they are then circulating through the lower, plebian realms — courts, schools, police stations, nonprofit agencies, and so forth. And the attendant associations to these agencies and institutions, FEW of which YOU are going to be involved with unless you (a) work there, or (b) deal with someone who does, or (c) whose life has led through their doors, or (d) someone dependent on you, or vice versa, as a friend or relative, has also.
My sarcasm here is not really out of place. I have been tracing funding of dysfunctional organizations, with some guidance (NAFCJ.net being among but not the only source) of WHY when I knock on a door and sit down in an office, the agency-speak is simply in my native tongue, but with an entirely different set of rules. The general rule I apply anymore is that whatever it says on the door, the OPPOSITE is not just the effect, but the intended effect and implicit in the design.
Gentle readers should also understand re: blogger/survivors — there were years of being told NOT to talk (and still are) under our belt. So, part of blogging is just telling it. One woman’s simple attempt to summarize the problem (see “Australians Talk,” previous blog and links) spoke to me, so I slapped it up here, thinking it would suffice for a post.
No, darn it, I had to actually think about it. I thought about how insane/inane it is to sterilize these words, as we do, face it. If even God had to do quite a bit of show and tell (miracles, sending a Son, etc.) (was that a Freudian or Theological slip — mine is showing, I suppose), similarly, those who have actually survived this violence, trauma, and losing someone or something to it, should be setting policy AND vocabulary.
That’s enough for now.
Intimate, Partner, Violence.
Domestic, Violence.
No wonder we need mental health professionals throughout the fields attendant on these terms.
Can you wrap your mind around that one? (No wonder it’s a market niche around “family courts” etc…..)
the word “court” certainly applies, in the sense, court someone’s favor, or in the royalty application. The word family, again, has just about become meaningless when those promoting it as essential to the fabric of our nation (and to a degree, I Do agree, believe it or not).
I know women who went homeless fleeing abuse. They had homes and professions after the exit; the stability appeared to threaten the status quo, the basket was turned over and emptied out, and through the same mechanism that has put my stomach hungry some days, blogging where the internet is free, and unable to purchase a simple meal at the same time.
Alternately, these terms rolls off your thinking like water off a duck’s back, how many intimate, wonderful, partnering, dynamic, sensitive moments in life have along with the oil coating also rolled past your door? Some of the best parts of life (not just your body) are sensitive to others around you, and what national policies mean to immediate neighbors.
Let’s properly sort those terms:
“Intimate Partner Violence” and “Domestic Violence.”
Move the words around, and it makes much more sense:
Put “intimate partner” with “domestic” and you have something user-friendly.
Take the two “Violences” and keep them separate, and the antagonism is right there out in the open:
V2 (Violence X Violence). There’s no place for this in the home.
Again, just as a reminder, the definitions include a pattern of oppression. No, I don’t mean, being asked to wash the floors if you’re awoman. I mean being TOLD to wash the floors NOW, or else, and the “else” you already know, because it happened before, and hurt. Or destroyed. Or violated one of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights.
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When she “Shows and Tells” — take it seriously. It takes courage.
We tell young people to speak up about abuse.
This one did.”
Our global village — it seems to me that approximately one a week, at least nationwide, is occurring. The police WILL respond, and will sometimes prevent or minimize the fall-out, but more likely (they are only human, they are not omnipresent) they will count and identify the bodies, and speak to reporters, and neighbors. This is too late for those speaking up. This can be true when it comes to domestic violence also.
Before you read this post — if you read fast, if you skim well, and if you could commit to read THREE (3) pages of single-spaced, narrative, print, you will understand more: Do NOT pass go. Click on the centered title “Brave Children Speak Up” Read the first page “intro”, to the bottom, hit “next” or “continued,” then the next page to the bottom, click on “next” and then the 3rd page, to the bottom (individual stories).
Brave Children Speak Up
Alanna’s story is well-known — she finally fled from Northern California to Southern (Los Angeles) and was able to get help.
How I Process (present tense) My Experience (past)
I did not experience abuse as a child. Mine didn’t start til I was almost 40 years old. Yet I will affirm — you are not the same afterwards — your understanding of the world is not the same either, and never will be. You can function, but you sprout antenna, learn to “deal,” test your systems of meaning (all, for the most part, remain suspect), and are much, much, MUCH more alert to the various signals and possible interpretations of almost every one. This is rough on people you wish to maintain friendships, let alone a romantic connection, with. I know that I “tested.’ When my friend passed the test, didn’t blow up, didn’t run away, it frightened me more. I lost so many job situations that (for a period), I began to self-sabotage work rather than experience the forced-out situation again. (Economic control is a primary means of control). I felt like I was another species for a while, and finally accepted that, in some respects, I was. And I was NOT sexually abused as a child. . . . Or beaten. . . . Or deprived.
Negotiating what for others is often an Average situation:
[Leaving home. Coming back home. Possibly reporting what happened at home — to be continued. . . ]
One dilemma still up for grabs is a difficult one. I have faith, but I do not trust churches. This affects support systems and for sure sociability. But, I will affirm — there ARE people (both genders) who target these areas, and this IS one area a vulnerable (to being dominated to excess) women can be found. They also take in divorced and needy women, at times, hence, a charming unscrupulous man will find ample fields there.
One has to constantly renegotiate meaning in life. I have come to believe this is an asset. Intuition comes in handy in many fields (particularly artistic ones or ones that deal with group dynamics).
When abuse happens mid-way, or later in life, it is difficult to know what goals to set, in exiting it. It is also VERY difficult to exit it, as by middle age, so many professions, communities, and connections have come. More schooling is not always the answer. What about relationships?
I cannot imagine being a child who has betrayed by an adult.
Mine were (I will testify and do). But I cannot imagine it still, how to callous onesself and just go deal with it.
Again:
Brave Children Speak Up
I cannot think too hard on this one today. I refuse to abuse substances to turn my mind away. Each day’s internal parasympathetic (?) wiring stands alone, how much it can handle, but because I know what it’s like to have people “unable to stomach” my truths, I try to process and stomach others’ I read about. Can you handle this one? Perhaps you can. Children in the situation HAVE to.
I would like to say: It’s not the gun, but the attitude in the person carrying the gun. If it was not a gun, it could be a knife, an ax, or as happened recently a sword.
It’s also another, more communal problem called “denial.”
February 25, 2009
14 year old Priscilla Amador did not want to have sex or interact sexually with a man 40 years her senior. Especially her father. About 8 years of this was too much. Finally she worked up courage to tell: The Miami Herald, 2-27-09Police respond to “shots fired” and find family dead in murder-suicide
Editor’s note: This tragic incident is one of several like it that have surfaced recently. Although the exact details are not yet known, the mass violence it reflects needs to be noted.
. . . “It’s important to remember that one of the most dangerous persons an officer can face is someone who feels they’ve got nothing to live for and nothing to lose. There are a growing number of those people and that’s a very real threat to officer safety and survival. Now, more than ever, officers need to be highly trained, highly focused and thoroughly prepared to deal with the threats and challenges of doing their jobs in a time of crisis.”
Stay alert, be trained—even if it means taking steps to seek your own training—and remember that even “regular people” who would otherwise seem harmless and unlikely to pose a deadly threat, like the man in this incident, may in fact be extremely dangerous.
— Scott Buhrmaster, PoliceOne Managing Editor
RE: “ someone who feels they’ve got nothing to live for “
My recommended reading: Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
There are choices, even in a concentration camp.
Another link that is not always explored, but should be, is the pharmaceutical connection. I speak as someone whose father in law was on medication (and committed suicide). Not smart to tinker too much with this chemistry. My policy is, don’t! Your body was designed smart: handle with care.
By Matt Sedensky
Associated PressMIAMI — A 53-year-old man fatally shot his wife and two daughters Wednesday before turning the gun on himself, and a 16-year-old son who survived the attack managed to call 911 as he escaped uninjured from the Miami home, authorities said. . . .
Sarit Betancourt, a 44-year-old school bus driver who lives near the family, said the father is a Cuban immigrant who gave piano lessons at a guitar shop and at his home. Betancourt’s two sons, ages 9 and 10, had been taking piano lessons from him once a week since 2006.
“He was a marvelous person and a tremendous professor,” she said. “People would enter the house, and you just breathed peace.”
[WELL, not for a little girl….]
PLEASE READ THE LINK (above) & THINK.
It cost her -- and her sister -- and her mother - their lives. I speculate that HE could not stand the shame or public exposure -- that task had been assigned (by him) for HER to carry. I'll say, assuming the charges were valid. One way to cut short THAT conversation, well, see headlines. "Be Prepared!" How? I don't know, but I know I must find out. So should you. I cannot editorialize much today. I am processing this one... I have teens. I also know that the issue is NOT primarily sex. It's about character, values, and entitlements. I do not think we should be suspecting all our neighbors of this (though clearly it's underreported). Perhaps we should all make sure that our kids have at least ONE other NON-family member they can confide in, and who know them. And we should all be informed of the overlap between wife abuse and child abuse. And that our young women are to value, and be able to hold, boundaries. Unfortunately, these boundaries are daily violated in so many contexts (including schools), that I'm at some loss to, as I posted elsewhere, safety a "place." I think that self-sufficiency has to be a THING you carry with you. As I said, today, there are limits to what can be processed. But I will not drop the topic. Are you, reader, aware that in Family Courts across the nation, custody of children, when contested, it being given to batterers in retaliation for reporting abuse of one form or another. If you don't believe me, believe the children who reported, and lived to tell:Related Articles:
Six die in L.A. family murder-suicide
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WHY Family Court (let’s get honest) “matters” to us all…
…Even if you’re not inside the doors. . .
…Even if you have your “act” together —
…Even if you’re not IN any marital or intimate partner act. Or relationship.
You are probably living with, next to, or in association with someone who has been. At least one of the people who go behind those doors into this family law / let’s mediate / co-parent / share custody / just get along (adversarial) system is going to be traumatized.
Another will be probably robbed. A third will be shocked. A fourth will be rewarded. A fifth will be back for more easy victories by hearsay accusations the next time he (or she) has a grudge. A sixth will be forced back to negotiate with the abusive partner she (OK, now you can argue: \”or he\”) was attempting to separate from — and will be lectured, after having worked up courage to do this — not to upset the children by showing anger, or conflict, because in this YOU-topia supposedly conflict never happens — or at LEAST never between parents.
This belief, along with Santa Claus, according to the same logic, is going to set your children on a good path for life.
A seventh will have been raised by one or more of the above. An eighth will be teaching (or in class next to) one of the above.
For a take on the intergenerational, societal transmission of trauma, see “www.sanctuaryweb.com“
Get real – – – and
Let’s Get Honest. Without hate.
Let’s look at the script (and playwrights) in family law.
Let’s look at the off-stage directions and who takes cues from whom. And let’s begin to understand that this is not a game, it is real people, real lives, and in some cases, physically “lost” in the drama.
Let’s ALL consider the profit/loss ratio in this endeavor, family law, family court services, custodyh evaluations, mediations, court-appointed guardians, and attempting to, through this process and under cover of “law”, force divorcing parties with enough anmosity they couldn’t work it out separately to come seeking a higher authority to punish the ex somehow, or extract children, or money from her or him, and on what basis. Personally, I (sarcastically) feel that both these words:
“FAMILY COURT“”
are accurate. The trick, like in any new culture, is to understand the idioms — usage — nuances. The “nuance” in this case is, assume the exact opposite is meant. Supposedly this is about “family,” and to help them. Supposedly courts, in the USA (and elsewhere) exist for the purpose of determining truth and dispensing justice. The words “public servant” possibly come to mind.
COURT: Go back a few hundred years, and think “court” again. Try Henry VIII or Louis XIV. Think about what takes place in the halls of a palace, and who gets to be there? How did one get an appointment at a palace? How did one, having obtained it, REtain it? There, that’s a little better, you’re getting warm… . . . Also, did you know that any attorney is considered an “officer of the court.” (not of you…) (I THINK).
FAMILY: The “Family” in question is less likely your own (which will be devastated, most likely, one way or another), but the true “FAMILY” here in are the professionals, and so-called experts that know they will be dealing with each other on an ongoing basis, referring business, exchanging pleasantries, and in some cases referring cases (translation: Jobs). “Good” for them actually could mean keeping a family IN the system. “Good” for the family biological generally means getting themselves OUT of the system and back to life as almost paranormal — or at least work, and sleep. Perhaps the words “fealty” or “feudal” are closer to the truth. I do not denigrate ethical, honest, overworked, and noble judges attorneys, or (well, I haven’t met such a mediator). I’m sure they exist, and among the approximately seven judges I’ve stood before in this case, some more than once, only the 3rd one would I characterize as ethical and having a reputation of actually having read the paperwork before him prior to ruling on it. Unfortunately, he quit family law, but I have been to date unable to.
The “COURT” does indeed hail back to royalty, and I think that is the most idealized among us that are going to lose in court. We have believed (prior to baptism by fire) that this system, while we weren’t in it, somehow existed, in ether, and would protect the innocent and help the falsely accused, if only the truth were at.
I tried that for many years with a man that, in about the 8th year of this “just trying to get along” (survive, from my standpoint), was offended, again, by a minor perceived provocation. I turned the music down, which was earsplitting and had just been turned up to make a point that the conversation was over. We had small children at this time. I reached over and turned a radio dial. Next thing you know, I had been grabbed, hurled, and landed on my chin in literally another room. Teeth were knocked loose.
I didn’t learn til many, MANY years later, that this was felony level domestic violence (serious injury caused) or that even a difference existed between the civil and criminal system existed. Why would I? I had prior to then inhabited churches, schools, parks (raising kids) with playgroups, and concert halls. I did not think that a DETAILED awareness of how our criminal, civil, and other justice system works, let alone knowing the laws of my state (and federal) were important to my safety and wellbeing. NOW, I think that at least the ability to navigate them, including what is the flowchart of a basic lawsuit (which is not that complicated…), should be required for high school graduation. Unfortunately, it appears that in too many US schools, we are still working on the ability to read. Period.
In other places, this may be called “DOMESTIC RELATIONS” or something similar. The same interpretions apply. Get your head out of the clouds and understand who is cozy with whom, and that it’s relationships, not evidence (in practice) that counts, in most arenas. THAT is the problem, and like the beginning of our country, principles count and are worth fighting to preserve, or restore. However one may bash “Dead White Males who owned slaves, or that it took women even longer to get the vote, the fact remains that that Constitution exists, as do the Bill of Rights. Like laws, muscles, or any other talent, they mean nothing without application towards the goal, and where these count is, they are that ideal. Or, should I yet say “were”? – – Use it or lose it. . . ..
Let’s consider
what kind of emotion drives people even showing up, via an Order to Show Cause requesting a Motion to MAKE THAT WOMAN (or MAN) stop, pay, or give me (back) my children. Think about it, and about the logic of any authority (which these courts are, in fact that is primarily what they are, order-makers) then telling both parties — when only one initiated the motion — (this is now the script) that “conflict” is bad for kids, so pretend you don’t have any, or no more contact with your kids. And let’s compare that with things such as, the state laws, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and so forth.. . . . MANY of these families, with kids, ended up there precisely because of out of court conflicts that had almost gotten lethal, or had hurt someone. The basic premise of any legal motion is that some “wrong” happened ( “tort” = “wrong” — and believe me, I didn’t learn that term even 3 years into the system), and therefore the court should redress it. However, in entering the halls, when kids are involved, thinking goes haywire, and despite the system of “tort” “redress” (etc.) on which law is based, the judges, and associated employees of the court, or an affiliate of it, then all communicate clearly that BOTH parties are wrong, since they couldn’t settle their own differences without court help. They are presumed needing a sound lecture of some sort, and of course therapy, if possible. The general idea of the process is DUE process. However, the general idea of the family law system as it now exists is virtual behavioral modification, and through this, I say, social engineering — mass scale. JUST REMEMBER “COURTS” // “ROYALTY.” Where do the allegiances typically lie? It often gets down to simply the character of the individual judges.
The desired result of a hearing in court is called and “order.” Contempt of it can (doesn’t often, but CAN) end one in jail. In the mythic interpretation of the process, which those of us without prior connections probably held going in, the order comes from a judge who is more noble and neutral than either of you, will hear EVIDENCE impartially, and in a manner coherent with the rules of court for the jurisdictions, and judicial ethics, as listening to attorneys (if any) who also abide by their professional codes of ethics, etc.
Like I just said above, about Santa Claus — ––
It being a stressed, fragmented world, in general, I imagine that you figure it’s “not your business.”
How about if I said, it’s your money, though, as a taxpayer?
How about if I said, it MAY just relate to the statistical probability of someone you know being a bystander of an irate spouse that took the law into his (and yes, it primarily IS “his” so, or the major news media AND USDOJ are both run by radical feminists, and censor mothers wiping out fathers, kids, bystander and a cop or two, and themselves because they were publicly humiliated, or just bitter, and couldn’t help themselves — and knew how to use a gun, or a knife, or a club, or tie a knot, etc.).
I’m WAY newer to blogging than to Family Court.
On the other hand, unlike FC, my blog doesn\’t imply that it\’s saving families, or even serving them (as in \”Family Court Services.\” Nor do I hope that somehow this will orchestrate a brave, new world. In fact years ago, when I was hauled in (no, it wasn\’t voluntary), my venues were limited to, and my focus on: my immediate family, profession(s), colleagues (when I still had them), and the communities I lived and worked in. I got on-line to email some friends from time to time. I wasn\’t fighting to find out where my rights went, and (because I wasn\’t in the habit of breaking laws or court orders to get my way in life) I wasn\’t desperately trying to search what my state code called that last despicable act. Or how come it only took 20 minutes to change my kid\’s futures, that had been set since an early age towards college, with scholarships, ANY college they set their sites on, within reason.
I would like to talk about what some of these myths do, that allow decent upstanding law-abiding, non-wife-beating, hard-working parents (and individuals) to keep clear of these halls and not trouble their sleep about what happens inside them . Let’s Get Honest about what the myth that justice is happening in behind these closed doors is costing the country, and your communities, overall.
Recently (Spring 2009), the US closed lots of schools in a panic over swine flu. Clearly someone understands the concept of “quarantine” for the general public safety. Then they decided to open them again. How about opening some of the closed doors in courtrooms? The people’s changes and humiliations / /wins / losses //responses to these (trauma, or as it sometimes, I”m sorry to say, turns out, kidnappings // femicides/homicide/suicides // poverty afterwards is already in public view.
So, “general public,” gentle readers, the family court leper colony is not working — for the family, or for the general public. However, it IS working quite well, thank you, for the type of personnel who designed it to start with (primarily, in the USA, in Southern California). And YOU (if you are Joe common bloke, Ann single working woman, or Mrs. Joe & Ann Smith, gainfully employed. Or (I hear now Maine is the 5th state in the US), Mr. & Mr. Joe and Harry Blow and Ms. & Ms. Ann and Sydney BestFriends. It may not really be about gender, only, in the courts either. I was a Mr. & Mrs., and prior to separation, we paid too, unaware of others’ trauma.
Any effort to reform it, should this be the goal, will have to address for whom this venue IS working just fine. To track this, try some of my links, or do your own research. I wouldn’t suggest calling all men bad (OR good) or all women, and the culture in general, a bunch of femininazi, male-bashing, sex-deprived (or sex-crazed, as case may be) misfits. That’s generally speaking not helpful.
What may be more helpful is to realize that large sectors of populace do actually believe those things. Some of them say it with Ph.D. language (“fatherlessness” — a.k.a. single mothers, case in point — are to blame for society’s ills.). Can you recognize the same talk, said in “expert” language and footnoted with a bunch of experts who believe the same thing? Then you’re getting a handle on the picture.
NOTE on TONE: “Related Blogs,” to left, some of them have a different tone than I want here. But they ALSO still have facts (news reports, laws, cases, etc.) there too. And they have a right to respond as expressively as they want to. Many or all of the bloggers there typically, lost custody of children to a batterer or a child-moleester, and sometimes as a direct consequence for having reported it. Some of them, as I heard, have been in jail for failing to be able, after that, come up with enough child support (we’re talking women). Some of the women I’ve met recently have gone to international courts for safety, and they/we are also aware of other groups going to the same international courts for different purposes.
So they have a right to be pissed off and say “forget you” or “I’m pissed off” or THIS (see image) is what I think of that group of demagogues. The point of my blog is dialogue (hopefully) and taking a close look at the players who are laughing the way to the bank (metaphorically) while the cats and dogs are spitting, hissing, biting, and scratching in the dust. I hope to keep the intensity level just enough to keep you (meaning “us”) VERY uncomfortable with inaction, but not so lit up that only discharging emotion action takes place.
Speaking up IS action, and particularly if one has been subject to violence already for doing so.
Identifiable causes, and identifiable solutions exist to the problems of familycourtmatters. These solutions are emotionally painful and would require some businesses that profit from our pain to find another source of referral, or another line of work. I suggest they be required to work with tangible production, who have manipulated people as if they were putty to accept the dysfunction — but let’s hope do not require bloodshed. And bloodshed IS already happening as a direct consequence of the hostility, lack of personal restraint, and level of frustration (BUT, it’s still the lack of restraint, I say) that is stirred up in these venues. So, see some of the “related blogs” to left. These women have been at it longer than me, and they have done their homework and I believe lived it too. I’m talking being stripped down naked when they went in for help. The problem is international in scope.
I was a hardworking (female, single mother) bloke, too, until I attempted to renew a standing domestic violence restraining order, simply in order to participate better in the “hard-working parent” part. I held no personal animosity against my children’s father, I just was unreconciled to the battering, abuse thing. Other than that, he was allowed to see his children quite frequently, just not continue to assault me, in front of them. I’m no criminal, and wasn’t a bitter, etc., etc. Mom. However, I had recently and VERY belatedly gotten some legal help setting boundaries, obviously an issue where there has been violence, and there was a major amount of cleanup and rebuilding. I needed my personal space for sure. This is a little hard to establish when one’s partner is more focused on his “manhood” than your “person-hood.”
Now I have been in the courts, shortly here, ALMOST as many years as I was in in-home, upfront abuse. I think this perspective should be discussed. I also want to speak to some of the noble people who have kept their noses clean by leaving justice to the experts, and mythically believing that, even if it DOESN’T happen, it’s not going to affect them personally.
It already has.
BUT — can we talk, blog, comment, post links, favorite books, and simply converse, without the skip the hate talk, pompous vague assertions, and ex-spurt** opinions, but
just see if (or is it \”whether\”)? there are still a few good men, women,
– – and children (children can blog, right?) —
who can skillfully toss out some metaphors, paradigms, puns, and maybe whimsical analogies
for me (and y\’all) to juggle around, look at them from underneath,
see if they have some weight, or bounce, or whether they dissipate into thin air under
their own hot, gaseous contents. This might even be fun.
Venom is not welcome. Biting sarcasm is fine. Insults too (it’s hard to be sarcastic without insulting SOMEone), but no threats, no advocacy to violence OR any illegal activity (I LIKE my blog, thank you!). Name-calling should be fleeting, at least skillful, and only, if a tall, as a lead in to something worthwhile to say. Remember, I moderate the comments.
Get personal — and speak for yourself: I FEEL, I\’VE NOTICED, I BELIEVE, but not personally nasty. Don\’t behind behind the curtain of plurals, vague assertions that can\’t be disproved, pronounced with a finality. This is not the place for the Wizard of Oz, but a bunch of Totos. We will bark back and expose your backside. Take credit for having a genuine personal experience apart from the gang you happen to belong to. I\’ll do the same.
**Ex-spurts are known by that action — spurting forth publications, opinions, pronouncements (DVDs, Conferences, and more). Did a conference save a life? Maybe. I’m generally a little wary when the people pronouncing on families can afford the DVDs and conferences, and the subject families, after having been “fixed” by the same bunch, can’t. Where’s the due process in THAT?
Forming organizations, alliances, and nonprofits to stop what the other nonprofits are doing wrong, or compensate for whatever government isn\’t doing to their pleasing.
The real experts have had the experiences BEFORE they start publishing, promoting, and starting branches of study that didn\’t exist before a pet pre-occupation became a profession. I\’d rather SEE an expert (at his or her work) than HEAR one any day.
And I do music. . . . . or Did. My music survived only XX years parallel to lawsuits, accusations, family rifts, threats, stalking etc. I’m here still at XX + about 2 years post-music, and still sweeping up. Like any Mom who has better things to do with (what remains of) her time, and always did, I am interested in stopping the mess-making at its source.
I plan to do plenty of spurting forth of words here — but unlike those in family court (I mean, the denizens, not the nomads passing through),
I am not trying to use these words to separate you from your children — or your money. Just maybe some of your time. I have no style sheet. Remember the advice of Tim Ferriss — you can get ex-spurt status on any number of things in under 4 weeks — it\’s more a matter of credibility. On the other hand, you can say the same thing for a decade or two,
I have no outline. I simply intend to talk, promote my links and books, and see what\’s around the bend here. Don\’t be too rigid except where it counts — (no, fellas, not that part!) — on civil rights. On matters of law, and fair play. And on the facts. There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, but whose idea was that to start with?
There are also many ways to abuse – – very few, that I\’ve found, to stop it — but \”family court\” sure doesn\’t appear to be ONE of them.
Possibly removing the financial / emotional incentives for continued abuse.
What do you say?
Please make fun of some euphemisms. Speak in short words. Or long words. Just don\’t bore us with something we\’ve already been drenched in – – like \”alienation,\” or insult my intelligence by pronouncing a truth that is your personal truth only as if it were one of those universal ones, like (at least to date), water is essential to life. Having two parents in the home, I\’m sorry to say, is not, not always. I know plenty of very, very dysfunctional two-parent homes. I came from one, and so did my erst-while, ex-cohabitant spouse. I\’ll verify he\’s got some severe issues, and I\’ve read in my pleadings, this is also held to be true of me. So, one exception disproves a universal rule, let\’s get (real).
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Irreconciliable differences?
Decades after mediation became the model in divorce, and was pushed worldwide (starting in Calif., especially in the 1980s), it still has a sour taste…
Hey — Can we talk about consequences of this doctrine, yet??? This is the U.K., only last fall (Sept. 2008). I was googling another incident, and:
Kate Hilpern, in “The Guardian” asks:
Ending it all
This week’s killing of two little girls by their father, who then killed himself, is the latest in a shocking tally of so-called ‘family wipe-outs’. What drives men, often described as devoted to their children, to carry out such crimes? And can we stop them? Kate Hilpern reports
Every six to eight weeks (and lately, more frequently) a man or a woman – usually a man – kills their partner or their children and then themselves. Most of these cases are never reported. David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, explains that, somewhere along the line, our perception of murder has become warped and “murder-suicides” don’t quite fit prevailing news values. “Most people have a view of murder – which is very much constructed by the media – as stranger-perpetrated and requiring police to try to catch those perpetrators. In fact, the clear-up [rate] for murder [is currently around] 88% and that’s because you don’t have to be a Cracker to work out who’s done it. When it comes to children, the most likely person to kill them is their parent, just as when it comes to adults, the most likely person is their partner.”
No, this wasn’t in my world view growing up, either. . . Yours??? Theirs??
This article intelligently addresses several of the primary issues, such as what these were NOT (temporary insanity). It WAS predictable, and probably avoidable. It WAS about power and revenge. Frequently, the woman was ignored. Precursors besides clear threats, and a history of battering the woman, include often depression, and recent or long-term unemployment or unemployment. And/or stalking. Clear refusal to obey orders. I personally KNOW these things (all of them), and it scares the bejeebers out of me.
What has frightened me, if possible, much, much more, is that with each return to a family court judge, there is no alarm, fright, concern, or apparent belief of the warning signs. Instead, there is this kind of “stupor,” as in, where’s the blood? When was the last time you were taken to the emergency room. Was there an actual threat to kill?
No, not this time. The point was made clear years ago, and has continued to be made clear through enforcement of minor requests as orders (or else), or taking my daughters when I attempted to set a line in the sand — or collect child support arrears.
To be taken with an ex-spouse in front of a court that refuses to believe (or review the file), and have a mutual knowing that this is not going to be taken seriously — and then to go and read the laws that say, it IS to be taken seriously — that is a very, very, frightening experience, my friends. It interferes with daily life often enough. How low can one lie? Is it possible to lie below the radar of such intense stubborn refusal to comply (with court orders), such flagrant challenging of them rubber stamped publically — but not for women.
“In other cases of murder suicide – which, despite the recent spate, have remained constant in terms of numbers for several decades – there is a very clear history of domestic violence. In other cases of murder suicide – which, despite the recent spate, have remained constant in terms of numbers for several decades – there is a very clear history of domestic violence. “
“Julia Pemberton’s ex-husband repeatedly warned her that he would kill her. It wasn’t that she didn’t take notice, as she told friends, family and police. Family court judges were aware of the terror. Her final 16-minute 999 call made headlines in 2004 when it was read out at the inquest into her and her 17-year-old son William’s murders, committed by her husband, who also killed himself.”
====
I note that the address URL for this article read “/children.mentalhealth”
Here’s a wonderful excerpt from the AFCC website talking about how the “old” terminology of criminal law was just so inappropriate, outmoded, as it were, for family law. After all, it’s a “family,” right?
(This is from the AFCC link to the right, the history page):
“The 1980s: The Mediation Explosion”
“The Children’s Bureau of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare awarded AFCC a research grant to study the effects of mediation on custody and visitation disputes in courts in Connecticut, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
Interest in court-connected reconciliation counseling was diminishing, and joint custody, mediation, domestic violence and stepfamilies were becoming central issues. The legislation boom had begun, and it was moving in a strong wave from California across the United States. Mandatory mediation and joint custody were hot topics.AFCC’s Mediation Committee hosted three national symposia on mediation standards between 1982 and 1984. Representatives of more than thirty organizations participated in developing the first set of Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation. By the late 1980s, mediation of custody and visitation disputes was mandatory in jurisdictions in more than 33 states.”
I have experienced mediation 3 times. It was a farce each time. It also was a violation of due process, and immediately upended the family dynamics — and households. I am utterly opposed to its use in DV, and the family courts are utterly adamant about it up here. WHY, one wonders. Streamlines the process, no messy “reviewing” of the court record, or the history of DV that perhaps led to the breakup to start with.
Perhaps there should be an automatic safety rule, as Dads feel so disempowered, and need to act quickly to restore the balance — a cooling off period of at least 3 months, perhaps. Perhaps. I don’t know, but mediation will not work when the power balance includes physical violence and intimidation. Depending on how one defines “works.” A 32 year old man, here (above) was sure he’d win. When he didn’t, he found another way to “win.” We need another paradigm.
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Opening Salvo
Why it matters…even if you’re not inside the doors. . . .
You are probably living with, next to, or in association with someone who has. You may be sleeping with one — or with someone raised by one. You may be blissfully unaware of WHAT that guy who cut your car off in traffic this morning was upset about, and why he’s wound so tight you might get hurt if you honk back. If you teach, your classrooms are going to be affected –either by getting some resources deleted from them, or from having a different quality of children in them.
One person going into this system is going to be traumatized. Another will be probably robbed. A third will be shocked. A fourth will be rewarded. A fifth will be back for more behavioral modification.
A sixth will be forced back to negotiate with the abusive partner she (OK, now you can argue: “or he”) was attempting to separate from — and will be lectured, after having worked up courage to do this — not to upset the children by showing anger, or conflict, because in this YOU-topia supposedly conflict never happens — or at LEAST never between parents.
- This belief, along with belief in Santa Claus, according to the same logic, is going to set your children on a good path for life.
A seventh will be hired to report on your demeanor after having just found out, you won’t be seeing your kids this weekend — or month – – or as it turned out in my case — next month either.
An eighth will be in an associated office saying, that wasn’t her department.
A ninth will be hired by taxpayers to enforce court orders dispensed from the bench — and possibly not do so if those orders were issued to protect a woman.
I am a woman, and I speak for myself, and add a qualifier, “possibly.” In my case, the statistical odds seemed a little stacked, as my prior concept of the word “law enforcement” was the common English usage. Not so any more. Which brings me to the ninth:
The ninth person going through those doors will have learned that the majority of the English language is entirely context-specific, kind of like a Mac. Until you “get” this — that the words are not spoken or written in these parts for their meaning, but for their EFFECT. As such, you will quickly learn the buzz words (whether by having them sting your situation, or I hope not, by using them yourself to sting someone else).
As such, the ninth person is going to be alienated from sense of self, reality, and that the world operates according to certain principles.
Of course the real cure for that is simply to know that you fell down a rabbit hole. And you will not emerge intact. It’s a virtual religious experience — transformative.
Which, of course, was the purpose. Every good oligarchy needs a Family Court, lest the rabbits stop breeding, hopping, getting snared, and nibbling the same low-cut grass jobs (or going underground) in the same geographic areas, generation after generation of market niches and material for the next set of pharmaceuticals or animal behavioralists. The bait is money, custody, and social respectability.
After all, if they all went “Watership Down,” who would serve? Without enough servants, landscapers, nannies, fast-food retail workers, and the multitude of unseen people that make the infrastructure “go,” how would all the certified specialists come up with the theories, and where would THEY self-propagate?
What would they do down on the non-ethereal grass, floors, garages, at the foodbanks, or for that matter shelters, prisons, and so forth — with the rest of us?
Label? Write a report? And then stand alongside “Street Sheet,” charge a $1.00 and see if that will buy dinner?
Wikipedia: “Street_Sheet”
What it Is
STREET SHEET is a monthly tabloid written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people that provides its readers with a perspective on homelessness that mainstream media simply cannot match. It provides a unique opportunity to its vendors as well: a dignified alternative to panhandling. The STREET SHEET (cover price $1) is given free to qualified poor and homeless San Franciscans, who get to retain 100% of the proceeds from their sales. Last year, the paper celebrated its 15th anniversary, making it the oldest continuously published street newspaper in the world.
Contact information:
STREET SHEET Vendor orientations take place
Fridays 10 A.M. @ 468 Turk Street
Phone: (415) 346 3740 ext. 304
Or tell the truth like The Beat Within?
.
Other Literature from BCD (“Behind Closed Doors”):
[Co-Pieces, found today]
It made me realize that a person who makes threats of death, can’t be taken lightly. It also left me with a low tolerance and a lack of respect for individuals who choose to treat their significant others in such a violent fashion.
The abusive language and exaltation of violence in most gangsta rap music are the reality of our present day society. Most of us are intelligently mature enough to realize that by not talking about something won’t cause it to go away.
Back in the day when I was going to school, getting really good grades not getting in fights or getting in trouble of some kind. I used to be a honor roll student.
we make mistakes listening to our thoughts
we make mistakes from things we’re taught
we might change if we get caught
we fell in love with fake dreams we bought
He grabbed her arm, turned her around, slapped her so hard her long hair went flying as if she were a doll. I was pretending I didn’t know what was going on and the loud sound of the slap make me flinch and put the video game on pause
Like a blind man who’s walking in a state of darkness, the same for the poor man in the ghetto who’s taking his anger out on his fellow comrade.
Beware of these politicians who pander to the public by legislation which they purport is “tough on crime,” but which in reality erodes civil liberties.
[end quote]
This is true in all our boxes: Womb to Tomb, sometimes only the first one ain’t a box and interacts with a real, living, pulsing human being.
Boxes along the way; Play pens (sometime), apartments, schools, courts, police stations, prisons, office cubicles, nursing homes, mental institutions, and finally that last long literally underground box. For the lucky ones.
Then there are the air-conditioned, Danish & coffee-serving, large conference halls where the certified ex-spurts (experts) talk to each other about what to do about those not invited to the talks.
Hurt doesn’t dissipate — it goes somewhere. It changes things.
Let’s talk. Family Court matters, it’s agonna hurt someone. Otherwise they’d “settle out of court.” What does all that pain really gain? And for whom??
~ ~ ~
Sometimes, you don’t even have to be near a court, there are trawlers [1] [2] out for the vulnerable, the needy, the hapless, and those who forgot their South Bronx Common sense — and WHAM! No access to your son, your daughter — for not leaving an abusive situation, or even poverty, the “right” way, or staying, I suppose, within your socially allotted caste (by working hard/smart/ and occasionally receiving a service from the government . . .
[1] Merriam-Webster Definition:
-
: to catch fish with a large net (called a trawl)
-
: to search through (something) in order to find someone or something
[2] from On-line Etymology Dictionary, we can see the root meaning is from “to drag.” The net seeking a catch is dragged through an area where fish are expected, I supposed including the bottom:
- trawl (v.)
1560s, from Dutch tragelen, from Middle Dutch traghelen “to drag,” from traghel “dragnet,” probably from Latin tragula “dragnet.” Related: Trawled; trawling.
Some groups, I believe the phrase was being circulated, “trawling for trauma” — some groups are trawling for traumatized mothers, in particular, and net (‘ensnare’) them on-line and through personal communications into a coordinated framework which lays the cause of “custody of children going to batterers” on “judges just don’t understand,” i.e., lack of domestic violence experts on-hand in the family court system. Along with this belief system is the corollary that FIXING it would be to “enhance” the family court system through additional training of judges, lawyers, custody evaluators (and just about anyone else), that is to say, for certain professionals to have opportunity to become consultants to government officials.
This is from “Poor Magazine.” They’re experts on being poor, not from the School of What To Do WIth Poverty but from the experiential angle. Notice the Honesty, the details.
“One low-income mother’s story..
~ ~ ~This story speaks to me: I was going through, thinking there was justice inside the halls of justice, and that some mature adult would see through these clear lies about my children, myself, and so forth. . . . . . ~ ~ ~
Virginia Velez/Special to PNN
Tuesday, March 25, 2003;
Before welfare de-form, I did all the right things to get out of poverty as a single mom. Luckily, I only have one child, a very rebellious, independent child. Anyway, I went to college when he was eight. It was the 80’s and I worked part-time in the very university I was attending 22 hours a week so I could get health benefits for my child and I. It was a while before the financial aid folks noticed, then they forced me to give up my nice job on campus to take work-study for much less pay and no medical benefits, or I would lose my grants. Luckily, another single mom told me I could get AFDC, at least for Medicaid and food stamps, and I did. I did so well in that Washington state university that I got a fellowship to go to the most elite school in California.. . .
So far so good.
Then . . . .
“…Dummy me called them to ask for a social worker or someone to help me get my son home and work things out. Yup, obviously Stanford had affected my good-South-Bronx-ghetto-child sense.. . .
She’d paid her dues, she asked for help for a situation…
“The police, CPS, social workers, all did absolutely nothing. . . that never before had anything been held against me in my caring for my child, alone, for 13 years. They did not care I was sad and depressed from finances, and from having to be around the most selfish, ego-centric, richest and most messed up people in the world, while I worked my butt off in my studies and part-time work. “
“…Never, ever ask for help from any agency. It’s completely pitiful for the moms and kids, but there is absolutely no institution you can trust for any help raising or just keeping your child. “
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Who is the “loco” in “In Loco Parentis” courts, again, this time?
with 2 comments
I saw the article. I want to say… loudly …
WHO CARES ANYMORE??
Father, two boys found dead (video)
Who is the “loco” in “In Loco Parentis” courts, again, this time?
March 30, 2009 (WLS) — McLean County authorities say Michael Connolly and his two young sons have been found dead in rural Putnam County.
“Nine-year-old Duncan and 7-year-old Jack were the focus of an Amber Alert issued earlier this month.”
The three-week-old search ended in tragedy about 100 miles south of Chicago.
Michael Connolly, 40, failed to return the boys to their mother – his ex-wife – on Sunday, March 8.
Initially, investigators thought Connolly might be in the Chicago area where his relatives live in southwest suburban Oak Lawn. But now, authorities say they found bodies matching the descriptions of the two missing Leroy, Illinois, brothers and cancelled the Amber Alert.
Authorities say the children’s bodies were found Sunday inside a car registered to Michael Connolly. Police happened upon the 1991 Dodge Dynasty after receiving a call about a suspicious vehicle in a secluded area. At around 6 p.m. Sunday, investigators examined the vehicle and found two deceased boys in the back seat area. The body of a man matching Michael Connolly’s description was found about 60 feet west of the car. Autopsies have been scheduled.
The sheriff has not said if there were any obvious signs of trauma or if a weapon was recovered.
On the day that the boys disappeared, there was a restraining order in place against Michael Connolly because authorities say he continued to harass his ex-wife. The two had divorced in 2007 after 13 years of marriage.
BACK to the FATHER ON WEEKEND VISITATION WITH TWO SONS….
The Chicago-area family of the two missing brothers had pleaded with the boys’ father to bring them home.
(Well — see below– the father had already made it clear his intent was to punish his ex-wife. FYI, pleading with some in on the position to extort you (i.e.,hostages taken) doesn’t generally work. Trust me.)
“We love the boys so much. We want them back. We want everybody back. We want our family back together,” said Joyce Connolly, Michael Connolly’s aunt.
The boys’ mother, Amy Leichtenberg, said she warned a judge her ex-husband might take off with the children.
“I told him he was a flight risk. My attorney told him he was a flight risk. Nobody believed me,” said Leichtenberg.
[That was the Amber alert, coming from someone who was paying attention.]
Police had said there was reason to be worried about the boys.
“We are concerned because we’ve had some incidents in the past with Mr. Connolly that indicate he is not a stable individual and that he makes verbal threats towards himself, the children and his ex-wife,” Chief Gordon Beck, LeRoy Police Department, said during the search.
“He has always told me,
cause I took the kids from him,
that I would suffer just like he did,” said Leichtenberg (Mother).
Well, he was a man of his word.
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
March 30, 2009 at 11:38 am
Posted in Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Fatal Assumptions, History of Family Court, Lethality Indicators - in News, Vocabulary Lessons
Tagged with "We had no idea!", custody, domestic violence, family annihilation, family law, men's rights, murder-suicides, social commentary