How We Could End Intimate Partner Violence in One Generation
Short answer here is a simple 4 words, change how we parent. Abusers and rapists do not just emerge at age 18, their abusive and entitled ways have been cultivated and supported by their parents and larger society their whole lives. Actually doing something abusive is a natural consequence of having been raised thinking it’s ok to hurt women.
As a victim/survivor of domestic abuse and also a victim/survivor of rape (both times by men I thought were my ‘friends’) my greatest fear for my kids (that is somewhat within my control) is that any of my kids would grow up to abuse anyone else. I have spent 17 years trying to find ways to parent that will not feed the entitlement culture so many boys (and some girls) currently receive. I believe that if we are serious about ending intimate partner violence (in all it’s forms) we could, within one generation. All it takes is a change in how we parent. If we parent the next generation in a way that is respectful of them and also teaches respect for others there would be very little abuse in the world.
While there will always be a a small number of actual sociopaths the majority of people are able to distinguish right from wrong relatively easily. The problem is that we are currently teaching our sons (and sometimes our daughters) that abuse and assault is ok.
Don’t believe me? How then to explain the 43% of women worldwide who will experience psychological violence from an intimate partner or the 35% who will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime? Statistics like that speak to an epidemic of violence against women, a world in which 43% of the entirety of the female population has experienced trauma at the hands of a man. Plus the majority of these men aren’t strangers in an alley, 90% of rapists are known to the victim and 70% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner.
So our boys are overwhelmingly getting the message throughout their lives that it is ok to hurt women, that it is ok to rape women, ok to psychologically abuse women, ok to hit women. If as a parent you are not doing every damned thing in your power to stop your sons getting that message then you could be raising someone who will grow up to hurt women. I know that sounds shocking (Or I hope it does). But if nearly half of all women in the world are being abused that means at least 1/3 of all men are likely abusing (allowing for repeat offenders), and it’s possible those statistics are even higher — this is just the figures we know about.
How sure are you that your son or sons won’t be in the 1/3 or more of the male population that grows up to abuse women?
Millions is spent every year on campaigns to raise awareness of domestic abuse. I would argue that for long-term gain the majority of that money would be better spent on parenting programs. We can and should be parenting our way to an abuse-free world. This can only happen if people are prepared to change the way they do things. To change their “It was good enough for me” attitude towards parenting in a different way to how they were raised.
It wasn’t good enough for you. Your generation are dealing with a worldwide epidemic of violence against women. I, like many women I know have been hurt by men. If I was to count the amount of men that have disregarded my “No”, who have tried to psychologically terrorise me, who have stalked me, sent me abusive messages, sent me unsolicited dick pics, grabbed parts of my body without my permission, put their penis inside me without my permission, tried to control me, stuck their tongue in my mouth etc I’d hazzard a guess at around 50 men. That’s 50 different men and at least 50 separate incidences. I did a straw poll of women on a women’s group on facebook a while back to ascertain if my experience was unusual. It was entirely unscientific and had responses from less than 100 women (but covered women from around the world). The average amount of abusive incidences from different men those women said they had experienced from men was a bit over 70. 70 abusive men per woman is the world we’re offering our daughters. I for one, want better for my daughters than that, and I expect more from my sons.
So how to parent the abuse out of our society?
It’s all about respect. You cannot abuse someone if you behave respectfully around others. Respect your child. Treat them with respect, teach them about consent from the time they can talk. Explain if you have to do things to their bodies when they are little and as soon as they are old enough to ask consent, start asking, “Is it ok for me to hug you?” etc. There’s a wealth of information about how to incorporate consent into your parenting so I won’t go further into it there, however it is vital and key to raising a respectful adult.
Figure out what your values are as a person. Do a values exercise (available free online). Figure out what your values are as a parent. If your kids are old enough have them figure out what their values are too. My 5 year olds list read:
Kind
Loving
Happy
Write out your values and stick them up in your kitchen. Hold your kids to these values in a respectful way. Here’s how that looks like in practise:
Let’s say 5 year old Ben hit Jane. First direct all your attention to Jane. Jane is number one in needing comfort and support. When Jane is comforted speak to Ben.
“Ben, you hurt Jane. I see on your list of how you want to be that it says ‘kind’, is what you just did kind?”
“So the thing you did was you acting in a way you don’t really want to act? What do you want to do to be a kind person? What would a kind person do in your situation right now?”
Institute an excellent apology and amends/reparation culture in your family. In adult life if someone hit me I would not forgive them unless I could FEEL the apology and they did all they could to make amends. It’s the same (but scaled down in intensity and length) for kids. Expose your kids to the same kind of natural consequences they’ll get in real life if they treated someone bad and didn’t make amends. “Jane doesn’t want to play with you now. She is frightened of you. What can you do to make things right?” etc. Ask kids LOADS of questions about how they feel they can fix things, they’re usually so much better than adults at knowing the right thing to do. Try and do it all in as non-judgemental way as possible. You are acting as a mirror to your child, reflecting back their actions and holding up the higher vision for themselves that they created for themselves. You’re not bringing your expectations in, just mirroring back and supporting your kids to be the person they have told you they want to be. It’s a more sustainable approach than trying to ram your own ideas into your kids, though there will of course be family values that you will want to impart to your kids.
Stay in touch with your own feeling and emotions and be true to them. You have your boundaries as to what you expect from the people in your life, so if your kid crosses one of those boundaries tell them. One of my kids went through a phase of trying to make everything that went wrong in his life my fault. I had to assert my boundaries very strongly during this period with my child (not in a shouty scary way, in respectful but firm conversations). “It is not my fault that the toy shop doesn’t have the figure you wanted. It is really unreasonable of you to get angry with me. I feel hurt by the way you spoke to me.”
If your child is really sticking firm and being mean you could say, “I don’t want to be around you right now, I’m still upset by what you did to me earlier and I don’t feel you’ve made amends.” Give them some time to feel that they have hurt you and you won’t just sweep it under the rug and forget about it. I’ve never known a child to not respond to this and to apologise, all kids want is to feel safe, loved and respected for who they are. Which is really all adults want too. You have to look after yourself and make sure that you are being respected as well. Respect should flow both ways. I’ve become very attuned to when I am being disrespected, and through my awareness and talking about the more subtle forms of disrespect my kids are now much more emotionally literate and aware of when they are being disrespected as well.
What we see around us and are exposed to forms our worldview. This can lead to having harmful stereotype views. Learn as much as you can about gender and other stereotypes and why they are so harmful. The more intersectionally feminist your household is the more likely you’re raising an emapthic child who wouldn’t dream of abusing anyone.
Expose your kids to all kinds of people, cultures and belief systems.
If your child grows up only seeing stay at home mums he will be more likely to grow up expecting his partner to give up her job and be a stay at home mum. We take on what is role modelled for us.
Work on your own emotional intelligence and help your kids develop theirs. Being emotional intelligent allows us to express our feelings and to become more attuned to the feelings of others. It is an invaluable life skill and one every parent should be trying to impart to their kids.
Have critical analysis conversations with your kids about media and culture. Some of the things I’ve talked about with my kids have been, the way families in media are nearly always a mum, a dad and one or two kids, how there are more men or boy characters on tv than there are girls, how there aren’t many people of colour or people with disabilities on tv, movies or ads, how strangers often comment on my daughter’s appearances but rarely my sons (and never to call my son’s beautiful).
These are all opportunities to teach my kid’s critical thinking skills. “Why are there no black people on this show? There are loads of black people in real life.”, “Why do people feel like it’s ok to comment on my appearance? Why are they only doing it to girls?”
My child when he was 5 asked his teacher how she felt about the patriarchy and my 8 year old daughter will now always tell me about the gender balance of books she’s reading or shows she’s watching.
Kids are very clued in and very interested in learning how the world works, help them by asking questions.
This is not an exhaustive list, it is just some of the important learning I have as a result of working supporting abuse survivors in their parenting. For many of these women their greatest fear, like mine is that their children will grow up to do to others what was done to them. The learning from my years of work with these families is that it is possible to stop the cycle of abuse. Now, in order to create an abuse-free world we just need to spread the word so that enough people will decide to change or alter the way they parent too.
