Category: Op-eds

The headline is always the same “Children were not harmed”; that headline always makes me cringe.

Last Wednesday night Erica Allen, an elementary school principal, loss her life at the hands of her husband Nicholas Allen, who was an assistant principal. He later took his own life; their two children were in the home during this event. The children are two and seven years old.

The children have been harmed.

Below is a video I often share during training on the affects of domestic violence on children. You may be familiar with it; if not it is a great tool to help the audience see how the violence in the home is shaping the children and also a reminder to victim advocates and first responders about trauma informed care.

What becomes of the youngest victims of domestic violence? Who do they become and what becomes their view of the world?

I am convinced that so much of the brutality, selfishness and emotional numbness we witness while working with families affected by domestic and sexual violence is a direct result of adults who did not have access to counseling or other positive role models to combat the abuse they witnessed throughout their childhood.

Programs for children and youth are so important to equip the youngest survivors of abuse so they can reinvent their story and how they will choose to show up in the world; a healthier version of their upbringing. Children see themselves as an extension of their parents and that is natural because we are literally created by our parents; and yes it could be easy to assume that because my parent is abusive that is who I am too.

Counseling, primary prevention programming and mentorship can break the generational cycles of abuse. Thank you to all the programs that are integrating children and youth services into your work. You are building a healthier tomorrow and helping children and youth embrace who they are by building self-confidence and self-efficacy. It also an opportunity to help them see the good qualities of their parents and integrate those into their lives while recognizing that they parents may not be bad people, simply people who had bad things happen and did not resolve and re-write a healthier narrative.

As one of those who have been around in our field pretty much since its inception, I came into our work at one of the darkest times in my life. There at the beginning, I got to be part of something that I did not know was to grow and develop into what it is today. Never had I been at the advent of something.

Then, which was 1975, I had my great, “for a woman,” nice middle management job at the research and training arm of Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation in the Texas Medical Center where one of my station did not make policy. Policy came down from on high.

This was the beginning of the resurgence of the women’s movement. Women would ask me if I had seen this coming and gotten ahead of the curve. Nothing could have been farther from the actual reason. My unstable marriage needed the comfort of knowing I and the children could survive if the rug were pulled out from under us.

I endured a long and terrible divorce. Like being on a roller coaster screaming to get off, but not being able to until the ride was over, the ride finally stopped. I staggered to the platform. Little did I know then what working to help end violence, abuse, and control of women following would be my life’s work.

The lesson learned is sometimes darkest days guide us to new meaning, value, relationships with wonderful, talented, ethical, and dedicated others. And in so doing, women got to hold the wrench and to create policy.

Although we would not teach children math using only the odd numbers, as schoolgirl I was taught history (his-story) learning only about men. One of the joys of my adult life has been reclaiming “herstory” by learning about the lives of my foremothers.

Two of my favorite women are Sarah and Angelina Grimke, sisters from South Carolina born into a white wealthy slaveholding family who rejected that life and moved north to became abolitionists and women’s rights advocates.

Unfortunately, my early attempts to add women back into the historical narrative were very whitewashed. My current effort is learning about the amazing contributions of women of color. For example, an early feminist of North America is a Mexican woman named Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695). She was a poet, writer, philosopher, and Hieronymite nun who advocated for the education of girls.

I’m grateful that Women’s History Month gives us an opportunity to learn about these important women and their remarkable stories. We stand on their shoulders.