It Is A Big Deal
When I was a teen my Dad hit me when he was really, really, mad. He probably did when I was a kid too, but I don't remember. I do remember that as a kid I had a bad temper, just like my Dad. I used to flip out and hit my friends a lot. I was violent until I was 15 and it never occurred to my parents that I'd have been less violent if my Dad was.
When I was 15 I started babysitting 2 kids. The boy I babysat was a great kid but wouldn't stop hitting his little sister when he was mad. I then stopped hitting people because I didn't want to be a hypocrite.
The kids' Mom is one of my best friends, and the person I trust most in the world, but in grade 12 when I told her about my Dad hitting me she barely reacted. I was fine with my Dad hitting me as long as he wasn't hitting anyone else.
Then I went away to university and when I mentioned my Dad hitting me to my new friends they were a little freaked out. They helped me realize that I am important and my friend shouldn't have been so accepting of the fact that I let my Dad hit me, she usually cares about me even when I don't care about myself.
Just because I was the only one he was hitting doesn't make it okay. If my new friends hadn't helped me realize this I might have married an abusive man. I called my friend and confronted her about it.
She admitted she was wrong and I forgave her, all I wanted was for her to admit she was wrong. While I was home for Christmas holidays I visited my friend and her kids.
On a day she was pretty stressed out it occurred to me that we'd been unsuccessfully trying for 3 years to get the boy to stop hitting his sister, maybe I was relying on her too much. I told the boy that if he keeps hitting his sister, she might marry a guy that hits her and he might become a guy that hits his wife and kids.
I don't know yet how effective that was but so far it seems to have worked. Twice since then I was expecting to have to block him, but the thought of hitting her didn't seem to cross his mind.
He was the reason I stopped hitting it's only fitting I be the reason he stops hitting and we don't make the same mistakes as our parents.
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