The issue of domestic violence is a very comp,lex one, and when it comes to children , no one stets out to abuse them. (I doubt that was the intention of the parents when they first had a child.)
But perpetrators have a wide variety of excuses for what they do, most of them are based on a narcissistic personality or a paranoid personality. There is nothing like being raised in an abusive family that teaches punishment is love.
The biggest problem is that DV is a crime between individuals, so while societal intervention helps reduce the aggravating factors of DV, it does not make DV go away.
The two issues I try to remeber (out of about ten) are that
DV is a crime of tolerance, the victims do not recognise the violence, the people around the victims do not recognise the violence, no one sees the violence because they are raised to tolerate it.
To counter this we must be aware that violence is a continuos process, it starts with hard looks and glares, through subtle put downs,name calling, yelling, restraining, hitting and killing. It is all violence but people tolerate the lower end and won't even call it violence until the hitting begins.
DV is a crime of privacy, there are so many reasons that it is private, first off perpetratos often go to great lengths to keep it private, then there is the tolerance and cultural prejudice against interfering in other people lives.
To counter this , as individuals we must be aware of the subtle signs of violence, we can offer a link to help someone. But you must always be careful, your well meaning intervention could make things much worse for the victim,
whenever you see children being hit, call your child protetive services, when a child discloses to you, do not tell them it is normal and to tolerate it.
Peace and safety to all....
