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COERCION SEEN BY CHILDREN 

CAN FEED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

By Richard L. Davis, Vice President of Family Nonviolence, Inc. in Fairhaven, MA.

October 23, 2007

In Massachusetts, similar to most states, domestic violence is child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner, and elder abuse. Domestic violence is when people use threats, physical assaults or economic coercion to change or alter the behavior of family members or intimate partners.

What is not recognized, understood or agreed upon is where adults, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, first learn that the use of this behavior (the use of unequal physical strength or economic coercion in families or intimate partner relationships) is acceptable.

One of the first, foremost and lasting lessons children learn is that it is acceptable for those who have the more physical power and the control of economic resources (parents, caretakers, and adults in general) to use that physical power and economic control to "get their way." In fact, as data document, some family members use their unequal physical power and economic control against other incapacitated (cognitively or physically challenged or economically deprived) adult family members.

In every state, it is legally and socially acceptable for adults to use physical assaults to change or alter the behavior of children. Most attempts to change the legality of using physical assaults against children is met with fierce resistance by politicians and majority of the public. In fact, in many states it remains legally acceptable for some adults who are not parents or caretakers to hit children with implements.

In Massachusetts, the supposed bastion of equal rights, these physical assaults are still upheld and condoned by the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth as long as the skin of the child is not black and blue or broken and bleeding.

And concerning economic coercion, it is often heard and remains socially acceptable to proclaim, "As long as you remain under my roof and eat my food, you will do what I tell you to do." And most families know full well this form of coercion is not used only used against very young children.

In the college text "Family Violence, Legal, Medical, and Social Perspectives," the author writes "Researchers have interviewed, tested, observed, and evaluated thousands of people in an attempt to discover the factors that contribute to family violence."

As the famous comic book character Pogo once noted, "We have discovered the enemy, and the enemy is us." Perhaps society has not discovered that it is contributing to or condoning the antecedents of domestic violence because too many people in contemporary society continue to resist looking in the mirror.