My Mother's Struggle With Domestic Violence

“We can say with some assurance that, although children may be the victims of fate, they will not be the victims of our neglect.”- John F. Kennedy (1963). Throughout my childhood I have watched my mother struggle with domestic violence. My mom tried her hardest throughout my life to make up for my biological father not being there for me. However, my mother has not had the best taste in men. Everyman that she dated, was physically and mentally abusive to her. However, the man that had the biggest impact on my life was Jon. My mom started dating him when I was ten years old, he had two little kids that he moved into our home. Jon was physically and mentally abusive to my mom, his children and myself. With Jon came an increase in my mother’s

substance abuse, and an increase in the severity of her mental illness. For the three years that my mom dated Jon, I had to pick her up off of the living room floor bloody and beaten, and put her back together both physically and emotionally. I had to care for the two small children within our home that I knew I needed to shelter from the abuse and make the home as stable of an environment as I could, even being a child myself. My mother and her boyfriend badly abused alcohol and he took other controlled substances which made his actions completely unpredictable. My mom was completely absorbed in him, he was in and out of jail for the three years and whenever he would go to jail my mother would fall completely in to depression not leaving her room for weeks at a time. Leaving, no food in the house and not paying the utilities so we often would go without water or heat. It was difficult to deal with a mother that frankly was not a mother for many years of my life. At age thirteen I had had enough, Jon had just gotten out of jail, he came home and broke the front door down then my bedroom door. The two kids now four were asleep in my room. I told them to hide and I stood up against him for my mother, the kids and myself. I could not stand to help my mom up from the ground one more time, I couldn’t stand to not do anything, she did not deserve to be beaten by him anymore. So I made him turn on me. Jon attacked me for standing up to him, I was small then so I was able to get away and in to the bathroom. He broke down the bathroom door and punched me and threw me against the wall. I begged for my mom to step in and stop him. But she took his side telling me I “shouldn’t have talked back to him.” I got away again and back in to my room and dialed 911. That call changed my entire life, Jon went to jail again, and the kids were taken away but I was heartbroken that was not at all my intention. I had to deal with the foster care system and DCFS I was old enough and told them I was fine in the home and wanted to stay with my mom as long as Jon was not around. Things were good, we moved and cut ties with many people our old neighborhood. But then six months later when Jon was released from jail, he found us. He convinced my mom he had changed that things would be different. I knew I could not handle being a mom to my mom anymore and told her it was me or him. Of course I thought she would choose me, what mother wouldn’t choose her kid over a man? She didn’t. At age thirteen I was homeless. I moved in with the upstairs neighbor for a while but I could still hear their fighting through the walls and moved. For the next three years I stayed where ever someone would have me, and used up my fair share of welcomes. I was a tough kid to handle, I did not take direction, and did whatever the opposite of what I was told. I was pissed off, hurt and unable to handle my own emotions. One home that I stayed at told me in order for me to stay with them I had to see a counselor. So I moved out eventually I needed a place to stay again so I went back. I saw a social worker named Janice. She helped me through all of my emotions helped me to deal with the things that happened in my past and come back in contact with my mom, who at the time was living out of her car. At sixteen, I moved back in with my mom. We had our fair share of problems but eventually we got through it. Janice changed my life, she is the reason that I want to go in to social work. I want to be that beacon of hope for some other kid who thinks there is no one out there that cares about them. I want to be that person to show them that regardless of what they have been through they are strong and they can make something of their life. Because of this I knew that social work was the avenue that I wanted to take as my future career path.
There are many different identities that I may assume over my life time, and they may change with time but currently there some that set me apart from others. My mom has been deemed disabled. According to the Official Social Security Website, there are several conditions to the government determining a person as disabled: the person can no longer work as they had prior, the ability to adjust to other work environments is not likely due to the medical condition, and the disability is expected to last a year or more and/or will result in death. This is very important to my identity because she unable to do many everyday things that many people including myself often take for granted. I identify as an able bodied person because I do not need special ramps or care to get though my daily life. I do not have to struggle to physically to get out of bed in the morning or lay awake at night in pain. I identify as white because though I was not born with the notion that being white somehow makes me superior to others, the culture that we live in has placed that upon me. According to Marsiglia (2015), “Privilege is the sum of the unearned advantages of special group membership”. Being white often makes it easier to get though the curve balls life throws at you. I believe that being white gives access to the care and assistance that may not otherwise be available. Another identity that I have is being Christian. I believe in God as my Lord and Savior, in heaven and in hell. I believe that not following God and his will, will lead to an afterlife in hell. However, I do not believe in the same God that most Christian believe in so at times it is difficult to accept the label of a “Christian” because I do not want others to label me as the type of person that would not stand by them if they were not the “perfect” person that the Bible calls for you to be. In today’s world I think that there are many new aged Christians like myself that do not accept everything that the Bible says, about how to behave in order to reach heaven. Within my family there are also two other “new-aged Christians”, those being my two other cousins. We are highly accepting of people and everything that is unique about them. Yet even with those differing beliefs holding the label of Christian now a days has a negative connotation because of the extremist that disapprove of nearly everyone that does not obey the Bible to the very last letter. I also identify with being on the bottom of the social structure of America, the poverty level. The Atlantic states that “more than half of all children born to mothers under the age of 30, are born to single mothers, a demographic that is far more likely to be poorer than their married counterparts” (Khazan, 2014). Growing up with my mother on disability she received seven-hundred and thirty dollars a month, eight thousand seven-hundred and sixty dollars a year. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the poverty level in the U.S. increased from 10,610 dollars in 1997 to 15,930 dollars in 2015. During which time my mother’s income never increased just the amount of poverty that she was in. I identify myself with this group because others see me as someone that belongs in this group, because my family receives welfare to service, because financial aid is paying for me to go to college and many do not believe that I deserve that. I believe that this is a social identity that will one day change. I am working hard to change my future for the better and though I will hopefully no longer be within the poverty level I will still have the strength that being within the poverty level and fighting my way out of it gave me.
I became aware that I was a part of a group that was “different” or not excepted as the norm when in fourth grade the city I lived in changed the schooling system to be separated by grade level and not by the area in which you live.

Being a kid that lived on the west side or the “bad” side of town I did not really understand why people were so upset about the change until myself and all my friends from school entered the school of the “other” kids. It was made very apparent to us that we were not welcomed, that we were all dirty and that is when I realized my family was “poor”. I remember many of us trying to blend in as much as possible, not talking about our previous school or what side of town we lived on. It became even more clear the old I got and the more vocal others became toward those in my social class and the assumptions made of those that live on the west side of town. The stereotypes about people that need government assistance to survive their daily lives have dated back to the colonial days of America. However, the ‘most significant example of the stereotype comes from Susan Sheehan’s article, “A Welfare Mother,”’ (Coughlin, 1989, p. 83) this story is of a women that cheats the system in various ways thus creating the stereotype that now follows all of those that are in need of assistance. This stereotype has followed me throughout my entire life and it still follows me today. It is what drives me every day to work as hard as I can to break through the stereotypes, to show that just because someone is a victim of circumstance is does not mean that they should not be given the same opportunities as everyone

else.
A primary value of my family, is family. My family makes the effort to be close to each other and come together at least once a week to catch up on what is going on in each other’s lives. My grandma, my aunt and uncle as well as my mom and I all live within a three block radius of each other. On Sundays my family gets together at my grandmother’s house for dinner after attending church. This is very important to us because this was something that happened every Sunday until my grandpa died and we still keep his memory alive by making his favorite meals and sharing stories about him. This is a value that is following me through my life as I think about starting my own family as I think about the type of career that I might have later on in life and making the decision to have a demanding career or one that I will still be able to maintain the closeness of family that has been so deeply ingrained in me from my grandparents. With my father not being in my life, my grandfather greatly took over that role in my life. A value that he passed on to me was “treat others the way that you want to be treated.” When I was younger I was very much a tom-boy and was always playing the garden with my Papa. He was the person that I went to when I needed advice about anything and everything in life. And every time he would say the same thing to me, “Treat others the way you want to be treated”. This motto has followed me through my entire life and is something that I believe will help me in my career as a social worker. Because of this value that my Papa has instilled in me I am able to take a step back when looking at situations and take the others person perspective and try and understand how I would be feeling in their situation, and how I would want the problem addressed.