Christine Duncan's blog

Remaking a Life

2005-08-18T11:32:00.000-06:00

These past few summers, as our drought ravaged state fought fires that damaged large areas, the media published a lot of tips of what people should take with them in an emergency evacuation. Those lists fascinated me for both the seemingly obvious things to take (the dog, clothes, insurance papers, pictures, heirlooms you can’t live without.) and the logical but less obvious, such as an extra pair of glasses, and (gulp) a descriptive inventory of all your possessions. In the end, no matter how many lists I saw, the conclusion was the same. It is impossible to cram an entire life in the car.
Every day, battered women face the same dilemma. Grab the kids, clothes, school books and homework assignments, prescriptions, and do it quickly. Then they’re off to—where? Battered women are most likely to suffer the worst abuse when they leave. And victims’ families are not immune from that abuse. Yet, my county has only one battered woman’s shelter, nearby Boulder—one. Even Denver—a major city--has only a few.
Shelters can and do turn away women and their children, although of course, they do try to find space for the battered in other shelters. And even when women are accepted, they have only a short span of time to remake their lives. Employers report that domestic violence can be a problem in the workplace. The reason is not hard to guess. After all, if the woman has left home, the guy is going to find her somewhere. Work is the next most obvious place, as well as the kids’ schools, the boyscout meeting, even church. So, the woman and her kids really need to start over completely. Find a new job, new schools, a new place to live and stuff to furnish that in, and do it in thirty days.
You read that right.
Battered women in shelters are given a time limit of anywhere from two weeks to six months to redo their lives with the shelters that offer the longest respite being the scarcest. Typically they offer the longest waiting lists for women to get in. We have one in the Denver Metro area.
Most women escaping their abusive spouses are given on average thirty days to remake their lives.
Thirty days to find that new job, new school, new apartment—oh and the money for furnishings, clothes for the kids, money for food and the dentist. Thirty days to listen to the kids complain that they miss their friends and their home, thirty days to figure out what to do about their marriages.
And people wonder why women return to their abusers. Many return for a short space, hoping things will be better, secretly stashing money and supplies away in case it isn’t. So they can stay away the next time.
As in most states, we have more animal shelters than women shelters. Do you find this statistic as shocking as I do? Donate your gently used clothes. Donate your money to your local shelter. Donate your time.

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Why Read Another Author's Blog?

2005-08-17T15:58:00.000-06:00

I don't know about most of you, but I'm sick of what I see in women's magazines. For one thing, everything in them seems to be slanted toward making me buy something. I'm not talking the ads in the magazines here. Fair is fair and ads pay the bills. However many of the articles seem to be skewed toward new purchases also. Many magazines out there are very frank about it too, telling the reader that one of the magazine's purposes is to inform the reader about shopping.
I know that our economy is dependent upon consumer spending, but I don't like feeling as though it is my sole purpose in life. C'mon!
Also as a baby boomer, many magazines are not interested in me as a reader. They want a younger crowd and women my age are neither pictured nor addressed in the articles. I'm not talking Seventeen here, or even Glamour. I am officially too old for Good Housekeeping, and Redbook and forget any of the fitness magazines. Self and Shape and the like are pretty much focused on younger women.
Which leaves me and thousands of women like me with Reader's Digest, Prevention, and of course, More, the me magazine of the over forties.
I want something else. Something that addresses me intellectually. Physically. Emotionally. And dare I say it? Spiritually.
I'm a wife, a mother, a writer, a (not very fast) runner, a gardener who needs help with her weeds and info on what to do with her too many irises, a member of a community who is concerned with not just her community or state, but what is going on with the world. A Christian and a neighbor and a tree hugger who would like to conserve for the coming generation but who would like to do it inside suburbia.
Maybe blogging is the answer. At least I'm hoping to find out the answer to the question:
Are there others out there like me?
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Marriage On The Black Market

2005-08-17T15:55:00.000-06:00

Roo is a guest author on Christine's blog
by Roo Palmer

We were brought up on a system. Some call it a western system. Others call it Christian. Most of us were brought up knowing the difference between right and wrong, black and white, rich and poor. We came to know a language, a family history, our country’s history and roots. Most of us grew up knowing something about God, whether it be told at Christmas time, or in Sunday school, or by our parents. Then, when we left the school system, we were faced into a world we weren’t really sure of or had experienced. Employment, politics, travel, trends, money, and leisure activities that we hadn’t understood before. So, we experimented without knowing the real dangers, stepping our feet into waters that we have no ounce of experience or wisdom in. Then, we ended up making mistakes. Some of those mistakes were only learning experiences, but some were deadly, life changing and very destructive. One of those mistakes would come in the form of our marriage, if the mistake was that we married the person who would not be right for us, and we would bear that mistake to our children.
If you are a child born into domestic violence, you live a daily lifestyle of stress, fear, and trauma. You cannot see any peace within your self to enjoy what you want to enjoy. You cannot focus on a future because you are living a constant fear that never ends. If you are a wife of domestic violence, you wonder what went wrong. You wonder what happened to the gentle man who was going to be the man of your dreams. You were conned into believing that he really loved you, and that you would live to a ripe old age in a long lasting and happy marriage.
If you are the controller in the domestic violence house, you are either copying a learnt behaviour, or you cannot get ahead to know how to deal with your anger and to feel a worth by the world outside.
You have not learnt to cry. You have not learnt to love in the way that love really is in reality. Your love is only what Hollywood taught you, not the love that God is and can be to you. You know that your actions will eventually break your spirit and your body when you find that your new home is a steel barred cell, maybe sharing with other prisoners who don’t tolerate committers of domestic violence. When you said ‘I do’ in front of hundreds of people at your wedding, and before God, your vow was useless the moment you took the power in your heart to dictate your family, rather than love your family. As soon as you responded with violence on your wife, or your children, your marriage certificate was invalid and your wife was no longer subject to it. She would now be able to seek safety, whether or not, you sought help for yourself. Far too many husbands take in the ‘Wives, submit your husbands’ with gusto and power, but forget to respond to, “Husbands, love your wives,” in the same way. You have forgotten God’s love for women because you have also forgotten God’s love for you. You do not know or accept that God loved women and had a strong fellowship with women of second rate to the religious hierarchy of biblical times. You do not know or accept that He still does have love and a strong fellowship with women of second rate against the powers of today. You think you are not to blame for your actions, but you really are. You make the choices whether you seek help and counselling long before your fellow inmates do the job for you. The world knows that you were not born a violent person, but the world also knows that you learnt that behaviour, from somewhere, and you were brainwashed into believing a lie to the very point of taking your action on innocent people. You are domestic terrorist within your heart, terrorising your family and others, complaining that you are the one who is hard done by and everyone else is at fault. No, your actions are at fault, but God still loves you, but God does not tolerate or accept your actions as okay either, and neither does your wife. When God said to Eve, ‘Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you,’ did not mean that you were allowed to dictate with your fists and verbally, physically or sexually abuse her. It meant that you were the head in most of the decision making, but you were also to love her and respect her as a human being.
But, there is also the other side of the spectrum. A lot of men are victims of domestic violence from their overbearing, dominating wives and that is not acceptable either. Some women want to rule their nest, and men are caught up in a submission that is not naturally theirs or God ordained.
So, men need to take control of the situation and seek wise advice to what the best course of action is, without violence, but with diplomacy, and allowing God to work on her heart. If she not willing to step down from ruling the nest, she will bear the lack of her own respect and integrity from others, and she will take in the harvest that she created.
Domestic violence also starts in childhood, learning from violent movies, video games, TV, and bully behaviour in the play ground. The action of adults needs to start there, with correction and education of positive behaviour, both by example and by discipline. School bullying is the responsibility of the teachers and the school as well as the parents, teaching them responsible behaviour from the very beginning, so a child does not then grow up to become a wife beater or child abuser.
Roo Palmer
Roo Palmer's blog