Abusers enjoy the fiction that advocates for domestic violence victims are on a mission to destroy the institution of marriage, or at the very least to emasculate all men. It’s part of the spiel, often followed by the phrase, “I’m the real victim here.”
I have to admit that some DV workers are lesbians. Some may be crazy. Happy now?
Man-haters? Certainly not. As one of my co-workers pointed out, by providing female victims of domestic violence with a safe place to stay, we are actually protecting the male abusers from any fatal measures of self-defense those victims might have otherwise been forced to take. (And we provide services to male victims of domestic violence, so that blows the man-hater theory right out of the water.)
But because we spend so much time with victims of and issues related to DV, we advocates are always on yellow alert for it. We know that. So when I first say the film of Richard Heene’s kicking-and-cursing tantrum, I said to myself, “He’s immature, but not necessarily a wife beater.”
You know the guy I mean. He was on some reality show, and last week he built a flying saucer-shaped helium balloon in his back yard. The balloon broke loose, Heene had a little fit, then the whole nation got involved when it appeared that a six-year-old child was in the runaway balloon. Thankfully the child was NOT in the balloon, but Heene and his family gleefully made the round of talk shows. The child, it was said, had been hiding in the attic because his dad had yelled at him.
Red flag number 1: The tantrum.
Red flag number 2: Dad’s temper is so nasty that the kid hid from him for hours.
Red flag number 3: When the six-year-old vomited during a television interview (not once, but twice!), neither parent moved to take care of him until an interviewer asked Mrs. Heene if she’d like to see to her son. Mrs. Heene’s bizarre response was, “Is that okay?” (Seriously? You need permission to take care of your sick child?)
Never having been a reality show star, I tried to give these people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps there’s some insider rule about not leaving the set until the cameras stop rolling. Perhaps Mr. Heene normally tends to the sick children and so Mrs. Heene didn’t feel called upon to do so. And perhaps Mr. Heene refrained from taking up that responsibility because … well, I’ve got nothing for that one.
The point is, I tried really hard to NOT label Richard Heene an abuser.
For the record, an Associated Press story indicates that not everyone is as broad-minded as I am: “We talked to her [Mrs. Heene] at length about domestic violence, about her safety, about her children’s safety,” the sheriff said. “We have a concern, but we didn’t have enough that would allow us or child protective services to physically take the kids from that environment.”
It’s not just me, is it?
