Saturday, February 22, 2020

Domestic Violence


A Rant
Neutrality and dispassionate are the modes I maintain as I deliver letters to mortgagees behind on their payments for the agency that pays me to do so. Occasionally, like this morning, I return to my car and tablet and seethe with anger.

Approaching the house, the doorbell button is gone, a clue that this might be an awkward call. Knock on the door and hear a dog barking inside. Wait, second knock and someone comes to the door. The door opens a crack and I ask, “Mr. XXXX?”

The door opens wider and I see a teen boy, maybe 16, and he says,

“He doesn’t live here. He hasn’t for a month. He has a restraining order”.

The young man’s shame and embarrassment was obvious. I concluded my business by giving him the envelope to forward and departed.

What kind of shithead coward puts his children in that position? Yeah, rhetorical question.

If I did only one thing right in raising my sons, it is you don’t hit women. Both of the younger ones have been in abusive relationships. Both were hit by the women in their lives. Both walked away instead of retaliating. The same happened in my only marriage.

The money spent on lawyers would have made a good college fund start. My youngest got full custody and later the birth mother lost all parental rights. To see how those children have grown and thrived in a loving, but disciplined, home makes it all worthwhile.

Middle son was married five years. Thankfully, no children.

That house I visited will probably end up in foreclosure. The signs of property neglect are plain. Poverty and uncertainty will be the fate of the children.

Makes me sad and angry.

9 comments:

LL said...

I've been in the misery business most of my adult life. Whether it was working for a prosecutor's office and trying not to be a persecutor, in the military biz - ordnance on target, in the law enforcement biz or in the intel biz...human misery played a key role.

And while some people are unlucky, most people bring it on themselves. By that I mean that tough times come and it's your reaction to adversity that makes the difference between an abundant life and spreading manure.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

LL
True words.

Ami said...

I agree that often people allow themselves to get into the same situation over and over, the only thing that changes are the characters. It's a rigged game, and so many never learn how to stop playing.

But it's awful for the children to be dragged through it all.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't see it and remain quiet/neutral.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Ami
It is a struggle. When it is family I get involved.

LSP said...

I hate it, I really do, when people hurt children. Broken marriages are part of the equation and the nihilist, satanist, devils who deliberately and enthusiastically worked to bring it about, as a matter of policy bear the greater blame. What does the Gospel say? "Better for a millstone..." T

OK, rant sermon over, but still, it makes my blood boil. And lest we forget, the Communist Manifesto famously zeroed in on ending the "bourgeois claptrap of the family." I won't go on.

LSP said...

*delete errant "T" -- thx...

Old NFO said...

That is truly sad... And avoidable, but not in this case...

Well Seasoned Fool said...

OldNFO
I shouldn't let it bother me, but it does.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

LSP
In your work you must see way more than your share.