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Thinking a lot about kids in really bad home situations right now. Especially teenagers. Without having a ‘solution’ to offer, I would like to note that so often in this public conversation, they are objectified, infantilised and accessorised. So I want to talk about agency.
A little history, because my concern here is anecdotal/experiential. I left a long-term abusive home at the start of Year 12. I stayed with a friend for a bit, walked the streets some nights. Friend made me talk to school counselor.
Counselor started searching for a placement for me. We visited some group homes bust she wasn’t happy that was the right place for me. She made an interim arrangement for me to stay with the family who ran our school canteen. Later, 3 schools got together...
And acquired apartments for some kids like me to live in. We were provided with a social worker through the local council, asssisted in accessing homeless Austudy, and I scraped through Yr 12 while sharing an apartment with a Yr 11 girl who’d been kicked out of home.
I did a reduced VCE workload and worked nights at McDonalds in the city. I just barely graduated and my school counselor helped me with special consideration applications for university.
My school counselor did contact my mother, who was without doubt the ‘protective parent’ in this equation. But my mother was then and will ever be enraged at the counsellor’s ‘interference’ which was ‘insulting’ and broke up our family. I was also blameworthy in her equation.
However much I understand the situation and the framework of my mother’s thinking, I’ll be forever grateful to the school counselor for sheilding me from that pressure at the time.
This is a big caution on the blanket use of ‘mothers and children’ when talking about DV. However equally they require protections and support, it is not necessarily the case that their best interests are served in the same way and together, even for teens younger than I was.
Me, I had just turned 17, I was still engaged academically
and I ticked every box for not being on the receiving end of any kind of prejudice. And I had access to support that enabled ME to ACT in my own best interests.
and I ticked every box for not being on the receiving end of any kind of prejudice. And I had access to support that enabled ME to ACT in my own best interests.
I was lucky as hell but I can still see the effects of a bad childhood in my life at the age of 47. And I really want to stress how crucial leaving, being able to leave, has been for minimising those effects.
Agency is everything.
Agency is everything.
Not that long ago, I met some homeless teens - real homeless, not like me. They were talking about how much they would rather sleep on the streets than go to the shelters. Talking about what was safe for them. They were cocky and independent.
No doubt they will see the effects of their childhoods throughout their lives, and maybe they won’t ‘make it’.
But their ability to act for themselves, however much the saviours wring their hands, however much we might feel sad about things being that way... It is a good.
But their ability to act for themselves, however much the saviours wring their hands, however much we might feel sad about things being that way... It is a good.
No youth worker or social worker or counselor worth anything would deny a kid their sense of agency. Escaping from and healing from abuse is defined by agency, self-efficacy.
Everyone thinking about DV and writing about it needs to make sure that their particular angle or their feelings aren’t leaking out in the way they speak and doing just that.
Victims of abuse have a really high sensitivity to pity. Sometimes they even long for it.
Victims of abuse have a really high sensitivity to pity. Sometimes they even long for it.
But often it is pride that will carry them through. Even if that seems counterintuitive because pride gets in the way of accepting help, pride also provides a safe space to learn healthy boundaries for help.
The less kids have of it, the more vulnerable they are.
The less kids have of it, the more vulnerable they are.
Without pride, without agency, they are vulnerable to further abuse, to other forms of abuse, and we all know how bad the statistics are for that.
Here’s another story. When I was about 11 or 12, my sister had a friend who was like the sweetest, most protective big brother that we, with an abusive father, could have. Then, at 14, he stabbed his mother’s abusive boyfriend. So he went away.
Now, that’s a horror. It’s an awful story and I don’t know how it ended for him.
But I can easily imagine that having taken action, however bad and wrong and never to be advised, maybe shows as much potential to survive as it show desperation and powerlessness.
But I can easily imagine that having taken action, however bad and wrong and never to be advised, maybe shows as much potential to survive as it show desperation and powerlessness.
If you cannot set aside the framework of what life /should/ be like for kids, you cannot help them.
If you can only think or talk about DV in a way where the victims are helpless and passive, you cannot help them.
If you can only think or talk about DV in a way where the victims are helpless and passive, you cannot help them.
Kids, even young kids, in DV situations are not the mythological kids of childhood and innocence preserved. That ship has sailed.
Longing for them to have that is erasure. They need to be met where they are. You need to enter the reality of their lives.
Longing for them to have that is erasure. They need to be met where they are. You need to enter the reality of their lives.
There’s so much longing for their lives to have been different that comes from a good place.
But it is hurtful and infantilising and exclusionary. It is their lives, their histories, their Selves that are not okay. Their lives, their histories, their Selves that hurt you.
But it is hurtful and infantilising and exclusionary. It is their lives, their histories, their Selves that are not okay. Their lives, their histories, their Selves that hurt you.
Just like my life, my history, my Self hurt my mother.
This I know: Leaving home caused cascading problems over years, financial, social & psychological. But leaving home was the best thing I have ever done or will ever do.
I am not ‘mothers and children’. Lots of kids aren’t.
This I know: Leaving home caused cascading problems over years, financial, social & psychological. But leaving home was the best thing I have ever done or will ever do.
I am not ‘mothers and children’. Lots of kids aren’t.
