No one knows how to talk about the violence that occurs within families

And apparently that's too complicated to slot into your lil narratives so you just pretend like it doesn't exist

Except that it is so goddamn common.

The nuclear family is an abuse factory

It is a machine that not only hides abuse, allowing it to thrive

But it is also a machine that creates abusers

And I am just so sorry but I have not heard anyone have any kind of proposal that will even start to put a dent in the violence that is the nuclear family

The abuse of children which distorts their entire lives-

That is the sickness at the ROOT of so many social problems

Please stop pretending that communities can just magically handle child abuse within the family

Because it's communities that are allowing that to continue RIGHT NOW. TODAY.

It is a fantasy that communities would somehow expel or police the people who are abusive to their kids as a solution to child abuse and partner abuse.

It assumes that communities will actually care about that.

But they already don't???

Most people will decide not to believe someone rather than have to engage in a process that is difficult with someone who even WANTS to participate

So if they don't want to participate, what then??

I don't KNOW what to do about this problem but I know that pretending like a group of people isn't going to act like every other group of people doesn't make any damn sense to me

And that's assuming the community just doesn't outright condone child abuse

WHICH SOME OF THEM DO

No one is doing anything about this issue and we don't talk or think about it

But most of the shit that really fucks people up happens inside their family or their community

And it's generally KNOWN that it is happening

And nothing is done

People need different structures of support and they need safe, happy and joyful, non-stigmatized places to go live when they decide they want to leave

And we need to let children be in charge of who has legal custody of them... somehow

In my faint graspings at what could be done to really fix child abuse, I have come to the conclusion that there has to be a way for a child to say- I can't live with my family anymore

And that there would be somewhere nice they could go live instead, that didn't ruin them

I don't know how to do that.

But I don't think this is fixable otherwise

Most people are more prepared to step in to stop someone they know from hurting a pet than from hurting their child.

That's the situation we are in