chasingtides (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chasingtides) wrote2009-07-03 02:18 pm
chasingtides) wrote2009-07-03 02:18 pm
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Reason #482 I'm Not Out to My Family
I already tweeted about this, but I feel the need to mark it here as well.
I had a conversation with my mother over tea this morning, as I often do. We were talking about a friend of my parents who works for the local DA's office. Then she mentioned that the DA's office had been involved with a family where my parents sort-of know the father. He's been around the house a few times and done work here (he's in the trades).
It turns out that after he and his wife got a divorce, she started dating a local woman. And then he tried to kill them. He ran them off the road and threatened to kill them, etc.
And then - my mother basically defended his right to do this. Oh, she'd left their kids at her home when she'd been out on a date with her girlfriend. (Their oldest boy is either preteens or early teens.) Oh, he'd just snapped. Oh, he's from the old country and doesn't hold with divorce. Oh, she'd left him for a woman.
The shit icing on the crap cake? He just got community service. That's it.
(He also lost custody of the kids and I got the impression he's not allowed contact with them. My mother sees this as a great injustice. I see the fact that he attempted murder and only got community service and lost custody of his kids to be the injustice. And I can't imagine what it would be like to grow up, knowing your father tried to kill your mother, just because she dared to express, publicly, love for a woman.)
I am leaving this unlocked because I think this is the kind of thing that everyone needs to read.
I had a conversation with my mother over tea this morning, as I often do. We were talking about a friend of my parents who works for the local DA's office. Then she mentioned that the DA's office had been involved with a family where my parents sort-of know the father. He's been around the house a few times and done work here (he's in the trades).
It turns out that after he and his wife got a divorce, she started dating a local woman. And then he tried to kill them. He ran them off the road and threatened to kill them, etc.
And then - my mother basically defended his right to do this. Oh, she'd left their kids at her home when she'd been out on a date with her girlfriend. (Their oldest boy is either preteens or early teens.) Oh, he'd just snapped. Oh, he's from the old country and doesn't hold with divorce. Oh, she'd left him for a woman.
The shit icing on the crap cake? He just got community service. That's it.
(He also lost custody of the kids and I got the impression he's not allowed contact with them. My mother sees this as a great injustice. I see the fact that he attempted murder and only got community service and lost custody of his kids to be the injustice. And I can't imagine what it would be like to grow up, knowing your father tried to kill your mother, just because she dared to express, publicly, love for a woman.)
I am leaving this unlocked because I think this is the kind of thing that everyone needs to read.
no subject
Men who kill their wives average 4 years of jail time.
Women who kill their husbands average 20*
Know why? Because a woman should just put up with it or walk away, but he's PROVOKED. And yet women are the hysterical, overemotional sex.
Sorry that's a tangent, your mother's defense of this guy's behavior has me spitting mad.
*Granted, I believe these numbers are from a decade ago or so, but provocation is still a pretty commonly used defense for why men just "snap."
no subject
How hard is it to understand? It is *not* okay to kill someone because you don't like who they are dating. It is *not* okay to kill someone because of the color of their skin. It is *not* okay to kill someone because of their gender. It is *not* okay to kill someone because they are ending their romantic involvement with you. In fact, there are very few cases where it is okay to kill someone.
My mother's defense about the children really got under my skin. Now the kids are first generation in this country. It's now been in the papers that their father tried to kill their mother and their mother's girlfriend. Their father isn't allowed contact with them. My mother was talking about how horrible this is for the children, being separated from their father and having no one to turn to through the difficulties in their lives.
I pointed out that they still have their mother and her girlfriend. My mother protested that she knows a guy who met the girlfriend twice when she was in college and says that the girlfriend is crazy, so obviously the girlfriend is no good for the kids. And if the mother is dating her - dating women at all, really - how could her sons expect support/help/love from her?
And I don't really have words for that. Their father tried to kill their mother. I don't know how you could be a worse influence. And I also don't see how loving someone of your own sex makes you incapable of loving and supporting your children.
This idea that children need their biological parents - both biological parents - in their lives at all costs scares me.
(Consider also that my mother has had issues with her ex-husband and his convoluted ideas of what that means about his role in her life