Reflections on the report on family violence in Canada

There is a report making headlines across our country about the details of reported cases of family violence. Portraying a tragic set of circumstances in a “developed” country,” where the levels of poverty and hunger and homelessness and military violence are, compared to many other less favoured countries, significantly lower, the report asks out loud the question of what are the roots, motives and causes of this pattern.

Of course, by far the majority of the perpetrators of this family violence is perpetrated by Canadian men and so any analysis that attempts to discern the roots and causes of this violence has to look at the failure among men to deal with their volcanic emotions, their hatreds, their failure to command the tools and skills of negotiation, mediation, even including the capacity to first believe that there are options and there are others who can and will help before the violence is committed.

“Dealing with emotions” is a cliché that is so detested by so many men that it is not an exaggeration to suggest many men simply consider such an observation or recommendation to be insulting and to ask men to be more like women, something many men find revolting. This kind of detachment, disinterest and even contempt for “emotions” is evident in little scenarios like the Honda Civic television commercial in which the young black man is still resisting a mother’s hug. (Capturing the nature of the culture is one of the ways for big car companies to secure the attention and the “like” of the target audience.)

This “emotions” question, or issue, starts very early in a baby boy’s life. From an early age, we know that mothers spend fewer seconds in face-to-face embrace with their sons than with their daughters, unconsciously connecting at least differently, if not more negatively, with their sons than their daughters.

Research revels that we generally top touching boys when they reach the age of 8, and we teach them to reject access to feelings, emotions and emotional vocabulary because these are deemed “too feminine.” So they end up mostly being able to express themselves through sex, violence, sports or work. (Dr. Joe Kort, Top Ten Myths of Male Sexuality, in The Good Men Project, October 20, 2016)

For men to begin to “deal with their emotions,” they (we) first have to come to the point of resistance, the point at which they recognize, accept and acknowledge that their emotions are an integral component of our nature just as they are for women.  (The “existential moment” is that moment when an individual comes to the conscious awareness of the meaningless of his/her own existence and thereby requires him/her to take responsibility for the meaning of that life.) Similarly, although seemingly less momentous, the moment of “resistance” to the existence of and the significance of a man’s emotions holds the potential to open our minds to another gift, a signal system that is like an early warning system built into our hard wiring. Rather than consider emotions to be “feminine” or “girly” or something to be avoided because to acknowledge their importance is to surrender one’s masculinity, men could begin to see those emotions as an important arrow in their quiver in orienting them (us) to the reality they are experiencing. Just like the points on a compass men use when they are wandering through the bush in search of game like deer or moose, our emotions are signals that detect the imprints on our psyche coming from the environment. And those emotions point ‘north’ for a cold feeling, ‘south’ for a feeling of heat, ‘east’ or ‘west’ for a less intense but perhaps even more interesting experience worthy of additional investigation. And there are at least as many different emotions in both men and women as there are points on the compass. Instead of using the words from the directions on the compass, people tend to use more conventional words that do not have the exclusivity of a technical instrument. For all people (men and women) know instantly when they experience a sense of the coldness of a situation or another person, or the warmth of the situation or other person….and these experiences are indicative of our “feelings” about that person or situation. This sounds so obvious that is hardly needs to be uttered. However, perhaps the compass could help men to consider an exploration and acceptance and then an appreciation of the kinds of emotions we are experiencing without finding the experience either threatening or emasculating. (Warning: men do have more emotions than “hot” signifying anger or arousal and “cold” signifying rejection, frustration, dismissal and avoidance. We also feel dozens, if not hundreds, of nuances between the extremes, and it is this middle ground that needs to be identified, accepted and explored as more moderate, more nuanced and more complex and therefore potentially more interesting.)

There is a strong myth among both men and women that men experience only hot (anger or sexual arousal) or cold (avoidance, rejection) emotions. And that myth is both a denial of reality and a sabotage of masculinity and often leads to such common and detestable epithets like “all men are jerks” or “all men want only one thing” or “all men are little boys and will never grow up” that are so often blurted out in anger, frustration and rejection of men by women, and then they become an accepted depiction of men in too many situations.

Nevertheless, while pointing men to the sensibility and the sensitivity that are involved in “dealing with their emotions” there is the continuing and persistent threat that many men will either ignore the invitation of pieces like this, or more dangerously, outright throw out any suggestion of a new way of perceiving their emotions.

And, if the patterns of history are anything on which to base an estimate of the future, the report about the incidents of family violence, at least of the documented and therefore reported incidents, will only indicate a growth in those numbers, and for many, they are already astounding and very tragic.

 Every day, just over 230 Canadians are reported as victims of family violence.

·       In 2014, 57,835 girls and women were victims of family violence, accounting for seven out of every 10 reported cases.

·       Every four days a woman is killed by a family member.

·       Population surveys tell us that a third of Canadians, that is 9 million people, have reported experiencing abuse before they were 15 years old.

·        About 760,000 Canadians reported experiencing unhealthy spousal conflict, abuse or violence in the last five years.

·       In 2014, Indigenous people were murdered at a rate six times higher than non-Indigenous Canadians, with Indigenous women being three times more likely to report spousal abuse than nonindigenous women.

·       Every day, eight seniors are victims of family violence. (CBC, October 21, 2016)

There will be the inevitable public outcry for men to change their ways, to refuse to use violence to “express” themselves and to get their needs met. And that outcry will undoubtedly focus on the need for men to learn how to “articulate” their emotions in words. “I feel” statements will be proposed as the starting point of that change. “I feel” statements are considered by the therapeutic community as a place where all men and women can begin to “own” their emotions. However, many men, especially men who have already been punished for their violent expression of their very strong feelings, will already have deeply imprinted messages that tell them “your feelings are too dangerous and too threatening to be expressed” and the punishment you have received, (inside and outside the legal system) is to separate you from the violence you have inflicted, and make you think about your ‘crime’. Too often the expression of strong emotions leads to a crossing of boundaries: ethical boundaries, social boundaries and criminal boundaries. And for those men, numbering in the millions, who have crossed those boundaries, the retracing of their steps, through shame, guilt, embarrassment and loss and potentially to healing and self-acceptance will be long and hard. For others not yet caught in the web of the entanglements of their emotional needs, they will have the opportunity at least to consider how they might approach the issue of how to express their feelings.

Talking about frustrations, disappointments and losses with a good friend could be a good place to begin. Finding and nurturing such a friend will obviously precede such “man talk”. Starting with the mind set that one is never alone, and that there are always other options than the one that jumps into mind, of pounding the “crap” out of someone who does not agree with or comply with an expressed wish, need or aspiration, could replace the instant “resort” to physical anger. Recognizing, too, that often the anger a man feels is not directed at another person but, perhaps unconsciously at himself, is another “reality check” to have with himself. Not becoming aware of the mis-directed nature of his anger, (at another rather than himself) can point him in the wrong direction. And of course, the consequents of such an act are just as indefensible as an act in which the target of the anger is precisely the one who has “made me so mad”.

At the base of violence too is the unmentioned and often unacknowledged self-loathing, lack of respect and self-acceptance that has already failed the man. Having experienced so little “approval” and “respect” and “affirmation” in his early life, there is a central core of self-talk, like a repeating audio loop that replays itself over and over in his head, “you are no good”… “you are nothing” … “you are just like you father, a no good”….. “you will never amount to anything”...or any of the other versions of this condemnation. The repercussions of such “jabs” especially those administered by an insensitive mother or father will be heard long after puberty has come and gone, and long after the offending parent is dead. Too often the mother is unconsciously giving vent to a contempt for men (misandry) the origins of which she has not even begun to unpack. The father, on the other hand, is often repeating a “brand” of parenting (hard nosed and hard assed) just like the kind of parenting he experienced from his father, or even his grandfather.

Clearly, anyone who thinks one’s complete biography is not essential to a comprehensive understanding of the violence evidenced by this, and other, reports is living in la-la-land. Furthermore, most public systems, including our medical system, our social service agencies like Family and Children’s Services, and our courts operate without a full reporting, study, reflection and ethical consideration of the biographical details of our patients, clients and our criminals. For various reasons, among them the prominence of budgetary restrictions, these professional agents are dealing with “collations” of numbers of types, diagnostic labels and deterministic, behaviouristic “treatments” meted out with impunity and without detailed and compassionate reflection by groups of professional peers. However, here as in so many other situations, band-aids of classical conditioning, behavioural therapy, medications, and incarcerations are not the principal answer, if we are really serious about how much violence is being experienced and reported. Short-term fixes, of the kind that can be easily parametered by budget allocations, staffing insurgencies (like the current infusion of support in Northern Saskatchewan where four girls under the age of fifteen have taken their lives in the last two weeks), and political headlines are not going to work.

And the conventional cultural meme of short-term heroic measures, to satisfy the short-term, narcissistic needs of the decision-makers, and not the needs of the perpetrators or the victims of family violence will continue to generate short-term headlines and self-congratulatory celebrations without actually making a dent in the size, the scope or the reduction of the problem. Academic theses too will concentrate on theories of sociology and of traditional family service therapy, much of it generated by documents like the DSM-5 (or is it 6 or 7?) or on the  traditional approaches of criminology, incarceration and segregation and “time to think” about the harm that “YOU” committed, and the injustice that YOU committed against these victims.

The life and importance of the original victim, (the perpetrator) however, will continue to be the missing “x” factor in the operational equation. His life story, and the normal quotient of respect and support and approval needed for a normal child and adolescent development will be missing from the myriad of interventions on behalf of the society. And the public will deem itself to have exercised its responsibility to those victims and those perpetrators, when in fact, the public purse will have perpetuated and even protracted the issue into the next centuries.

Family issues belong on the front page, not relegated to the family page

The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home. (Confucius)

One morning in another life a grade twelve student met me at the door of my classroom holding his report card in his hand. As a student whose first language was not English, he had received a grade of 58% in the average of his term work and his examination. He was adamant that such a mark was unacceptable. I listened carefully to his petition; reviewed his work and informed him that the mark would stand.

I later learned that the mark had been “deleted” (back in the non-digital age, ‘white-out’ was the rather obvious choice for deletions) so that his parents could not see the truth. Pride, parental expectations and evidence of personal shame, completely unjustified by the diligence and the persistence the student displayed to learn a new language, were at the root of the situation. Deception was the choice of method to deal with the perceived problem.

There are so many different “reasons” for both children and parents resorting to deception, cover-up, dissembling, and failing to “show up” as we really are.

Basic to the dynamic of deception in the family is the varying reliance on “pride” that accompanies too many situations. If the family is engaged in alcohol dependence, or domestic or child abuse, it is taken as a “given” that family secrets have to be protected, at all costs. Even the closest of friends, neighbours, fellow pew-sitters, co-workers, and classmates must not and do not ever learnt the truth of the tragedy. In fact, too often, even within the family, certain members will not be made aware of the full truth, thereby “protecting” both the abuser and the one kept in the dark from quite literally having a relationship. No relationship is feasible without a full disclosure among close family members. And the refusal to disclose, including the unwillingness, and the incapacity to disclose, as well as the fear of such disclosure (another piece of evidence that is often overlooked in any analysis) lies at the heart of the issue.

While T.S. Eliot reminds us that we cannot stand too much reality, nevertheless, it is the degree of withholding that too often determines the kind of foundation on which family relationships are constructed. For a young twenty-something to drive her car into a snowbank on the way home from a house party, without injuring any of the occupants or damaging the car, without having the courage, and the openness to inform her single mother, as a way of protecting both herself and her mother, is to demonstrate a degree of enmeshment that warrants critical self-examination. For an adolescent male to put long sleeve shirts on every day before leaving for school, to cover up the welts inflicted by his mother, is what many might call a merely incidental incidence, not worthy of consideration as a serious family issue. Those who hold such a view, however, are not, were not, and cannot image being in the “shoes” of the adolescent. For the adolescent, one of the questions is ‘why is this abuse occurring only when my father is not present, and is not being told?’

We do have some examples of public disclosure that, although they are often relegated to the social columns, nevertheless merit a reference. President Obama, for one, stopped smoking cigarettes six years ago, “because he so feared his wife’s response” if he failed to stop. On the other hand, for Trump to have to apologize to his family for having said what he said, and for what he has done, and not said, is loudly displayed as fodder in the current presidential election. So the issue of truth-telling is front and centre in the public discourse in North America, and perhaps around the world.

No child or adolescent can or will tell his or her parents everything about their lives: not the first time a car drives into a ditch, not the first time too much booze renders one intoxicated, not the first time some illicit drug renders him ‘high’…and yet the patterns of disclosure are begun in such situations. For some, it takes a few days, weeks or even months for them to find the confidence to disclose. And, with that time lapse, perhaps they can and do reconcile their fear, and their apprehension about the consequences of full disclosure. And the parents, themselves, are not without responsibility for the kind of family culture they have fostered over the early years. Too much pressure for control, too little relaxation and acceptance of the small “mistakes” and too much rigid discipline, all of these squarely in the purview and the job description of the parent will lead to an inevitable withholding. Parents, too, who operate at such a high performance level, (I was certainly one of these!) will inculcate a fear of not being “good enough” even though their words might be unequivocally supportive of their children.

Fear of not being “good enough,” of not being “up to the perfection” of their parents, of not being willing (or perhaps ever able) to let their parents see their “imperfections” is one of the dynamics, and a very subtle and dangerous dynamic it is) that infiltrates many professional families. How many times have we all heard the story of a young man or woman who spent most of their life trying to life up to the expectations of their parents. And, we all know that those expectations might never have been specifically articulated, but merely inferred from the actions and the attitudes of the parents to their own lives. And these attitudes are extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the child to confront. When, for example, is there time in a busy, fully scheduled, fully engaged, (over-regulated) schedule for children to participate in their various “activities” and then also to have the time and the energy and the composure to say to their parent, “You know, I am getting tired of trying to meet your unrealistic goals for my life! I would like to talk about what I want to do, and what I am willing to do and I would like to get your support for my agenda, not the one that makes you look good in front of your friends!”

Clearly, it is not only the ‘sins’ of the child that need disclosure. So do the attitudes, demands, expectations and even beliefs of the parents also need to be explored, fully and in an unqualified and unrestricted manner, in family circles. And such circles require “strong” parents, open parents, vulnerable parents and the courage to structure time and space for the family to have these conversations. And it is this family culture that I failed to facilitate in my own marriage. I was too busy “performing” on the public stage, drinking in the applause that comes from such performances. I was too dependent on public adulation to be the kind of effective and compassionate and open and vulnerable parent that my children needed and deserved. The temperature inside the home, especially the “heat” of the parental expectations, and also the parental “strength” to take the honest criticism from their children (not the phoney power games, but the real issues of too much pressure that forecloses on open communication) is critical for full disclosure.

And the time and patience required to open to our children, really open, really sit and listen, rather than burying our minds and our bodies in our own “professional agendas” as an unconscious way of medicating the pain of our own unworthiness and our determination to prove our value to “whomever” it is that we believe we have to prove ourselves to, is so ephemeral, like a butterfly, and so fleeting. And like the tennis racket that is poised at a certain angle, needing to be shifted only a fraction of an inch to get the ball over the net, parental attitudes, in too many cases, need to be shifted from achievements of power, money, status and public recognition and acknowledgements to getting to really know their children. I failed in this primary parental responsibility, and for that I have profound regrets and for that I apologize to my three daughters.

They are all professionally successful, and for that they have themselves to thank. They did it! They made their parents and their culture proud. And I can only hope that they did not do it at the cost of missing the emotional and the psychic needs of their children.

Confucius tells an important truth. Can we read the deeper implications to our culture and to our families in his observation. For far too long, family issues have been relegated to the social pages of our newspapers, where the majority of readers are women. Education, parenting and the development of a family culture, including the development of family relationships has for far too long been considered “effeminate” and the responsibility of the mother. It is long past time for editors, political leaders and fathers to learn that they obligations do not stop with the proverbial “bring home the bacon” commandment. All the bacon in the world will not feed the soul, the spirits and the hearts of their children. We need to raise the expectations on ourselves, (and to reap the rewards of our determined and disciplined shift of the “racket angle” of our goals and our agendas) and put more of our energy and our imaginations into the kind of atmosphere and the kind of warmth we bring and foster in our kitchens and our television rooms, and in our backyards, and in our camping trips.