Children look up to their parents, family members or someone they are living with for guidance, love, help, trust and compassion. When there are some of those key elements missing, that’s when the real problems begin.
According to DomesticViolence.org, “Studies suggest that up to 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.”
Adrian Peterson, a six-time Pro Bowl selection, has rushed for 10,190 yards and scored 86 touchdowns in eight seasons and a two-time National Football League (NFL) rushing champion. Over the weekend Peterson was arrested on charges of child abuse and then released on bail.
In May, Peterson was accused of beating his four-year-old son with a tree branch causing cuts and bruises in several areas on the boy’s body, including his back, ankles and legs. Peterson told the police that the punishment was a “whooping” administered after the boy pushed another of Peterson’s children.
According to DomesticViolence.org, men who as children witnessed their parents’ domestic violence were twice as likely to abuse their own wives. And nearly 1 in 5 teenage girls who have been in a relationship said a boyfriend threatened violence or self-harm if presented with a breakup.
We don’t know the circumstances of Peterson’s childhood, but we do know that experiencing violence increases the likelihood of violence in the next generation.
According to DomesticViolence.org, “Domestic violence victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work per year in the US alone— the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs.”
In our society today it is unacceptable for a male to hit a female, though is still just as wrong for a female to hit a male. It should not matter whether it was a male or a female, it should matter that it happened regardless.
Ray Rice is currently the epitome of female vs. male altercations. Rice, a man we all know from the news because he physically hit his fiancée, Janay Palmer, so hard in the face that she laid unconscious.
In the video that just a week ago just surfaced, it shows her coming towards Rice, then hitting him and almost instantaneously Rice hit her back, causing her to fall to the ground in an elevator in February earlier this year. At no point does he seem concerned, worried or slightly disgusted by what he did and now, only seven months after the incident, Janay Palmer and Ray Rice are married.
According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “more than 1 in 3 women (35.6%)… in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.”
Palmer may disagree that Rice’s actions went too far or were inappropriate, but since the video has been released, all of America seems to be enraged with his actions. He absolutely should have been expelled from the NFL as soon as they found out about it because this was not just his first offense, in fact, it was his third.
But that doesn’t mean to say that all athletes abuse their wives, fiancés, girlfriends or children, the media is doing a really great job of making examples out of Rice and Peterson.
In both cases, it is obviously despicable what transpired and unless your life is being threatened, violence is never the answer.
