Our home is refuge from the world’s danger, abuse and unfairness. However, sometime, our own home is the source of abuse from our parents, siblings or relatives. It is sad to know that many home scrambled down and destroyed because of these mistreatments and abuse. Many of us thinks that physical abuse or violence is the only domestic abuse that a member of household is experiencing but it’s far more to describe than that. Domestic abuse is ranging from religion, child abuse, social isolation, male privilege, financial abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, intimidation, physical abuse, and sexual abuse (Envision Counselling and Support Centre).
Using religion by some members, especially the father, will impose him the authority in the house since some verses are expressing that woman must submit herself to her husband, obeying all the commands of the head of family. Faith and trust are the two principles of the gospel that the husbands are using to their wives and children or parents to their children for them to believe all what he or she is saying by explaining differently the verses and teachings in the church that they are attending.
Child abuse is also one of the common domestic abuse in a household. Threatening the children is the most common way of abusing the child. The child will then bear fear growing up from their parents or older siblings. Abusive fathers to their wives often show their abusive acts to their children imposing more fear to the child. On the other hand, it is not only what you show and say can measure the abuse to a child but also in negligence, and ignoring the child. Omission of noticing the child will let the child feel that they are not important part of the family. This will then cycle to more abusive type of parents in the future.
Social isolation is like barricading members of a household in the house preventing them to go out and socialize with others. The authoritative member of family will also prevent any kind of communication from the outside world. An example of this kind of abuse is grounding a child after he or she had done some nasty or accident in his or her home. Also, some husbands are isolating their wives to go out in fear of their wives having affairs with other males. Isolation will make a person to be alone, left alone by everyone in their home.
Male privilege is the power of a man in the home. The husbands are taking authority from everybody in their home. There are no problems if the head of the house will be fair to all of his household. However, some men are telling themselves that they are the kings of their home and their houses are their castle. Most of the time, tyranny of fathers and husbands remain in power because of this privilege making themselves out of the household chores.
Financial abuse is like controlling or trafficking the salaries and expenses of a home. For example, if a wife has a work and its time of monthly salary, the male will get all the gains of his spouse. In many instances, parents are using their kids for them to gain money even if the parents are not working. The parents can traffic the money by getting all the payroll cards of the working member of the family.
Emotional abuse can be applied by many methods. The best examples of emotional abuse are bringing up the past that aren’t good and comparing a partner from others. The victims of this abuse can be distressed psychologically and can have breakdown in morale. Lack of self-trust will then a symptom of the recipient, thinking that they aren’t the best. Affections of couples will then vanish from them because of comparisons and other emotional messages that are hurting their feelings. Some of the victims are even subjects of suicidal events because of their breakdowns.
Verbal abuse is widely spread this day because of the media, and this is like a pandemic that has been spread out throughout the world. Most of the members of the household are using vulgar words while communicating with each other. Exaggeration of using vulgar words can hurt somebody’s feeling. Nobody wants to adjust and just accept the mistake or weakness of an individual in their home. The result of this will be unending war between siblings, parents to their child, or children to their parents. Screaming and yelling can then be heard because nobody wants to be defeated in verbal war.
Intimidation is like threatening somebody in his or her household like using weapons, guns and knives, to harm a member of the family. This act can also lead to frustrated homicide in trying to threat a member of a family. Most of the time, males are imposing intimidations to get the authority they want from their wives and children. In some cases, wives are using intimidation against their husbands for them to get their worldly wants.
Physical Abuse is the level two of the previous categories of domestic abuse. If the oppressor can’t get their want by words, they will use force in order to attain all what they want. Many rehabilitations have been built to help the victims of domestic physical abuse. Nowadays, many families have been broken because of this physical assault. Moreover, this kind of abuse can be inherited by their children who are subjects of violent acts from their parents.
Sexual abuse is the result of addiction from pornography. Pornography is everywhere from media. All of the household members will become victims of this kind of abuse. Pinching and simple peeping are the first symptom of sexually abusing a household member. Rape will then be the last outcome of this gruesome abuse. Many cases of sexually intimidated partner have been record this decade and still rising.
We can make changes from this world. Family is the smallest unit and organization in a society. If we will nurture our children, spouse, and siblings, we can build a better and happier environment providing freedom to all. Better society and lesser problem will also strive after finding ourselves in following all the vows in marriages and also becoming a role model in our home. There are other ways in disciplining child other than by imposing great threats and harm. Preventing abuse to these rising generations will surely bring better future in governance and safer place to live at when we will become old.
Works Cited
Envision Counselling and Support Centre. House of Abuse. n.d. Web. 10 December 2014. <http://www.envisioncounsellingcentre.com/worksheets/House%20of%20Abuse%20(insert).pdf>
