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A few weeks before she passed away, my Great Aunt Mil contributed to one of our Benevolent recipients. She chose to help someone who has seven children living at home with her. Aunt Mil was glad to give and glad to help, but as she did so, she said (in her 95-year-old pithy way): “Seven kids. I don’t see how she’ll ever get ahead.”

When we hear or read about the allegorical welfare mom (or welfare queen, depending on your source), she often has a great number of children – a brood, if you will. She is, of course, hyperbole, as are her numerous children. This Mother’s Day weekend, however, I found myself thinking about this allegorical figure in a different light.

On Mother’s Day I got to sleep in, celebrate with my kids and all that. Later that day I sat down to write for today’s blog and my mind kept going back to a piece of research I read recently and some trends we’re seeing among the recipients on the Benevolent site.

We launched the Benevolent site only this past December, but as early as March, I started to see a thread of connection I hadn’t anticipated. It seemed to me that of the women who posted their needs to the Benevolent site, those who described having fled and survived domestic violence had more children than those who did not report a history of domestic violence.

Of course as we seek to help the mother who has escaped and overcome domestic violence to thrive, we do not and should not ask whether the number of children she has a connection to victimization. This started me wondering, though – was this a real trend, and if so, why?  I started looking for research to help me understand what I thought I might be seeing.

I found some articles and papers that described the ways in which abusers undermine a woman’s control over her fertility choices. These included interference with contraception (making holes in condoms, discarding a woman’s contraceptive pills or devices), sexual assault, and more. (Black, 2011) But this article posed no quantitative analysis to indicate how prevalent this was.

Another article summed up the scholarly research on the connections between unintended pregnancy and domestic violence. This one told me more. I discovered that in one U.S. study, “almost 70% of women reporting physical violence had unwanted and/or mistimed pregnancies,” and women with unwanted pregnancies were 4.1 times more likely to have been physically abused “than women with intended pregnancies before adjusting for other variables.” (Gazmararian et al., 1995)

Again, not clear causality, but certainly an arresting correlation. The author of this article explained: “The association between intimate partner violence and unintended pregnancy implies an intergenerational cycle in which unintended childbearing in abusive households can lead to repeated cycles of violence and unintended pregnancy.” (Pallitto et al, 2005)

What is clear is that the more children a mother has, the harder it will be for her to protect them, provide for them, and promote their education, simply by virtue of numbers.

Aunt Mil had a point. If there is any causality – whether widespread or even sporadic – between intimate violence and unintended pregnancy, then I want to take this moment – this Mother’s Day moment – to express my immense respect for those women who fiercely love, protect, support, and nurture children whose existence they had not planned or intended.

As a mother who held complete control over when and how I would choose to try to conceive, I concede all maternal kudos today and award them all to those mothers who protected their children, brought them to safety, fought to rebuild and thrive, and fight on today as they raise children they pray will never repeat the violence of their mutual past.
 

 

Check them out in action below and click here to read more of their incredible blog.

Please add your comments of encouragement below so we can share with Brenda how so many people care and are cheering for her hard road to gaining her strength back!

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I am a survivor of domestic violence. I am an educated, professional woman. If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone! The reason women are silent about what is happening to them is because it is so humiliating. People always wonder “why they stay.” They stay because they are brainwashed, feel trapped, and love the “good side” of their abuser. Friends, family, even law enforcement and the legal system need to learn about domestic violence, and how it affects the women and children impacted by it. Women are further victimized by their families and the system by being blamed for their own abuse!

When you are in the cycle of abuse, there is an overwhelming feeling of despair, hopelessness and powerlessness. The abuser does all he can to encourage these beliefs. I was actually arrested for battery for spraying my abuser in the face with mace to protect myself! I am not saying that women in a violent relationship have no responsibility. I am saying they are not the primary aggressor and should not be treated as such. The laws need to change, the system needs to change, our collective attitude about domestic violence needs to change. It is human nature to defend yourself against potentially lethal force!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I believe that I have seen this film for a reason. I am a Domestic Violence SURVIVOR of over 20 years, and this is the first time in my 35 years of life I have put my story in the public. I met my ex-husband when I was 13. By 14 I was being hit, pushed, punched, the rape didn’t actually come until later in the relationship. I walked around with black eyes, bruises, homemade casts (because I was not allowed to go to the Dr.), limping, crying and the worst thing is NO ONE CARED, but yet EVERYONE KNEW.

I could have just as easily been one of these women in the Sin by Silence film. I congratulate them on their courage to stand up and scream from the top of their lungs. This film has helped me to FINALLY deal with the pain and horror that still, to this day, haunts my dreams. The abuse lasted for almost 5 years and we had 2 children within the “marriage.” The youngest born out of a rape from my “husband.” The children were born and the beatings became worse. He would get mad at the kids and give me a choice whether I wanted him to beat the children or beat me. Either way, someone was going to get it and I let him beat me of course. Just to get to me a little more he would even allow me to take the kids to their room so they would not see but yet they could hear him beating me. The psychological torment of that still hurts. I seriously felt like “the dead man walking.” I was never the one to just be hit, so I did fight back and ALWAYS stood my ground.

The details of everything, and being abused day after day for almost 5 years, could never fit in this little story. Even now the loneliness, the mental part of the relationship still gets to me. Sometimes I do believe that I am worthless, ugly, and not worth anyone’s love. I do have a great husband now, of 17 years, and although he has stood by my side through everything I honestly don’t think anyone could understand where or what I have been through.

The way my heart has been ripped out of my chest when my ex-husband kidnapped our younger son that we had together, when he was 2. My ex admitted to me several times that he took him and only him because he was easy to brainwash. My son is now 17 and I miss him everyday. No one would help me find him and when I found him on my own, with no support of the internet or any legal agency, he was already 6. I went after him with my current husbands support, only I had to let him go again. He wanted to go home with his “Dad.” I had horrible parents that played the tug-of-war game with me when I was that age and I was not about to do that to him. Out of my love for him I had to let him go AGAIN. I did get to visit with him just this last November for a few hours. When he got in the car to leave, I chased it down the driveway just to give him one last hug, because I have a feeling that is the last time I will ever see him again. With all of this I am the counselor of my friends and family. I am the one with the smile on my face through all the heartache of life. I am the one that has to stay strong.

I thank you for finally giving “US” a voice. I do realize that I have many things to be thankful for. I never take one second of life for granted and now I am grateful for the women in this film and the person’s who took the time to listen, film, and make this for all of us! THANK YOU!

Be in our next video with Brenda Clubine!

Send in pictures of you and your friends holding signs of why you support the Sin by Silence Bill.

• To make our future brighter
• To help bring voice to the voiceless
• An opportunity to make a difference
• To help women trapped behind bars for defending their lives

Post your photos on our Facebook fanpage, or email them to info@sinbysilence.com, and let your message be heard!

Stay up to date with all the action surrounding The Sin by Silence Bill – AB 593.

Visit the site at www.SinBySilenceBill.com, gain more information and help spread the word.

Sign the online petition to encourage California legislators to give the incarcerated battered women of California the freedom and justice they have deserved for decades.

While rapists can serve as little as 36 months and manslaughter charges can end in less than five years, there are nearly 60 incarcerated battered women who are serving decades past their minimal sentences for acting in self-defense.  We urge California legislators to understand the issues and challenges facing victims who are domestic violence’s worst case scenarios: women that have killed their abusers and survivors who were convicted of other crimes related to their experiences of long term abuse. Pass AB 593 to help give these women the opportunity to return home to their families.

Want to be part of history?

Download a sample letter of support and lend your voice to encourage California legislators to give the women of CWAA the opportunity to receive the freedom and justice they have deserved for decades.

Include your own edits/comments, add to official letterhead, and email your signed letter to info@sinbysilence.com or send it directly to Assemblywoman Ma’s office via the address stated on letter or by fax to (916) 319-2112 – Attn: Gina Frisby.

Or add your signature to our online petition to send California legislators the message that you support AB593.

Want to learn more about the Sin By Silence Bill?  Click here.