Violence begins at home

Well, well. Another woman disappears. Her husband desperately calls police (after, of course, going out to buy a new mattress) to report that his wife hasn't come home from her daily jog. His family stands behind him, united with her family. And of course, the stories leak out. She was ambitious, college-educated, willing to put her career and further education on hold in support of his career. Son of a doctor, brother of a doctor, he claimed to have a college degree (he didn't) and claimed to be accepted into med school (he wasn't) and even convinced her to pack their belongings to move thousands of miles so he could attend school. At last report, he was arrested for murder, even though they haven't yet found her body. It all sounds so sordid, so sad.

Or Laci Peterson. Or the kids who were murdered by their father last summer allegedly because he was angry about a custody battle he was fighting with his wife. (We'll never know why because he ended up killing himself while in prison.) Or the little boy who finally won a divorce from his father who is in jail for murdering the boy's mother but wanted involvement in his son's life.

I'm not sure why I react strongly to these stories. They're gripping and horrifying. I wonder, though, if part of me grieves not for them, but for myself -- for the violence that I experienced as a child, in my own home. (I used to joke -- but not really -- that it was safer for me to walk the streets of inner city Washington at night than it was to go home.) And somehow, it's all ok -- parents (or those playing the role) should have the right to "discipline" their children without intervention; men should have control over their women. We turn away, we don't intervene, we don't know that we should act, we don't know how to act. And it all continues.