The “don’t make waves” social pressure is one of the most troubling elements of family abuse and violence to me. And it’s so deeply internalized that I wish people were more willing to think twice about what healthy boundaries mean even in the closest families.
I was in a conversation a while back with a man I respected, soft-spoken and gentle by all appearances, who, when the topic (indirectly) came up, insisted that there’s nothing anyone could do that justifies being shunned from a family. Even when pressed, he doubled down on it.
Hearing that made me really uncomfortable and I didn’t figure out exactly why until recently. I don’t interact with the man anymore, but I can only hope it came out of a place of privilege, of never experiencing some of these horrors within his own family, not out of some sense of threat to what he felt entitled to–but I have my doubts.
The “don’t make waves” social pressure is one of the most troubling elements of family abuse and violence to me. And it’s so deeply internalized that I wish people were more willing to think twice about what healthy boundaries mean even in the closest families.
I was in a conversation a while back with a man I respected, soft-spoken and gentle by all appearances, who, when the topic (indirectly) came up, insisted that there’s nothing anyone could do that justifies being shunned from a family. Even when pressed, he doubled down on it.
Hearing that made me really uncomfortable and I didn’t figure out exactly why until recently. I don’t interact with the man anymore, but I can only hope it came out of a place of privilege, of never experiencing some of these horrors within his own family, not out of some sense of threat to what he felt entitled to–but I have my doubts.
He dumb