What goes around, comes around

This article was contributed by someone in Nunavik who does not wish to be identified.

Today you are fit, and you are able to take your wife and toss her across the room.

You are able to slap and punch her in the face, or anywhere on her body and she is not able to defend herself from you, because you’re angry and physically stronger. You are able to tell her that you can take her life, with your words, and put the fear into her that she will not report it to the police.

She is full of scars, which she has to see daily, and as time passes you see those scars too. But you can’t look at them, because you are ashamed. Deep down you know it was not right, but at that time you felt she deserved it.

You raise your right hand to strike your wife in front of your child.

How do you think your child is responding to this? Do you think he or she is going to talk to anybody in his class or to the police or to social services?

The child will take it out on another defenceless child in the community or on the school grounds, just as defenceless as your wife was when she was unable to protect herself from your anger, your hatred and your physical strength.

You are at work or you’re sitting at home and you have no clue that your child is crying out for help. The only way for your children to get attention and respect is violence — the way you are showing them.

You want your wife to respect you and fear you and do as you say and you’re doing it with anger, or because you are the man of the house, or because you are the man, period.

Face it. You’re a coward, because you use violence to shut her up.

I know you are fit today and you are able to take your wife down with a single punch to the body.

Picture a time when you are 50 years old. Ten to 15 years have gone by since you last struck your wife. You depend on your son or daughter for their physical strength to get the day-to-day chores done, chores that you were able to do in your days when you were beating your wife. Do you think your child will be there for you?

I think your son will be saying “this is what I grew up with” and they will be verbally or physically abusing you because you will be defenceless, as they are today.

Today they cannot express their feelings to you because they are doing it with violence, and you have no idea of the violence that goes on in the school and in the community at night, because you’re sitting at home or sleeping while they are in an abandoned building or breaking into public and private buildings. They are breaking windows of the vehicles. You see that and can’t imagine how much that child is hurting to be doing that. It’s as if they want you to see something that is as damaged as they are.

It is not too late for you to have a better future and for your child to have a better future. Do it before your child is behind bars and says:

“I watched you beat mom. I didn’t know how else to shut my wife up.”

If you feel that you learned violence from your parents, sit with your father and mother to get closure, because you never had the chance to do it. Tell them you want to be a better parent. I am sure that today they will support you, because they brought you up in that environment.

I am only saying this because I care for you and for your wife and especially for your children. I have grown to feel responsible for your child’s actions, because for so long, you depended on the police to take care of them when they committed a crime.

I will support you if you want help and not judge you, because I am not there for that. I am there to help you as a friend, as a police officer, and as a member of the community.

Let’s hear the children who crying out for help together and give them hope for a better future.