Domestic Abuse and Children

As I sit here right now, sipping my Diet Coke and enjoying the breeze blowing through the open window, I can hear my neighbors screaming at each other.  The screaming is nothing new to me, I am sorry to say.  They truly seem incapable of carrying on ANY sort of communication without throwing insults at each other or yelling obscenities.

My roommate feels I need to learn to tune them out and just go back to my usual daily activities, as he does every time it happens.  I can’t do that.  It’s not in my biological makeup to ignore threats, screaming, the sounds of breaking glass, and the screams of a young child begging for the screaming to stop.  

My ears automatically tune themselves into tonight’s battle.  It’s obviously over the mother’s young son.  Please understand that I do not know these folks very well at all.  I have only been living in this apartment for little over a month, but the fights occur every night, except for weekends when they are replaced by huge, loud parties with lots of drunks on the patio until the wee hours of the morning.

I can hear the young boy, of maybe five or six years old, screaming at the adults in the house.  I can’t tell exactly what is being said by him but I can hear his mother screaming back that he “better stop yelling at her”.  I find it rather interesting that she seems genuinely shocked to hear him yelling at her when that is what he sees and hears every day of his life.  When a child is raised in that sort of environment, what else would you expect from him?  If all he sees and hears is fighting and screaming, he’s bound to think that’s the only form of acceptable behavior in that household.

Anyway, back to tonight’s fight.  Mom and her significant other have moved the argument outside, to the porch.  All the better for me to hear the gory details.  Mom is screaming at the man because she doesn’t like the way he treats “her son” and she feels he should be easier on the boy.  This elicits a very angry response entailing the exact location where Mom can go, which is not fit to print here.  He yells that she is a non-stop nag and that he is sick and tired of the relationship and then storms off on his motorcycle, gravel flying from the driveway.  I know he will return because this same saga occurs every single night.

Sure enough, in less than fifteen minutes I hear squealing tires and the sounds of flying gravel announcing his return.  I hear him screaming for Mom as he climbs the porch steps.  The door slams from the house and the yelling begins again on the porch as I hear beer bottles breaking against a wall or floor.  This will go on for hours and I have no interest in staying awake all night to monitor the situation.  My only concern is for the child inside of that house.

I sleep every night with my bedroom window open in case I should hear something that sounds more like actual violence, which will warrant a call to the police while I am running next door to help.  This will be another short night of sleep because of the noise; I already feel it coming.

I live in Tucson where the police response time is generally ten minutes or so AFTER a crime has been committed or someone is dead.  It’s no big secret.  Especially in this neighborhood.  I know that I will be taking a risk going over there, but if I can save a life or two it’s worth the try.

Should I call Children’s Services?  Probably.  They are also well known in Tucson.  There is hardly a week that goes by without the newspaper printing an article about CSB returning kids to a family and the kids soon die.  They “lose” kids they have placed and can’t remember where they are, or “forget” to follow up on the placement and all the while the kids were living in a worse version of Hell than from which they were removed.  Or, just this past summer, CSB left an infant in a company van, after a shopping trip, and the child died of heat stroke after going unnoticed for five hours on a 110+ degree day.  They claim they are understaffed, over-budget, and have too large a caseload to handle.  I don’t doubt any of those claims.  So, am I in a rush to call them about this child? No.  They will either show up and let the parents know who called, which could cause a whole new string of trouble, or they won’t show up at all.

Could I call the police?  Like I said earlier, unless someone is firing a weapon, the odds of them showing up and actually doing anything is slim to none.  So, it falls to me to be the vigilant one, for the sake of the child.  None of my neighbors can be bothered.  They view the situation as though they all hail from New York City.  They don’t see or hear anything unless it’s happening to them directly.  

What a sad community we have become when none of us knows each other or even wants to try to get acquainted. Children are all too often left to defend themselves.  They grow up to become abusers who emulate the environments in which they were raised.  That should trouble more folks than just myself.  These children are the parents of tomorrow.  I, for one, am scared to death by that thought.