How to deal with defensive siblings

[AnarchoBenchwarmer]

My wife recently converted to a peaceful parenting philosophy (we don't have children yet) after watching "The Truth About Spanking." She was raised by physically and emotionally abusive parents and suffers from most symptoms of PTSD, but she had previously defended spanking, thinking that it worked. After her attempt to convince her three adult sisters and one adult brother (none of whom yet have children, and she has one other teenage sister who is not involved) that spanking is not the answer to bad behavior and doesn't instill respect for others, their communication devolved into all four of them to some degree lashing out at her and belittling her for taking her childhood so hard. It got really messy over Facebook for pretty much all to see. 

 

I drafted this message to all four of them after the dust had settled: (Names of her family have been replaced)

Okay everybody. I understand that *wife* has cut Facebook ties with all of you. It's not what I would have done, but given her condition last night, I'm not really inclined to blame her. I don't know if she's reestablished them or not (I hope she will), but I have some things that needs to be said - hopefully we can all avoid situations like this in the future and become closer as a family.

The first thing we all need to understand is that *wife* has had very a very different experience with your parents than the rest of you. Even if you all received similar abuse, *wife* appears so far to be unique in the way that she coped with it, leading to what is almost certainly a mild-moderate to moderate-severe case of PTSD.

(Before I continue, I want to agree on the definition of "abuse." Because I consider even light spanking with an open hand to be physical abuse, we'll NOT use my definition. Rather, Nevada State Law is probably safe: http://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-200.html#NRS200Sec508 http://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/NRS-432B.html#NRS432BSec070

Both links should take you directly to the relevant section. Please read as far down as you want to until you are satisfied with the definition)

With the understanding that we all hopefully now have, I think it is important to next understand that *wife* is, whether alone or not, a sure victim of your parents' abuse, as confirmed to me by they themselves, her therapist, and a few others. I hope you all know that I am not simply relying on *wife*'s word. My entire philosophy revolves around integrity; I mean it and know from several sources when I say she's been abused.

Another fact that I want to point out is that abuse can be subjective. It is normal for all six of *parents*'s children to have six different collections of experiences, memories, and opinions on their treatment as children. As an example, I'll relate an experience from my own family of five kids: my own mother beat the absolute hell out of my oldest sister and damaged her to a severe degree emotionally, and that's probably understating it. I had no clue until I was in my late teens. As I've mentioned to *third sister*, I probably still don't know the extent of my mother's wrath.

One last thing before I get to the point: I want to dispel this notion that some seem to have that *wife* only goes around spreading the negative aspects of her childhood. This is false. She recounts good memories of your parents, especially of your father, far more often than she does the bad experiences. Unfortunately, having been made aware of the bad experiences and having an extremely negative opinion on child abuse (having worked in a children's shelter and seeing the effects literally on a daily basis, an experience which I'd be happy to share), I have not in the past been inclined to a high opinion of *parents*. HOWEVER, as time goes on, and as I see your parents try to repair their relationship with their second daughter, I become more willing to forgive them, so long as I continue to never hear about similar treatment of *fourth sister* or *third sister* (while she still lives there).

So with all of that out of the way, here is the point that I wish to make: It is NOT okay to minimize the suffering of a victim e.g., to regard the abuse as fair, to write her off because your experience was different, or to accuse her of exaggeration on a public forum without first knowing the lengths of her side of the story. All four of you are guilty of doing at least one of the above-mentioned things, though I was relieved, at least, to see that *brother* made his concerns private (Sorry *brother*, *wife* left herself logged in with your message to her up before she left for work and my curiosity got the better of me - I hope that you and she can forgive me). To do what the four of you have done has left her feeling alone, depressed, and scared. Had I not arrived home from work quickly to comfort her, I am certain that she would have done something rash, or, y'know, MORE rash than the screaming matches I overheard.

Pretend for a moment that the exaggeration accusations were all correct. Even if she had been exaggerating or lying outright, it's an issue that I wish all four of you had taken directly to her in a private manner where you could listen to her side and discuss things before making accusations. I am aware that some apologies have been made, but I wanted to make clear the impact of your decisions: Not only have the four of you made some accusations, but several others have messaged, texted, or called her in order to make accusations (all of which were based on assumptions) of their own.

I'm not blaming anybody for the privacy thing - I certainly did not make things better by my public comments, and *wife* didn't have to post those two things directly to *third sister*'s wall. But while the privacy issue is a somewhat less-important lesson, "two wrongs don't make a right" is still important lesson for the future, yeah?

The really terrible part though, the worst thing that has been said (if I know my PTSD symptoms, and I can confidently say that I do) is when all four of you individually said something like,

"Well we all got spanked and we aren't damaged!"

This is a highly illogical statement. Not only have none of you (to my knowledge) seen a professional therapist who could assess potential mental damage, I think it's also safe to say that not every Soldier in war gets PTSD when they kill a man or when they see a Humvee get blown up with their best friend on the inside, and not every victim of sexual abuse gets PTSD after they are finally separated from their attacker. Not every child gets PTSD or any other obvious sign of mental damage after being abused.

But *wife* did. And at least one of my siblings did, if it wasn't all five of us. So I hope I never have to hear anything relating to the above claim ever again from any of you.

More than that, I hope that none of you ever raise a hand to your children in anger or to instill fear or discipline. If only one in a thousand children developed emotional trauma from such a tactic, the risk would still be too high. Nobody deserves to go through what your sister, my wife, goes through.

Okay, that's all. Please feel free to respond, but know before you do that my #1 goal as far as my soon-to-be new family is concerned is to become closer, perhaps someday as close as I am with my own siblings. My intent was to chastise the four of you, but I'm hoping that it will help mend your relationships with my wife by way of understanding her.

I already love all of you guys and I know that *wife* still loves all of you and I know that you all love her, and you all will continue to love each other for as long as you are still siblings. You guys believe that that will be for eternity, so I hope you take that belief into consideration in the future.

 

 

How did I do? I'm willing to provide more context, if necessary.

[A__]

First off, I'm so happy that you and your wife are interested in peaceful parenting and you're sticking up for her in a similarly peaceful manner with her family. You posted this several weeks ago--I'm curious to know how it turned out.

 

" I become more willing to forgive them, so long as I continue to never hear about similar treatment of *fourth sister* or *third sister* (while she still lives there)."

 

I'm a little confused by this statement. "Never hear" sounds like you just want it hidden from you but I assume you just meant she better not still be engaging in it, correct?

[dsayers]

their communication devolved into all four of them to some degree lashing out at her and belittling her for taking her childhood so hard.

 

Isn't this blaming the victim? If she was raped, would they lash out at her for taking her rape so hard? Would it be different if the same rapist raped them also and convinced them it was okay? It sounds as if the other siblings (assuming they were treated similarly, which is a fair assumption) have unprocessed trauma, prefer to continue to internalize, normalize, or suppress it, so they are lashing out at her for indirectly making them face that which they do not want to.

 

This has the wretched side effect of revictimizing your wife. Also, if they are making excuses for their parents' abuse, they will make the same excuse for their abuse of their own children. Which means they have a lower standard of ethics with their children and may even abuse them worse to deal with their own frustration and anxiety over this. It's horrible the way the cycle repeats.

 

Kudos to you two for breaking that cycle in your own lives.

[AnarchoBenchwarmer]

First off, I'm so happy that you and your wife are interested in peaceful parenting and you're sticking up for her in a similarly peaceful manner with her family. You posted this several weeks ago--I'm curious to know how it turned out.

 

 

I'm a little confused by this statement. "Never hear" sounds like you just want it hidden from you but I assume you just meant she better not still be engaging in it, correct?

 

Ah, yes, that part was poorly-worded. To clear things up, I have reason to believe that my wife's parents have ceased discipline-related physical abuse (I have no idea about emotional abuse). As long as they don't give me reason to believe otherwise, I can tolerate them. Other than that, as far as how it turned out, three of my wife's four siblings who were involved in the conversation did end up apologizing to her. The last seemed to only get ruder and I never even received a reply from her. Now she's on an LDS mission for 18 months, so I have little hope of their relationship being improved anytime soon. Fortunately, I am confident that she will eventually come around - she was subjected to many of the same abuses that my wife was. The other children were not abused to nearly the same degree and in fact, none of them knew that their parents had belted my wife when they were not around except the one that defends them the most. Y'know, this all started when she posted that ridiculous "I was spanked as a child and as a result I have a condition called 'Respect for Others'" thing on Facebook. My wife was prompted to correct that view and it exploded into a huge public debate. Anyway, thank you for your query - the good fight is being fought by those of us who support peaceful parenting and my wife is recovering well from this debacle.

 

Isn't this blaming the victim? If she was raped, would they lash out at her for taking her rape so hard? Would it be different if the same rapist raped them also and convinced them it was okay? It sounds as if the other siblings (assuming they were treated similarly, which is a fair assumption) have unprocessed trauma, prefer to continue to internalize, normalize, or suppress it, so they are lashing out at her for indirectly making them face that which they do not want to.

 

This has the wretched side effect of revictimizing your wife. Also, if they are making excuses for their parents' abuse, they will make the same excuse for their abuse of their own children. Which means they have a lower standard of ethics with their children and may even abuse them worse to deal with their own frustration and anxiety over this. It's horrible the way the cycle repeats.

 

Kudos to you two for breaking that cycle in your own lives.

 

Thank you for your analysis, that's pretty much exactly what I had been thinking when I wrote the letter. Tell me if this doesn't shock you though: when my wife actually was raped years ago, she went back to live at home and told her parents about her experience. Her father's first words after hearing about it were, "Were you afraid for your life?" Talk about victimizing the victim...

 

Anyway, none of her siblings have children yet, but it is my hope that they at least take into consideration the evidence in favor of peaceful parenting. I showed them Stefan's "The Truth about Spanking" video, as well as an excellent TED presentation on the subject, but they were not yet convinced last time I checked.