When it comes to raising kids, I’m the mom at the playground who seems to make a whole lot of other moms very nervous. It’s been this way since I can remember, and it will probably be this way until they graduate high school. My nearly 5-year old daughter is that kid you see happily dangling off the top of most playground structures with a giant smile smeared across her dirty face. When the other moms inevitably jump in — and they do — to ask me if I actually have my eyes on whatever ridiculous shenanigans my kids get involved in, I just half-smile and casually say, “yup.”
In an instant, I felt self-conscious, suddenly aware that despite my quickened heartbeat and flushed face, I was no longer the 20-something he once knew.
Children will see themselves in these characters, because all of the stories speak directly to the experience of being in that weird in-between time in your life.
This is a very real problem. And the truly sad reality is that men who are faced with domestic violence, much like women, do not report it because of social shame.
