Yes, totally agreed. We write people. People are just themselves. They aren't supposed to represent everyone who looks vaguely like them. They are just them. And that's all you can ask them to be. No-one is a group. And that goes for advocacy too. People can only speak for themselves; when readers expect characters to speak for a group then it's them with the problem.
This. This is exactly the mindset, and it's shocking to them that anyone would think of them as bad parents. My relatives who were raised this way and believe it to be a normal part of childraising tend to believe that people who do not hit their kids with objects until it hurts are bad parents.
Yeah you just pretty much described my dad, although fortunately there are no little kids in our family for him to say we should hit, so I don't know if that's true. It's funny the way he talks about his step-dad hitting him and how he was such a bastard sitting across from someone he used to hit.
So... are you writing it for them or for her? Why do you care if they're offended? And, here, just to really make everyone's fucking brains hurt - you know they're 'victims' too, right? Because they were abused? Where do they stop being victims and become perpetrators? Who do you blame? The society? The era? The family? The child? There's no right answer.
How Not to Argue 101: Take something someone said Say what it sounds like instead of what it actually says Dismiss claim on those grounds
Was it worse for him? Legit question, not being a smartass at all. Because my dad? He got beat with a baseball bat and run over by a car more than once. I didn't get that. It doesn't make my broken bones or my scars hurt any less, but it does, now that I'm an adult, give me some insight into how he could think that he was 'good' to me.
Yes, exactly. And I think that's the point I was languidly working my way towards; that these are two groups who are going to have their experience of the scene strongly coloured by their past experiences and you can't hope to write it so that both will read it exactly as you want. You have to pick one, and I think 'her' is the right one here, since she's the one who we're sympathising with. *nods* People are more than one thing. Lots of people end up doing the same exact things that hurt them and somehow that still makes sense to them, even knowing what it does to people. Even when it's less extreme than being both a victim and a perpetrator; it's complicated to sort out where the lines cross. It's almost like you can't please everyone
Oh my dad was definitely beat on worse than he hit me. And not just by his old man either. His step dad was a mean drunk and a son-of-a-bitch at the best of times who'd give you a smack just in case you'd done something that you didn't know about. But this was the 1940s we're talking about; my dad got hit by his mum too and by his big brothers and by his teachers. And I can understand why my dad might think he did much better than his family ever were to him, because that's true in an absolute sense. But no, absolutely nothing will make him punching me stop hurting. I just wish he wouldn't talk about how much he hated his step dad for hitting him when we're watching Ghostbusters on Christmas day.
You raise excellent questions. I've considered them too, and you're correct; there's no right answer. Personally, I never care if abusers are offended. Do I do expect backlash from people with those beliefs? Yep. Do I want people to think all Christians believe such things or abuse their children? No, but that's not germane to that character's experience or even the central theme of the book, so it can't be included in the book. And yeah, sadly I do know they're victims, too. I just have little sympathy for people who insist their way of childraising is right and actively continue the cycle. ETA because I missed answering your question. Writing it for her.
My mom, too, except she never said her parents were wrong, and continued expounding the belief that all parents should treat their kids this way. She also would not hesitate to treat any child in her care this way, even if babysitting. Hence, I decided never to give her grandchildren.
You get though that the damage of being raised that way, in a much different world than the one you're being raised in makes it very hard for them to change? Because admitting that they are abusive means admitting they were abused and you're talking about an era where being a victim wasn't a thing. Do you actually get that? That blaming themselves and saying there was nothing wrong is a coping mechanism common in victims? So, you're basically doing the thing you're so against. That's good.
To answer both: And There's lots of things that piss me off about my dad, including his total inability to ever have a nice moment, but it drives me crazy how he's forever saying how terrible his step-dad was. Like, at least if he thought what he went through was the right thing I could understand that. I wouldn't like it, but I could understand. It's the way that he talks like the worst thing in the world is to hit your kids to the son he only stopping hitting because I started hitting him back. That just blows my fucking mind. Still there's one thing I can be grateful for and that's an absolute and total dedication to be a better father than the one I had. I still really want to be a father, although I'd rather adopt or foster, and actually be a proper dad. Yeah, I was going to say... I can appreciate @Shenanigator saying "Screw you" to parents like the one's described but it is way more complicated than just them being in the absolute wrong. Part of breaking the cycle of violence is admitting you were abused. And that's super fucking hard man. It's not an easy thing to start thinking, especially years after the fact. Most of them I suspect would prefer to just let sleeping dogs lie, but then... Well, things go around again. Suffice to say it's complicated stuff. And trust me, it's much easier to just say that it wasn't a big deal and didn't hurt you and you turned out fine than admitting someone close to you has been abusing you.
She definitely feels like it's her fault, when she's not numbing herself to it by pretending that's not what's going on in her home. Thank you for your input here; I think you just solved part of the problem I'm having with writing this character. The numbness is making the character hard for people to relate to.
I'm literally writing much the same kind of story right now, like in my other window. Teenage girl who's foster dad hits her. And she is really compartmentalised and just hurls herself into her gymnastics and never says a word. She hides it and she knows she is and she knows that means that same guy is going to hit her foster mum and her foster brother too and she feels responsible for that. She's counting the days until she can just run away, but she's torn up that she's just going to leave the others to what she knows is coming. And, well, yeah that does make her difficult to relate to at times. She's quiet and secretive and doesn't want anyone to ask difficult questions. But just how she thinks (it's first person) you can just feel how terrified she is. She doesn't even show the reader what's going on, not until someone else forces her to confront it. But there are things that she does have a passion for, that she enjoys and is driven towards. She's not just a ghost, you know? Yeah, she's really been hurt and she doesn't want to share. But there's other things in her life and that was the way in for me. Getting into her gymnastics and exploring the themes of it; it lets her just fly and it's something that she does off her own back, that she controls. And getting those bits of understanding off her make her someone that you can understand and sympathise with.
Intellectually, I get it and, at times, even had some empathy toward my mom. Denial was huge in my family, and I'm the kind of person who points shit out so it can be dealt with. (Which ironically, got me smacked a lot as a kid.) Where my empathy stopped was when she decided, late in life, to get even more active in the church that perpetuated the physical abuse of children. Coping mechanism? Sure. But I can't with the encouraging others to do it, and at that point, any sort of forgiveness went out the window. She died a bitter, abusive person.
I doubt that so very much. You wouldn't understand, because it's in the news, it's on commercials, it's in books and on Oprah. This is wrong. How can anyone be so wrong-minded? @Shenanigator doesn't understand it, because how can you? You're so wrapped up in your own pain, that even when he tries to show you his you can't see it. It causes more rage, more anger, more hurt. Because how can he talk about how awful it was when he did it to you? I've been there. My dad was a combination of what you and @Shenanigator describe, with a side of PTSD and a little depression and anxiety thrown in for good measure. I'll never forget the first time he really realized what he had done. He was talking about being beaten with a baseball bat for something his brother did and that I couldn't possibly understand. So I asked him if it was anything like that time my sister did something she shouldn't have and he thought it was me, and he broke my cheekbone, 2 ribs, my wrist, and injured my larynx. His look went from one of indignation and outrage to crumpled in tears in a moment. So fast. He never saw it. He never picked up a baseball bat or ran me down with a car so obviously, in his mind, he was a good dad. The things that hurt him the most, he never did to me. It's hard to look past your own pain, and I suppose you have no obligation to do so, but understanding is the key to growth, in my opinion. I am nothing like my father (I've never hit my kids and I tell them I love them many times a day and hug them and kiss them every day and tell them I'm proud of them). I am nothing like my mother (I will get between anyone and my children - any day, any time, any place. No one hurts my kids.) These things are important to me and I have stopped the cycle on my end, but I understand why they did what they did. I can't say I forgive or forget, but I do understand, and I kinda feel like that's the most important thing about me. The day when I realized, really realized, that the things that happened to me weren't actually about me or who I am. They were something else. They were about the people who did them. Everything is not about me and my pain.
"what if the person is a part of the group they're representing..." Most of the time, they do not represent anybody but themselves. To represent is to speak on behalf of somebody who has *asked* you to speak on their behalf. Being a part of a group does not mean you represent the whole group. Richard Spencer does not speak for me when he talks about the white race. I might rarely agree with him on something, and usually disagree with him on others, but regardless the fact remains that he does not represent me because our skin color is the same. Now, Richard Spencer could claim to be speaking TO me. And I can decide for myself whether or not his words resonate with me. But he most certainly does not represent me.
I assume you're being sarcastic, but what the hell. I'll take the bait. I didn't tell you what to do, I said what I did. What is it that you don't understand?
That's helpful. Thank you. Writing in close 3rd, so I think that's adding to the difficulty Alpha is having relating to her. (Has to be close 3rd, for what I'm trying to do, because she's actually a co-MC, not the only MC. In mine the other MC has forced her to confront the abuse.
In my case, I thought about including PTSD into my story after reading some war history books that include interviews of the veterans experiencing it. I get what you mean. I don't worry about offending anyone on that part.
No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I couldn't follow what you were saying. You said I can't understand and I'm wrong but then I have to understand to grow but then not everything is about me and then... You said something about personal growth and... I don't understand how it fits together. Dude, seriously, I just said what happened to me and how I feel about it. And then you got mad at me. If you want to help me understand then by all means because I have a lot to work out with my dad. But please don't yell at me because I haven't quite come to terms with it like you have. Don't make it sound like I'm just refusing to grow because I don't understand my dad's head.
