My Dog Ate my Blog

This is exactly what I feared - I would get caught up in other things and not make time to keep up with my family blog. I had a bit of a life changing event last night though. I met with new clients which included a ten year old girl who witnessed her mother's murder at the hands of her father within the past year. I really can't imagine too much that's worse than that. The girl's grandmother (and mother of murder victim) gave me a little card with a picture on it that described her daughter - how she did her own plumbing and home improvement projects, how she cooked great meals and how her children were both 4.0 students. It just wasn't enough...I found myself wanting to know so much more about this person, who was victimized by domestic violence, but also had an entire history outside of the victimization. So I hope to be able to record a little more of my family history - as mundane as it is. But I also want to say this: I rarely encounter a family or an individual who has not experienced domestic violence, abuse, (etc) in some capacity. A lot of that has to do with the type of work I do, but a lot of it doesn't. I just want to say that it's still going strong, and it's still primarily women who are being victimized - it's not just something that used to happen in the 60's. I'd like to think society has moved beyond the "Why doesn't she just leave?" mentality but I'm still encountering things that tell me that that's not necessarily true. Why don't we address this more often in school? We address preventing pregnancy, and teach CPR, and require a semester of health education. I have to think that teaching high schoolers about resources and teaching boys about acceptable behavior in a relationship must be just as critical.