May is best known for Mother’s Day. There are more than fifty countries across the world who celebrate Mother’s Day in the same month. Did you know that Mother’s Day can be traced back to the ancient Greeks? Rhea was known as the mother of gods therefore the Greeks held festivals to honor her.

I believe that women are very important to the prosperity of our world. Women deserve to live in a world where they are respected and treated with dignity. We need to look at them as individuals that deserve and are worthy of respect.

That brings me to the conversation of women being abused.  I don’t understand why some individuals struggle to have respect for women. Why do women get battered by their intimate partner? Sometimes I wonder if the men who batter women ever stop and think to themselves, “she deserves my respect and I need to treated right.”

I wonder if they stop and think about their own mothers, daughter, sisters when they are being abusive towards their partner. I guarantee that if anyone was to talk or hurt the abuser’s mother or daughters, they would not think twice about protecting them. They will run to the rescue and protect them. Yet, they are abusing the women they have in their own home.

I wonder if they will be ok if their daughters end up in an intimate relation where they are being abused by their partner if he will run protect her. Protect her from her abuser while he was doing the same exact thing to her mother. What if their son’s become aggressors and he has to go and bail him out of jail? Do they think about that? Do they think to themselves, “I need to make a change for myself and my children and the future generations ahead?”

No one wants to admit they have a problem with manipulation/control or admit to being emotionally or physically abusive towards their partner. Well, let me tell you there is help out there for you. You can change your ways and learn new respectful ways to treat your partner. Maybe you were that little boy who saw his mother being abused and grew up thinking that is how you treat women. Remember there are consequences for our actions therefore if you continue those abusive behaviors you could end up loosing quite a lot including and not limited to your freedom.

If you want to make a change, seek help and enroll into our Partner Abuse Intervention program in order to gather the tools necessary to make changes and live a life free of violence and set a great example to those around you. Let’s make a difference in our mothers’ daughters and for future generations of women.

• PAIP services at YWCA Northwester IL: 1-(815) 484-9442 EXT.306
• Illinois Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-(877) 863-6338
• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-(800) 799-7233

Please remember all calls are confidential.

-Estefania Barrientos, YWCA Northwestern Illinois La Voz Latina FAC Parent Educator/PAIP Coordinator