Chris Brown and the Importance of Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month
February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, and if you wonder why that’s really necessary, just look at some of the Tweets sent during the Grammy Awards last night:
What are we teaching — or not teaching — our daughters? Did they not see the pictures of Rihanna when Chris Brown did beat her?
I’m not going to go on a rant here because I think these Tweets speak for themselves. It’s time to wake up and make sure our girls understand that abuse is not okay. They need to realize that abusers can be cute — some can even sing and dance — but they’re still abusers. There’s nothing cute about what they’re doing.
Buy a copy of Tornado Warning: The Effect of Teen Dating Violence on a Woman’s Life by Elin Stebbins Waldal, founder of Girls kNOw More, and read it with your teenagers. Show them the warning signs and statistics.
Let’s prepare our girls for a world in which abusers still win awards.
Thank you for running this post. I had to turn off the Grammy’s last night when they allowed him to perform. There are so many talented young people who haven’t brutally attacked their girlfriends that deserve a shot. I can’t, for the life of me, comprehend why he has been given a second chance for something like this.
I also changed the channel when he took the stage. What does all this say about us adults? Just the fact that the Grammy assoc. Even had CB performing on the same venue as Rhianna shows adults apathy to the whole situation. The teen tweets above really sadden me. I hope to teach my daughter better, but let’s face it, teens are mostly ruled by their peers and the media. Very disheartening.
I had this conversation last night with my daughter…why do we as a society embrace and idolize physical abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, ex-convicts and gangsters? The celebrity mill churns them out, repackages the criminals and sells them again. I cannot look at Chris Brown with any level of respect much like Lil’ Wayne and let’s not forget the oh-so-classy Paris Hilton who has nothing to say! Oh and Lindsey Lohan…there is a good one! The message this sends our kids is so wrong…
These teens suffer from what I call the Masochistic Syndrome, at their age they believe that it is romantic to feel pain. Thanks to all the nonsense that media sells.. I didn’t even watch the Grammys, No award is great if it treats violence lightly. These girls sure haven’t been in any abusive relation ship( Thank Lord) and have a skewed perception of what abusive relationships are!!! We need to get the message out now that there is nothing cool or sexy about violence of any form
Horrifying. Alarming. Discouraging. And why I am posting all month about teen dating violence awareness month. And educating girls and moms.
Sounds like somebody has a fetish. Women are known to make money with men who like being manhandled. I wouldnt be surprised, if that kind of fetish is even more widespread among women, although I guess most would prefer levels of roughness that dont leave them black eyed.
Ok, I know the stats aren’t good–the % of repeat offenders is well into the 90% range I think. But why can’t we root for Chris Brown? Crap, if he can’t do this–if he can’t be the one guy to learn from his mistakes, right his wrongs, become a better person…..who can? He has the whole world watching–both of them do. If we can’t root for them, who can we root for? Aren’t we giving up on all men who do this, if we give up on Chris Brown? Are we ready to dismiss them all, tell them all that there’s no hope, you can’t change.
Instead of using Rihanna’s decisions as the standard, how about his? How about–here’s a young guy who made some mistakes, and we’re really hoping he’s gotten better. I’m totally prepared to eat crow if he does, and I really hope he doesn’t.
Those tweets are horrific, but have less to do with dating abuse (as I feel those came from kids who are too young to even grasp the severity of it) and more to do with not valuing the right values. It is a crime that a Paris Hilton or Kim K can make millions doing nothing, and a teacher makes $40k and we spend on average $8k per student per year in this country.