Persuasive Speech

Close your eyes. Imagine that you are four years old again. You are chasing your dog through the house, smiling and giggling because joy is the one thing that every four year old knows. You hear something spill on the ground, so you run to where the noise came from, stumbling upon your mother on the ground with frozen peas all around her. Unaware of what happened and still smiling, you ask her, “What’s wrong, mommy?” She starts shouting at you. When she gets close to you, a sting comes to your cheek. “This was your fault,” she says. The cycle begins. Move ahead two years. You are six years old. You just moved to a new house where you have your own room with freshly painted white walls and brand new white carpet. Within a few months,

stain that carpet. To a normal family, a stain would be an accident, but to you, a stain means yelling. Six year olds should know better. You should know better. Throughout the next eight years, you learn how to dodge the incoming blows and keep quiet unless spoken to. You are fourteen years old when you come home ten minutes late. After a screaming match ensues, you find yourself thrown into a wall. You are old enough to know better. It is still your fault. Progressing three years, you are seventeen years old. You come home delighted to finally have a night off, only to be slammed with criticism and called worthless and disappointing. Imagine being choked and punched while fighting to get free, all the while wishing you would have never come home. Now, imagine that you are an adult, flinching at a raised voice, cowering at the slightest movement, so afraid of what could possibly

I put a survey out on my Facebook and sent it to students and staff at my school. The first question asked was, “Where do you draw the line on what is considered domestic violence?” Roughly 25% of all answers said that domestic violence is strictly physical, but there are five categories that The United States Department of Justice separates it into: physical, sexual, emotional, economic, and/or psychological. Actions or threats of actions that influence another person are considered domestic violence. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone (Hanson, October 31, 2016, para.