A Mom’s Take on Ray Rice

I was in my mid twenties when I had ” that boyfriend.” You know the, what-was-I-thinking boyfriend. I’ll just say euphemistically that our relationship was chaotic. Until the night when chaotic became scary and I left. Truth be told it had been building to the scary point for a long time. But I thought crossing that line into scary didn’t happen to well-educated, smart, self-assured women like me. But sure enough after a night of partying at the clubs, my then boyfriend and I got into a heated argument back at our apartment which escalated to the point where he pulled a heavy wooden drawer out of a bureau and threw it at my head. I dodged, turned on my heels, walked out of the apartment, and never went back. Not only did I not go back but I moved out of the area because my ex wasn’t ready to let go of the relationship which led to additional scary things like him popping up in all sort of unexpected places.
It’s interesting to me now that I opted to move rather than take action that might get him into trouble with the law and potentially ruin his career. Here’s a guy who would have busted my face if I hadn’t dodged out-of-the-way and was stalking me. And yet out of some misguided sense of loyalty that defied all logic I wouldn’t take steps that I felt could destroy him. Total Lifetime movie, right?
So I get Janay, and every single other woman who makes these seemingly irrational decisions. I do believe that no one can ever know the truth about what goes on in a marriage or a lifetime relationship. So I’m not going to dissect the woulda, shoulda, couldas. Because arguing those points is an exercise in futility – should Janay stay, can Ray redeem himself, is there hope for abusers, can the victims punish the abusers without punishing themselves? The shades of gray and complexities are overwhelming.
Almost.
There are two simple things that fifteen years of perspective and nine years worth of being a mother have taught me: 1. Hitting is never okay & 2. There must always be a meaningful consequence.
Any parent with more than one child has had this happen to them: two freaked out screaming children standing in front of you yelling about how one hit the other and the other is screaming about how the other one “made them” do it. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes the level of instigation is such that we might not be able to imagine how the child who smacked the instigator didn’t smack them sooner. But at the end of the day, because we are good parents (at least when other people are watching) we have to give a consequence to the child who hit. Because hitting is never okay. Ever. It’s a simple truth. So we can try to over complicate the whole Janay & Ray Rice situation but when you strip everything away Ray should have never hit Janay.
Since Ray, without a doubt, did hit his now wife, he must have a consequence. And I think the reason the public is so upset with football commission, Roger Goodell, is because he basically gave Ray a non-consequence. It was the equivalent of taking your kids iPad away from them for two minutes. If that’s the consequence you are pretty much guaranteeing your other kid will be punched again. Hard. As a parent you have to punish the hitter. We punish the hitter not just so they will think long and hard before doing it again but also if you give a lame consequence the message you are sending the rest of your children is that they can hit too – it’s not that big of a deal. It is the hardest part of parenting – to be a parent first and a friend maybe never. We as parents have one important job: to raise responsible good people. Roger Goodell forgot that leaders – be they parents or commissioners – must be leaders first and friends maybe never. Because it’s not just about Ray Rice not hitting his wife again, it’s about sending the message to his league and the million of families, children, young adults, girls, boys, men and women who are football fans that violence against women is unacceptable.

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