Have you ever run with a baby? You're up, you scoop, you leap. Bone against bone, you and the baby in your arms knock against one another. But within two of your running strides, the baby knows to fold herself into you, she tucks under your chin and presses against your chest. Two strides, heart pounding, and you both find flight.
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Babies must know, somewhere primitive in them, how to be held by someone running. Because two strides and the instinct awakens, they're suddenly weightless in your arms, moulded against you.
"Get the baby and run!" your mother screams. Somewhere primitive in them too, mothers instinctively know how to face predators, so children carrying babies can flee. If you've lived in a home with violence, then you know the sound of the door flung open. Sharper in sound than the door slammed in rage is the door shot open for escape. You and the baby are flying; five more strides and you're at the fence.
Reaching over and dropping the baby to the other side you see your little brother out of the corner of your eye as he comes over the fence, too. By the time you scramble over and scoop the baby back up, your brother is out of sight. He has found his hiding spot. But you and the baby, and she is crying now, are hesitating. A few more strides and you stop and turn to look back at the house, helpless. Do you run back in for your mother? Because what does it take for your little brother to have to run? It takes him climbing on a man's back to save his mother. It takes being pulled off a man's shoulders and thrown into a table. It takes that before he runs. Men break women, but they demoralise little boys.
I share this memory because when we talk about family violence, the statistics have a way of stupefying the discussion. When what we are actually talking about is up, scoop, leap. Bone against bone. Two strides. Hesitating. Thrown by a man. Breaking.
It’s important to remember the brutality often involved in the events around escape. And remembering, too, that somewhere in all this is the fact that two thirds of women experiencing violence are in a job.
This means that, like it or not, their path to escape probably collides with their workplace. They plan, they find accommodation, they seek police assistance, they attend court dates, they arrange counselling and medical attention for their children – all while trying to navigate work. More than that, it’s worth noting their attachment to the workplace is critical to the financial independence they require for escape.
For this reason, the Australian Council for Trade Unions has made a submission to the Fair Work Commission seeking paid family and domestic violence leave in all modern awards. Employers will say it costs them to provide family violence leave. Yes, yes it does. Why is that OK? Because we are all in this together. Because until domestic violence is everyone's business, it is no-one's business. Because domestic violence already costs the economy of this country something in the order of $13 billion a year.
My exposure to family violence was temporary, but somewhere ancient in me is the knowledge that loved men can descend, and in the most grotesque of ways. You cannot yell like that, I've had to tell boyfriends. You cannot, because a part of me, terrified and incomplete, remembers I once ran as a young girl with a baby in my arms.
Family violence is an epidemic. We will overcome it only by facing it in its entirety. With honesty and commitment. By facing it directly and unflinchingly. And one of those places will be in the workplace.
