A Mother’s Desperate Plea to End a Brutal Family Pattern

A four-year-old daughter watches helplessly as her mother is beaten. Years later, when the daughter falls into the same vicious vortex, the mother vows not to sit by silently.

“People can make you feel like a slave,” says Maria Perez as she watches rain go down the gutter on Ventura Avenue in Ventura, California. Perez, 42, says she has been a victim of domestic violence for nearly two decades, suffering physical and verbal abuse at the hands of the man she married. The two had a daughter when Perez was twenty years old, and a son four years later. She divorced her husband in 2009 and says she now holds a restraining order against him.

Despite the rising awareness of domestic violence, the city of Los Angeles saw an 18 percent rise in reported cases last year, and the surrounding area saw a nearly four percent rise. (Because of the nature of the crime, many domestic violence cases still go unreported altogether.)

Domestic abuse is often a vicious cycle that consumes entire families, generation after generation. Perez’ daughter, now 21 with two children of her own, also found herself in an abusive relationship. “People alone cannot change, if they don’t get he…