Today I stood on the elliptical at my gym and fought tears. The story on the screen was hard to comprehend. I saw graphic images of bloody lash marks on a boys legs, on his behind and the guy on the news reported that they even reached his genitals. This little boy is only four years old and is the son of NFL star Adrian Peterson. Adrian plays for the Vikings, he wears the number 28, he’s 6’1″ 217 pounds and he regularly and brutally beats his children with switches and belts. This little boy is only four years old but was able to articulate that he is afraid of his father and his “whoopin room”. My youngest son is three and a half. The idea of beating him with a stick makes me feel sick to my stomach. He’s gotten a swat or two on his butt, but I’m aware that there are solid and effective ways of getting my point across without hitting him. Adrian didn’t like the sound of his son screaming when he was hitting him 15 times with a stick. So, he stuffed leaves in his mouth. Sounds reasonable, right? Right?
The powers that be are pressing charges. They have deemed this to be “gross child abuse”. I find it gross as well. He’s headed into legal battle, no doubt, with a dream team of attorneys who will see to it that he gets unsupervised visitation and a slap on the wrist. He won’t even get beaten with a stick! His team has decided that he “deserves to play ball while he’s going through the legal process”. Why is that? Ray Rice was dropped and there are no charges against him. Does this poor baby get no justice because his daddy didn’t get caught on tape? Four years old, people.
That child and his siblings are regularly beat. Adrian said that these “whoopins” are regular punishment and his kids know what happens when they get out of line. What could that little boy have done that was deserving of this? I’ll tell you, he pushed his brother off a motorcycle game. HOW UNFORGIVABLE. Kids pushing their siblings??? I can’t fathom… Insert eye roll here.
NFL, you are fucking up. I call on everyone who reads this to boycott The Vikings. To voice your opinions, to make them hear that we are not going to support the perpetuation of abuse. You can email them at the link below. I mean, I know I’m just some girl with a blog and if I’m lucky a few hundred people will read this. Why should The Vikings give a rats what I think about them? Why should they care what any of us have to say as long as we tune in and see their sponsors… That’s all that matters, right? I HAVE to believe that it will make a difference even if it’s just minuscule. If we don’t, then who will? Thanks for reading and please share this.
http://www.vikings.com/footer/contact-us.html
The Swearing Mom's Guide To Life 
Love your, blog…The pictures of Burning Man and the boys are beautiful. Keep writing girlfriend, you have a gift. I read it all, sad to hear more about your “real dad”. I knew some of it, but not all. And the loss of your friends physically and emotionally…never easy.
Love you, Linda A.
This does go overboard as far as discipline is concerned, I think most people agree with that (though I’m sure not all) but boycott the NFL? Really? Your religion post was so level headed (and is the one I stumbled across while doing research) but this seems overboard. Would you apply the same standards to all businesses? If an employee at your bank was accused of domestic violence or hitting their child would you move your accounts? Would you stop banking altogether and demand this person not be hired by any of the banks (teams) in the banking industry or you will boycott the banking industry as a whole?
No, of course not, you don’t know or care what your bank employees have done. I bet you at least one worker at Wal Mart, Costco, Target, Sears, JCPenny, (or insert your store of choice here) has committed violence against their wife or child, and it’s on a police record somwhere…. one executive somewhere at the store or home office… we know this is almost certainly true.
Do you also support the firing and banning of people from getting a job in that entire industry the moment an accusation is leveled or should the person be convicted first? I was with you until the last paragraph, how is the NFL “Fucking up” they are not the police, they are not an investigative body. The NFL should do their job, and play Football. If, because their players is the public face of their company, they want to fire someone because they were convicted of a crime and that reflects badly on them, that’s great, I get that, public people take that risk with their jobs… but in no other area of life do we DEMAND that a company fire a felon… heck we encourage companies to hire felons when they get out of jail…. I just don’t see it.
Again, as the mother of two little boys, I see the way professional athletes are looked upon, especially by children. I am satisfied with his suspension, pending the outcome of his situation. Apparently, I am not alone in my feelings. If the manager of my bank beat his child bloody and it got in the news, I’m fairly certain that the bank would take action. As for the millions of incidents that we never see… This is for all of them. All of the little abused kids who see the decision that the Vikings came to, can now feel confident in that their abuser is wrong, not them. They can see this on the TV and possibly know that it’s not their fault, that the world at large would side with them if they knew.
I know that this post may lack some of my pragmatism but, seeing the marks and hearing the story, stirred up some passion in me. When it comes to helpless children, I’m comfortable erring on the side of passion vs practical. Thank you for your comments, I welcome you balanced and thoughtful opinion.