Parenting & Family Quote by Lucille Roybal-Allard

The power of Roybal-Allard's line is how it turns a private horror into a public ledger. By leading with the blunt arithmetic of "nearly one in four", she refuses the cultural habit of treating domestic violence as an aberration, a sensational headline, or a problem that happens to "other" families. Statistics here aren’t cold; they’re a rhetorical battering ram, forcing scale onto an issue often minimized by euphemism ("domestic dispute") or buried under shame.

The second sentence tightens the vise. "Slightly more than half" signals that the damage radiates outward, landing in kitchens and bedrooms where children are present - not as distant witnesses but as residents of the same air. The phrase "households with children under age 12" is strategically specific: young enough to be dependent, old enough to remember. She’s not just talking about injury; she’s talking about developmental imprint, the way violence becomes part of a child's early normal.

The intent is legislative as much as moral. Roybal-Allard, speaking as a policymaker, frames domestic violence as a matter for schools, courts, healthcare systems, and federal funding - not merely personal choice or family drama. The subtext is a rebuttal to complacency: if the prevalence is this high and children are this often in the home, then treating it as a niche issue is politically and ethically indefensible. It’s also an argument about consequences: the cost of inaction isn’t abstract. It has an address, and often, a child’s bedtime.