7-Year-Old Living in Domestic Violence Shelter Asked Santa for ‘Very Good Dad’

A seven-year-old Texas boy living in a domestic violence shelter with his mother temporarily around the holidays wrote a letter to Santa, asking for something money and presents cannot buy.

The boy asked for a dictionary, chapter books, a compass, and a watch, but most of all, asked for a “very very very good dad.”

His mother found the handwritten letter tucked in his backpack a few weeks ago and shared it with the staff of the domestic violence shelter.

The shelter, Safehaven of Tarrant County, posted the letter to social media Wednesday morning, noting that the organization called him Blake instead of his real name for his own protection.

The letter read as follows:

Dear Santa,

We had to leave our house. Dad was mad. We had to do all the chores. Dad got everything he wanted. Mom said it was time to leave and she would take us to a safer place where we don’t have to be scared.

I’m still nervous. I don’t want to talk to the other kids. Are you going to come this Christmas? We don’t have any of our stuff here. Can you bring some chapter books, a dictionary, and a compass and a watch? I also want a very very very good dad. Can you do that too?

Love, Blake

“Blake’s story is like every story we see,” Safehaven of Tarrant County President and CEO Kathryn Jacob told CNN. “The problem is so pervasive.”

According to statistics from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 20 people a minute on average are physically abused by an intimate partner in the U.S.

Over the course of the year, that figure jumps to 10 million men and women.

While Jacob said there had been a lot of attention surrounding Blake’s letter, she wants to expose how common domestic violence is among intimate partners.

Jacob says she often sees an uptick in people seeking shelter when the kids are out of school around the holidays.

“I think adult victims of domestic violence are thoughtful and strategic— I know they do the safest thing for themselves and their children,” Jacob said. “We may not understand that completely, but I think that’s why they typically don’t want to interrupt their child’s academic life, so they do that when there’s a break from school.”

The shelter is housing 45 women and 74 children as of Wednesday night. It can hold up to 164 people at its maximum capacity, and families stay on average for 8-10 weeks before they are safely discharged.