Family
Stabler is devoted to his family and frequently mentions or thinks about them while working cases. He married his wife, Kathy, when they were both 17 years old, and in the beginning of the series they have four school-aged children: Maureen, Kathleen Louise, and twins Richard ("Dickie") and Elizabeth ("Lizzie"). After years of the stress involved with being married to a police officer, Kathy Stabler leaves her husband, taking their children and temporarily moving in with her mother. Stabler later signs the divorce papers, saying, "when love warps to hate, there's nothing you won't do," and he wants to keep that from happening on either side. However, after being cleared in the death of a suspect, Stabler realizes that he cannot bear to lose either his job or his family and seeks reconciliation with his wife. A short time later, Kathy announces that she is pregnant and asks Stabler to come home. After a serious car accident, Kathy delivers a healthy baby boy, Elliot Stabler, Jr (Eli).
Of his five children, Kathleen and Dickie have most directly affected his job. Kathleen is twice arrested for DUI; he uses his clout as a police officer to make the first charge disappear, but he eventually realizes that he has to let her face the consequences of her actions, and she is sentenced to community service. Kathleen then steals her father's credit card and gives it to her boyfriend, who rings up thousands of dollars in charges. She is later arrested for breaking and entering and robbery, at which time doctors and her family realize that she suffers from bipolar disorder, which she inherited from her paternal grandmother, Bernadette Stabler (Ellen Burstyn). After speaking with her grandmother, Kathleen agrees to treatment. In the episode "Turmoil", Dickie is nowhere to be found after a fight at school. It is later revealed he is trying to join the army, something Stabler disapproves of. It later turns out that Dickie's friend, Shane, has been murdered.
Stabler is fiercely protective of his children and becomes defensive if a suspect asks about his family. In the episode "Tragedy", he reveals he helped deliver all of his children to that point; it is thus suggested that he sees aspects of them in every abused child. As a result, he harbors an intense hatred for pedophiles, admitting in the episode "Slaves" that he sometimes fantasizes about killing them; he almost loses his job as a result. Stabler has occasionally seen aspects of himself in a child abuser, as in the episode "Shaken", when an abusive parent reminds him of an incident in which he lost his temper and slapped his daughter Maureen, then a toddler. While he restrained himself from hurting her further, he was frightened by his loss of control. In the episode "Confession", he beats up a pedophile (Tom Noonan) who posts a picture of Elizabeth on his website.
Child victims tend to respond to him. In the episode "Resilience", Stabler successfully reaches out to a 15-year-old girl (Rachael Bella) who regresses to a childlike state after being attacked by her father. SVU's resident psychiatrist, Dr George Huang (B.D. Wong), theorizes that only Stabler would be able to reach her, as he is a father, and she is looking for another father figure. Perhaps due to his nature as a protective, devout father, children often responded to him very positively.
Stabler was born and raised in Bayside, Queens Stabler rarely talks about his childhood. Stabler had a difficult relationship with his father Joseph who physically and emotionally abused him. His mother, Bernadette (née) McGinley, suffers from bipolar disorder, and once nearly killed her son during a manic phase. As a result, Stabler has "erased his childhood", and maintains little contact with his mother.
In the 12th season episode "Gray", Stabler attends a rally, in which Kathleen is involved. The rally provides rape awareness to the college campus; much to his own surprise, he is listed as a guest speaker. Seconds after he is introduced, an adolescent woman comes running into the rally accusing out loud that a man (who is running behind her as well) has raped her. Stabler has no other option than to arrest the man at the rally. As the investigation continues, Stabler finds out Kathleen was the rape victim's "Designated Buddy" the night the victim was raped. She then provides her father a confidential report on the accused rapist for a prior incident.
Read more about this topic: Elliot Stabler
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“A family with the wrong members in control—that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“The family is on its way out; couples go next; then no more keeping cats or parrots.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“In former times and in less complex societies, children could find their way into the adult world by watching workers and perhaps giving them a hand; by lingering at the general store long enough to chat with, and overhear conversations of, adults...; by sharing and participating in the tasks of family and community that were necessary to survival. They were in, and of, the adult world while yet sensing themselves apart as children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)