Physical, psychological, emotional, and verbal abuse is not tough love, it is a debasement of a growing human being. Raising children can be exhausting, but we cannot resort to brute and emotional cruelty to do the job. Unconditional love is a requirement for parenting. If words and unkindness hurt us as adults, they hurt children, who have longer memories, many times more.
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” is the lasting wisdom of Frederick Douglas, an African-American abolitionist and reformer of the 19th century. He made this remark to sum up the condition of men whose minds were so deformed they could not see the evil of slavery, in spite of his best efforts to persuade them. In our time, abuse in childhood is responsible for many broken men and women. Culturally, the Yoruba believe that ‘omo laso aye,’ which translates to ‘children are the clothing of the world’, a metaphor for the high value placed on children, who are expected to carry on the values, traditions, customs, and knowledge of previous generations; imbibe ‘omoluabi’ character; care for their parents in old age; and transmit all they’ve been taught to their own children. To accomplish these goals, disciplining children is sometimes necessary. Caning, scolding, and shaming have long been acceptable child-rearing practices. The Bible even seems to sanction this with its ‘spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child’ philosophy. In fact, it goes further to threaten children with shorter lives if they do not obey their parents. The devil resides in the bosom of the child and it takes some lashing to dislodge it. Evidently, children framed this way are given a bad reputation they do not deserve, because they are what adults make them to be.
While disciplining children is necessary to correct bad behaviour, some parents and adults cross the line to child abuse by engaging in physical, emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse. There are a number of reasons why adults do this. Some parents were raised in very harsh households themselves and subjected to abuse as children, so they do not know any better. Others are just cruel and sadistic persons who target the weak and vulnerable; and children fit this profile. Mental health problems, financial hardship, unemployment and professional difficulties could be causes of child abuse.
Caning becomes abuse when it causes bodily harm to a child, or it is used to express anger unrelated to any infraction committed by the child. Some people think caning should not even be applied at all, as they consider it physical violence. Whipping a child at the slightest infraction, or for not meeting expected parental standards of academic performance, in spite of best efforts, is child abuse. Calling a child names, or comparing him or her unfavourably with his or her peers, is emotional abuse that makes children perform worse in school. Children are not extensions of their parents’ egos. Many of them have been ruined by parents who set impossible standards they themselves could not meet when they were young for them. They force their children to take courses they don’t enjoy or have the aptitude for, sometimes leading to failure and disappointment. Many parents have their own unresolved and unrecognised residual childhood problems, caused by their own parents’ hostility and unkindness. Injuries to bodies will heal, but the damage to the psyche sometimes lasts forever, unless people seek mental health services from psychiatrists and psychologists trained to deal with such problems.
Children subjected to emotional, psychological, and verbal abuse exhibit some behavioural patterns inimical to healthy growth. These include low self-esteem, a feeling of rejection, fear, aggression, lying, stealing and bullying other children. Some of them compensate and work hard to please parents academically.
These patterns of abuse occur among parents of all socio-economic groups. Children suffer verbal assaults and unjustified anger from fathers or mothers who are experiencing their own personal frustrations, which have nothing to do with the children. They call their children ugly names, withhold affection, use money and other resources to control and punish children, and curse their children out, predicting failure and doom for their future. I saw this around me while growing up. One particular relative, who happened to be stubborn as a child, was often whipped within an inch of his life. He was called unintelligent by his parents repeatedly. His beautiful, big round eyes were compared to those of an aguntan, a sheep, often regarded as a dumb creature. He rarely received positive feedback and was bombarded with the most vicious verbal abuse, which probably affected his academic performance. He failed and repeated many classes, played truant, and became an angry and unfocussed teenager. As a middle-age man, he lives a life full of rage, unable to maintain steady relationships with women, abandoning his children and wives, and subjecting them to horrific verbal and physical abuse. One of the frightening outcomes of child abuse is a strong identification with the parent abuser. He admires his father intensely and does all his best to replicate his style, even though it has brought him nothing but frustration and ruin. His father, to him, is the best father, who he sees as a good provider, which is true. This then means he sees all the cruelty inflicted on him as a child as normal, that he deserved it, and that it is the proper way to treat children in the world. His case is not unique. It illustrates the complications of adults who were emotionally abused by their parents as children, even when those parents took care of their material needs. Some children might even have experienced material generosity from such parents, but constant denigration and humiliation by parents results in long-lasting psychological problems. No amount of success in the world heals these hidden wounds. Children look up to their parents and would do anything to please them. If parents, who are all powerful in children’s lives, use this power to put their children down, they are causing a lifetime of pain. Science has revealed that children’s developing brains suffer abnormal and permanent physiological changes when they are abused.
Children subjected to emotional, psychological, and verbal abuse exhibit some behavioural patterns inimical to healthy growth. These include low self-esteem, a feeling of rejection, fear, aggression, lying, stealing and bullying other children. Some of them compensate and work hard to please parents academically. Sometimes, they succeed and become over-achievers, but as adults, they always suffer from self-doubt. No matter how accomplished they are, they never feel they are good enough. Children who suffer abuse engage in some strategies to protect themselves. They become cunning, doing all they could to please their feared parents, and cleverly hide their bad behaviour. This means parents miss the opportunity to correct real bad behaviour, which sometimes blooms soon as children are no longer under parental control.
Some fathers regard their homes as their fiefdoms, in which they could display all the shabby behaviour they would never exhibit in public. They are highly respected public figures who are consulted on important matters, and looked upon to set good examples for a moral life. In the privacy of their homes, they are the opposite of what they publicly profess. They subject their spouses to physical and emotional abuse, harass and abuse their children constantly, creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity in the home. Some parents lie, cheat, steal from their work places, consume alcohol excessively, and engage in various unethical behaviour, distorting the worldview of their children. Some even disrupt their families by suddenly bringing new “wives” home, or start other families secretly outside. All these have an impact on the emotional and psychological health of children reared in these situations.
There are some memes circulating on Nigerian social media platforms where people laud the slappings and beatings from their mothers as being responsible for their adult successes. The way to think about it is that success happened in spite of these harsh treatments, and not because of them.
The damage done is sometimes irreparable, regardless of how many degrees earned or the size of the bank account. Many grow up to have problems with relationships and live difficult lives because of the abuses suffered from childhood. Michael Jackson was one of the most talented and accomplished people in the world, but the verbal and psychological abuse he suffered as a child led him to a path of self-destruction. Many parents say things to children they would never say to colleagues, friends, and other adults. They begrudge the child every morsel he eats, creating a feeling that he is undeserving, and that he should be in a permanent state of gratitude. Sometimes children become pawns in the hands of feuding parents. It is not unusual for such parents to transfer the animus towards their spouses to their children, especially to the child perceived as close to the other combatant. The cruelties of some mothers make their children regard them as witches. Some parents abandon their children completely, not giving them any material or emotional support, only appearing in the children’s lives on occassions such as when graduating from the university. Some of our diaspora parents return home and abandon their children abroad, starting new families at home. Curiously, such parents expect to be supported by their children in old age. Omo laso aye, but what sort of clothing do you expect when all you have produced is soiled and ragged clothing? Children raised with meanness are not unlikely to return it to their parents when they become adults.
Several famous people here, who seem to have everything going for them have revealed how they struggle with low self-esteem and depression because of abusive childhoods. Carly Simon is a famous singer, a cultural force in America, from a very illustrious family. Her father was the partner in the Simon and Schuster book publishing empire. Hers was a cosmopolitan and wealthy family where children lacked nothing materially, but in her memoir and interviews, she talked about how she struggled with inferiority complex and low self esteem, even at the height of her fame and success, because she was made to feel that she was not good enough as a child. She felt the need to always prove herself to her father. It took years of psychological counseling to help her with this problem. The late Steve Jobs, the co-founder of the multi-billion dollar Apple company was abandoned by his biological parents and subsequently raised by adoptive parents. His first daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, 40, just released a memoir in which she detailed her father’s rejection and cruelties to her. He replicated the rejection he suffered from his own father in his child. Many of us, successful from all appearances, suffer this feeling of inadequacy, because parents have reinforced the message in different ways when we were young that we were not good enough. Some people end up in jail, become alcoholics and drug users, or end their lives by committing suicide.
There is a Native American belief that our actions have consequences for at least seven generations. A lot of family behaviour is inter-generational. It is the most natural thing as parents to default to the values and norms we are raised with as children. There are some memes circulating on Nigerian social media platforms where people laud the slappings and beatings from their mothers as being responsible for their adult successes. The way to think about it is that success happened in spite of these harsh treatments, and not because of them. It takes self-awareness and mindful parenting to see how some of our parents’ words and attitudes damage us, so that we don’t repeat them with our children. A successful life may hide deep insecurities and pain from childhood. Physical, psychological, emotional, and verbal abuse is not tough love, it is a debasement of a growing human being. Raising children can be exhausting, but we cannot resort to brute and emotional cruelty to do the job. Unconditional love is a requirement for parenting. If words and unkindness hurt us as adults, they hurt children, who have longer memories, many times more. Omo laso aye. Parenting will never be perfect, but we can start with love, consideration, and kindness.
Bunmi Fatoye-Matory was educated at the Universities of Ife and Ibadan, and Harvard University. She lives with her family in Durham, North Carolina. She is a writer and culture advocate. Email: bunmimatory@yahoo.com
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