Thought Picnic: When to bin the traditional hand-me-down rags of parental control

I was quite distressed

A few days ago, a video clip of a boy negotiating with his mother went viral. To many, it was pure entertainment, I, however, was very distressed by it that I do not intend to share it to propagate the scenario.

We have no backstory to the episode, but from what I could glean, the boy had done something wrong, probably seriously wrong for which there was to be some severe retribution. The boy crying with terror showing on his face, and in his terror was pleading with his mother to calm down, take a rest, or have a break before she unleashed her anger on him.

Some commentary suggested the boy was smart and trying to run rings around his mother. That is possible, especially when you know the kind of parents you have, you adopt strategies to escape their ire. The conversation mostly controlled by the boy was instructive and reflective, his mother is no doubt prone to irrational anger venting her frustration with severe punishments, else she would not have been advised to calm down.

Awareness lost to expediency

Towards the end, he asked to be given the last chance, the last chance in the world. That scared me like the boy could consider doing himself harm than face the wrath of his mother. None of this got through to his mother, she was insistent on beating him because somehow the boy had probably handled and broken something he was not supposed to touch. At the same time, he asked if his mother was videoing him.

This boy is aware, very much aware of himself and his failings, I am not sure his mother who decided to make a global show of his distress is half as much. In my view, a boy so mentally alert even at the imminent threat of harsh retribution needs to be dealt with in another way. The times when corporal punishment was the only tool parents, guardians or teachers had to command and demand the unflinching ultimate respect and fear of their wards is fast becoming useless.

Find better discipline tools

Corporal punishment is for mules and whatever your religious leanings, I would suggest it be the last resort having exhausted everything else and there is much to do, much more to learn to do to adapt to looking for more useful means of instruction than inflicting pain and nursing bleeding welts on the buttocks. The deprivation of freedoms or privileges with the prerogative of mercy is novel and yet effective.

I have watched some parents brutalise their wards in the quest for discipline and correction, sadly, the children now approaching middle-age are estranged, they do not have a wholesome relationship with their parents and that is sad. No, children do not outlive the cruelty meted out to them by their presumed protectors. Those who appear to do so are simply being pragmatic and able to compartmentalise usually for their own peace of mind in spite of and despite what they have suffered.

The future is a harsh judge

If you want a useful voice in the lives of your children, not so much to command or instruct them, but to have the honour of being approached from guidance when they are at crucial junctures of their walk of life, you need to review the hand-me-down rags of bad parenting and break that vicious generational cycle of visiting trauma instead of counsel.

Watch the child grow and begin to use reason and conversation, offer autonomy with good guidance on how to use the responsibility they have been offered, make mercy and forgiveness with consideration visible in times of disappointment or conflict. Find the expression of love beyond the provision of shelter, protection, sustenance and education, by being a bit emotional, because it shows you’re human and approachable. You can even give a hug and said the occasional “I love you, child.”, from deep in your heart.

You cannot tell how much that would mean to a child and how that would redound to their development in adulthood. These are the kinds of circumstances that make for good parent-child friendship and takes away the need for the child to scheme with cunning when they know they can trust you with anything going on in their lives.

Consider new possibilities

I am a man in my fifties, I have looked at many things about my relationship with my parents and other guardians. One uncle stands out as the one who gave me both the time and nurturing, we have one of the tightest relationships that even my parents would envy.

I would not be ambitious as to suggest how anyone should raise their children, but if you are going to make a public spectacle of them, ensure you are not making a worse spectacle of yourself in the process. Whilst many might agree with what she was about to do, I have no praise, commendation or encouragement, my disappointment cannot be more palpable for those who cannot learn from history, especially their own personal history are destined to repeat the failings of the past more worse than the precedent.

We can agree to disagree, but do not completely dismiss this perspective, I think it matters along with everything else in the toolbox of child-rearing. Thank you.

Some reference blogs

Blog - Childhood: My aunts saw red

Blog - Child sexual abuse requires greater parental indignation

Blog - Thought Picnic: House helps in the family setting

Blog - Thought Picnic: Don't mistake a troubled child for a bad one

Childhood: Remembering the times I had no one to talk to

If we could turn back time

I do not know how I would have been able to help my parents redo elements of my upbringing that might with hindsight has made me a better person. However, I do notice there are things that I picked up by example and other things that probably would have been better imparted by clear instruction and relatable lessons of life rather than relying on the osmosis of parenting.

Two specific things I think my parents left to osmosis, the hope that I turned out the way they expected without their active engagement, first, the management of money and secondly the real usefulness of school and academic achievement. I think I understood I was lacking in financial wisdom when I was sent away at 10 to take common entrance examinations.

I was given some money which I frittered away and spent on things I rarely had access to like comics and gave some away to the cousins who could take advantage of my naivety and generosity, I was no wiser. During that visit, I was also given money by relations, it is strange as I remember today that I was able to account for everything I was given by them, but not properly for what my parents gave me. The way the questioning went, about how I spent the money suggested they were quite displeased with me.

No reason I knew

I attended primary school because that was what you did, I effortlessly passed my examinations usually coming second or third in the class, but I hated revision or homework. There were many times I was caught out in class, lying that I had submitted my homework when I had not. It was a shameful and embarrassing experience when Mrs Onyemenam would put me in front of the class and have my classmates call out in unison, Liar!

There was a time I was a bedwetter both at home and in the first year and a half at secondary school, yet, in the almost 5 months I spent with relations in Lagos and Sagamu before secondary school, I never once wet my bed until my father came to visit and I spent the night with him at his hotel when he was down for a business trip.

Blog - Childhood: Atòólé

In secondary boarding school, I probably had serious child psychology issues that were attended to with rituals, amulets, and crazy animist practices. I always lost my things, rarely took notes in class and by the third year, I played truant hating some of the classes because they were exhausting and boring. It ended up on my school report, my mother a school principal was completely exasperated that she had a truant for a son.

The cane was not my bane

Whilst I never face corporal punishment for my academic achievements or failures even when I had to withdraw because I failed a repeated year in polytechnic, there was no shortage of criticism and excoriation especially from my father, a brilliant and a high-achieving accountant who must have sometime wondered how I came to be his son.

I can say in polytechnic I was clinically depressed, I had instances when I attended classes and I could understand what was going on or why I was there. I was not abusing substances or anything, I just had a head that seemed to be completely unaware of what I was doing. It is strange that I seemed to keep my sanity by falling into religion. It did not make matters any easier at home.

It was in these areas of disagreement and misalignment with my parents’ philosophies that I suffered the most and received the severest corporal punishments, they together ganging up on me, it was also an opportunity to humiliate, as I was ejected from my room and made to sleep on the floor.

The home was not a school to success

Now, in the minds of my parents doing everything they knew how to bring up successful and well-adjusted children, they were doing their best with the tools they had. Too many times, the comparison was the weapon to refocus, an uncle there or an aunt there who somehow had some opportunity but apparently wasted it became the terror of what you did not want to be.

In the end, the greatest lessons in life that helped me out of the rut I was in was not the discipline, the disagreements, the fights that included a headbutting from my father, or that backhand swipe of my mother that so connected well with face momentarily blinding me, it was in the understanding of other uncles and aunts who had experienced failure and overcome those circumstances to be successful.

It is ironic that many of them had some guidance from my parents when they were at their lowest ebb, they repaid by giving their nephew allowances, opportunity and encouragement to turn my life around and believe I really could make something of my life. None of this is to spite my parents, but there are aspects of child development that have left scars even if they seem to be healed.

Thought Picnic: Under My Roof

Twitter exchanges

I maintain a very vibrant discussion network on Twitter under the handle of @forakin and it is no surprise that the inspiration for this blog has come from discussions I had on Twitter.

I find that it is nice to flesh out my thoughts in a blog because whilst I have somewhat mastered concision, precision and brevity to carry a thought within 140 characters with spare to allow for those thoughts to be redistributed by retweets, for posterity sake and completeness of purpose, a blog brings together everything I have said on Twitter.

The news story came up that Pastor Creflo Dollar has been arrested for simple battery charges with regards to his 15-year old daughter and then additional detail was published as how he choked her.

A clergyman’s dilemma

There is no need for me to dwell on the substantive parts of the story, those will be covered in extensive detail by the news wires and other low-hanging fruit commentary, but there is much to say to create interesting debate and discussion.

I can appreciate Pastor Dollar’s dilemma, he is the founder of a mega-church with all that it entails, the idea that any of his children might be found in some unconventional setting can be scandalous though nothing is said of why he refused to let his daughter attend the party she asked to attend.

One thing is certain, preacher kids are not genetically modified to be like their preacher parents, in fact, whilst any child will share the genetic makeup of its parents and might look like either or both of them, even adopt a few of their mannerisms, they are entirely different personalities.

Children are distinct persons

Living together, eating the same food and doing the same things will not turn the child into a clone of the parent, they will be distinctly and noticeably completely different people and for any parent regardless of desire, calling, occupation or authority to think that they can shoehorn their child into some compact will spell unmitigated disaster.

Parents have to be constantly reminded that much as they have aspirations for their kids, they cannot and must not try to live out their dreams through their kids; it would eventually cause conflict, resentment, rebellion and separation.

This case also shows that leaders of churches with their moniker of “man of God” tending sometimes to the expression of “god of men” are in their time revealed to be mere mortals, suffering the same pressures, issues, situations and circumstances of life as you and I, prone to error, fallible and imperfect.

Under my roof

Then let us deal with the elephantine monstrosity of “Under my roof.”

When a child reaches the age of reckoning and responsibility is when parents seem to encounter the greatest difficulty to exerting their parental influence. More often than not you will end up hearing a sentence that contains the phrase, “Under my roof.”

Indeed, it is under the roof of the parents or guardians but really, when a child is brought into this world not of its own volition but by the chemistry of procreation and every other sentimental and complicated working of the mechanics, it is the responsibility of the parents or whoever assumes that responsibility to care for that child until the child approaching adulthood can fend for itself having enjoyed parental care and succour over a period that could last two decades or more.

“Under my roof,” is only part of the package as it deals with the matter of provision in terms of food, shelter, clothing, education and some protection of sorts. These elements are generally material and do not represent or fulfil the emotional needs of the parent-child relationship in terms of love and care which might help shape the core personality of the child in having self-esteem, confidence, drive, ambition and purpose.

Sadly, certain parents confuse their role of material responsibility for their children with that which demands their emotional investment in the child which usually does not show in tangible returns but are affairs of the heart, the soul and the bonds that hopefully will last a lifetime of communication, understanding, happiness and more.

It is important for a parent to know where the limits of “under my roof” are and what extra work they need to put into the relationship to make that phrase the last thing that will ever be referenced or inferred in communicating with their child.

Spare the rod

And now, sparing the rod. When the matter of child discipline comes up every parent has been so schooled in this that it is etched in their memories literally from before they were foetuses.

Proverbs 13:24 (NKJV) He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

In more contemporary English, the Message says: A refusal to correct is a refusal to love; love your children by disciplining them.

We normally hear people say, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” It in no way completes the context of the admonition, but we will get there. I will not argue the semantics of beating or hitting a child, there are broader issues at play than that.

Pastor Creflo Dollar by reason of his parental authority has inalienable and vested rights to discipline his child, which is non-negotiable. Maybe we should question how he goes about doing that, but we will be caught up in subjective analysis.

Discipline is function of love

However, reading the verses in full context, you cannot administer discipline without the purpose of correction through love and that love is not as I have clearly illustrated earlier by reason of mere parental provision.

Maybe there is a fine line between administering discipline that it crosses over into abuse and consequent brutalisation, the ability to wield discipline is under the control of the parent and the way it is administered is dependent on the maturity and character of the parent which hopefully has clear aims and purposes.

It is hoped the discipline is administered for corrective purposes such that the child in taking the pain of discipline might have learnt a lesson in understanding why the parent has been strident and corrective thus appreciating that such a situation should never have to arise again or rarely occur.

In that case, following the presumed guidelines, a rod, a cane, a whip or a belt might with a pre-determined number of applications to certain parts of the body without causing undue harm suffice; if and if the rod must be used. In other cases parents might institute authority based restrictions or activities that will cause temporary hardship as an instrument of corrective discipline.

Pertinently, I see no place where laying a hand on the child is sanctioned, in fact, the only place where that might have happened is where in the bible narrative God through an angel expressly told Abraham not to lay his hand on the child Isaac when he was about to sacrifice him. In essence, the slap, the smack, the punch or the whack is verboten.

Losing control

Somehow, Pastor Dollar in disciplining his daughter, matters appeared to have gotten out of hand, between he-said and she-said, she was smacked with a shoe, thrown to the ground and somewhat choked. You then wonder if the mother was there to observe, exacerbate or quell the situation.

It would be stretching the imagination to see where the rod, the discipline and the love sits in this setting, in fact, if anyone can fit any of those components into the context of correction, I’ll eat my hat.

It brings us to another element of parents momentarily losing control of a discipline process such that it is no more discipline but the parent acting out their frustration – everyone knows including the child that the event will never be corrective.

I remember an event with my father where he head-butted me, he was angry and probably frustrated and that was the discipline action that came to him at that moment in time, but as I got up from the daze of the head-butt, I looked at him as if he had gone mad. In fact, I just dusted off myself and basically walked out of his room because I thought if he laid another hand on me he might well go berserk.

No, that was not a discipline moment and at that particular point in time, I think we both realised that we would get nowhere and left the issue to another time.

Then there was another time when both my parents ganged up on me, from my perspective but the very interesting thing was my father stopped and my mother continued and then he said out of really grave concern. “Mind his eyes.” Maybe that was love, maybe it wasn’t but it was clear that he was not ready to see me brutalised regardless of how angry and frustrated my mother felt in taking it out on me.

Engaging the child

What am I getting at? The discipline process is not primarily a parental thing; the child can discern if discipline is out of love towards correction or anger towards more frustration. The former will yield the results intended, the later will just harden the child in its resolve to the point that it might just say the worst they can do is kill me – it should never get that far, in fact, the whole discipline regime is completely wrong-headed at the point and some things need to be fixed.

One admonition parents never seem to imbibe when they seek to command their children to obey their father and their mother is found in the three versions of Ephesians 6:4 “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (KJV). “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (NIV). “Fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master.” (The Message)

Believe it or not, you can exasperate your children, just as you think they exasperate you and to put that in context, I have provided definitions of exasperate.

• To make very angry or impatient; annoy greatly.
• To increase the gravity or intensity of.
• To cause great irritation or anger to; infuriate.
• To cause (an unpleasant feeling, condition, etc.) to worsen; aggravate.

Many a child has had a parent that seems to have freshly graduated from hell and ready to use every hellish skill on their child and then blame the child for making their lives a misery, have we ever asked ourselves if what we do makes the lives of our children a misery too?

Yes, children do test their parents, the real question is whether parents will pass or fail that test either proactively envisaging what to do correctly or reactively making a complete hash of the situation.

Finally,

I have heard too many times that children do not come with parental manuals, thank God, they don’t. The manual of parenthood is borne of life and character built on strong principles, else children will be one fit like machines and clones of each other – we know by now, they are not.

Parenthood is a difficult vocation just as childhood experiences can form what a person will become. I speak from my having been a child and seeing others bring up their children. If I could have children, maybe I will see things differently. I have made peace with myself about the fact I could not have children and after chemotherapy life can be just as fulfilling vicariously watching children grow into amazing people all around me.

Thought Picnic: Nurturing the fear of consequence

Child suicides are horrible

I read the news story of two 12-year old girls jumping to their deaths in Russia and I was quite saddened by the fact that such young children will take such a drastic action because of their fear of consequence. [The Moscow Times]

Apparently, the girls had skipped school for two weeks and were fearful of being punished that they clasped hands and jumped from the top of a 16-storey building.

There is cause for much speculation on reading this as to why they were skipping school and what the circumstances at their homes could be that they were so afraid of punishment that the only recourse they had was to take their lives.

There are aspects of this that I can relate to and that is why I have decided to write this blog because there are complexities in maturation of a child that depend very much on the reaction of their parents or guardians to prevent such drastic actions.

Not knowing what

I remember when in secondary school whilst staying with my guardian we made a draught board the only singular playful thing we ever had opportunity to have because the compelling drive and primary purpose for living at that stage of life in the setting we found ourselves in was to study and succeed, nothing else could suffice.

Many of my Nigerian peers could attest to this, though I must say in my home, my parents allowed quite a lot of play as long as work was not left undone.

When my guardian learnt that we had become playful, the message was clear, the board was to be destroyed and when he got back from work we were to be dealt with seriously. No one had any idea of what would happen but there was enough fear, terror and trepidation around us that we were as subdued as to be auto-asphyxiated.

I could not contemplate what to expect that what I did was to drink a cup of kerosene that made me violently sick in the hope that I would be mercifully spared. In the end, all that was required for us to buckle up was the threat but I could have done myself some serious harm because I did not know what to expect.

Was naughty, a lot

Now, for all the airs and graces I might exude today, I cannot say I was the best child; I did play truant a lot but I was in the library, some classes in secondary school were boring; when I was at the polytechnic there was one class I did not attend for the whole year after the first few classes because the lecturer’s command of English was atrocious, in fact, it was unbelievably bad, I could not stand him at all.

There were consequences, from the telling off through the shame to the possibility of failing the subject or the course and then the reports that got back home where my quite respectable parents would have been utterly mortified about my behaviour and performance.

It was important that I knew there were consequences, in some cases the discipline was quite brutal from the loss of privileges that included floggings and even sleeping on the floor – a kind of use of humiliation for attitude adjustment – some were tolerable and others were just par for the course, there were things you could not control.

Trying to be reasonable parents

However, I can remember that when I was at my worst behaviour was when my parents were at their most merciful – that was for me and is still today the biggest lesson I have learnt of parenthood.

I am thankful that my parents never carried out the threat of having me locked up just to bring me to my senses.

In all, it is important for a child to know the limits and extents to which they might suffer the consequences of their actions when they realise they have been wrong. I have seen children unnecessarily brutalised that I have vicariously offered to take anything they were being given because it was just unbearable.

Now, parents mean well, they probably do in most cases and their fears for their kids turning out wrong might dictate the way they treat and discipline their child but when they introduce levels of terror and consequence that lead the child to consider harmful actions either by reason of not knowing what their parents will do or in the full knowledge of how nasty their parents can become, there is great sorrow in store for many.

I still remember that there were issues I should have been able to approach my parents about and they might have been very helpful and there are others where they have been dismissive when in fact the issue was very serious – parenthood does not come with manuals but there is a need to know that children have voices, they need to be heard and they need to know the extents of rebuke and sometimes expect a warm embrace.

Nigeria: Corporal Punishment, Step-Childhood and Marital Security

The harrowing story of a boy

Woman Arrested For Battering Son [1] read the news headline and that is just part of what is a long story which has lots of low-hanging fruit starting with the naturally expected revulsion at the pictures of the battered son, the woman, her marriage, the issue of corporal punishment and discipline in the home and many other things.

However, I see some interesting developments that must be highlighted about changes that are occurring in the Nigerian society and the hope that this might become even more widespread.

As the woman brutalised and battered her son for whatever reasons which from the reading of the story indicates were many occasions, a neighbour probably hearing the screams of the child and unable to placate the situation had the presence of mind to contact a non-governmental organisation the Esther Child Foundation.

They immediately attended the scene rescued the boy and had the woman arrested, they facilitated the admission of the child in hospital for treatment, through escalating the issue into the hands of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation where the child might get all his needs ministered to.

Corporal punishment

The debate about corporal punishment, discipline and the Biblical exhortation about sparing the rod and spoiling the child is quite a sensitive one amongst the religious; certain societies expect and exact the right of such parental control of their children that they will not brook any interference of the state.

A detention, a harsh rebuke, a spank, a smack, a slap, a beating, a whipping, a bludgeoning, a brutalisation and it is not long before we have a murder on our hands but the punisher may not be too aware of the damage being caused in expressing disappointment, displaying displeasure, venting anger or charting the course for corrective deterrence.

You come to the point that from the unvoiced threat to the physical contact occasioning actual bodily harm might well be classed as violence and that is just inexcusable – there should be a set punishment for criminality, there should be limits in time, duration and application with the lessons to be learnt from such activity – all reasons must be reasonable but most of all, the matter of child – parent discipline calls for a radical rethink – the fact that the rights of child to be safe and safe from the brutalisation of others in Nigeria is very welcome and should be commended.

The place of step-children in the family

Next is the matter of step-children and to think I was chatting about this issue not long ago seeing the difficulties presented between a child following a parent into a new relationship, the need for a child to be brought up in their closest family construct and what are the particular concerns for the acceptance of that child in a setting where it can so easily be alienated, isolated, enslaved, brutalised and at worst gotten rid of just because it interferes with an equilibrium that the parent and step-parent are developing, especially when they now have a new child of that that union.

Especially, in Nigeria, I can understand that it is hard for step-children to be accepted fully into the new family structure and treated as own children with the step-parent assuming full guardian responsibility and caring parental provision for the well-being and development of that child.

As the news story indicates, this child was 10, he was not in school and his step-father was ready to leave his mother if she did not do something about the “problem.”

Children and marital security

Her solution before the intervention of the NGO and the authorities was to inflict serious harm on the boy for every minor infraction, to be denied the comfort of a bed that he slept on the staircase, to make his life a living hell and when he did not run away, she probably chose this particular occasion to snuff the life out of him through severe battering and then seek to offer excuses for an accident.

There is such ambivalence in relationships, certain women will stay in marriages that are not working for the sake of their children and then will stoically put everything in the lives of their children when the father leaves the relationship.

There are parts of this setting that sadly predicates on the need for adequate provision for both the woman and the children which for the way our society works expects the man to be the sole-breadwinner and the woman to be the homemaker – in more pragmatic and liberal settings, both the parents work however there are still issues of equality and parity in our quite seriously patriarchal society.

Societal pressures of step-parenthood

There probably is no elixir to help a step-parent assume full and loving parental responsibility of their step-children and one must not forget that part of this heinous situation stems from the fact that the woman had been put under the unforgivable threat of losing her new relationship by her husband if she did not do something about the son from another marriage.

If that situation is proven, one would expect that a portion of the blame and hate must accrue to the account of that nasty husband.

In all, there are no easy solutions with the risk of the woman ending up being a single mother of two children of different fatherhood – that is a different story.

Supporting the rights of the child

What matters the most is that the rights of a child must not be dispensed of just to satisfy some new and comfortable construct, the child was already part of his mother’s life and she should have ensured his future was secure with hers or aborted the prospect of a love strengthen by the murder of her “past.”

One can only wish the child, Victor Emmanuel and better life leading to success in the future and organisations like the Esther Child Foundation need all the support we can give them to protect the rights of vulnerable children in hostile and life-threatening settings.

Source

[1] PM News: Woman Arrested For Battering Son

UK/Nigeria: Looks more like a sexuality crisis

Update

I read this after I had written the blog; the mother has been jailed for 8 months

BBC News - Edirin Onogeta-Idogun mother jailed over 'missing' son

A child with rights

It is now a day after the 14th of February deadline in which the parents of Edirin Onogeta-Idogun a 17-year old Londoner born of Nigerian parents should have returned him to London from Nigeria on a court order or face jail [1].

The elements of the story are sketchy but it broke on the 4^th of February and as it goes, the boy portends than he was tricked into returning to Nigeria after claims that he was beaten, forced to undergo exorcisms because his mother disapproved of his lifestyle and his reluctance to get married.

He had in July taken advantage of a legal situation that allowed those forced into marriage to take protection orders out against their families in the UK.

Unusual parental arrangements

It could be quite easy to see this as a traditional discipline problem that has the child unnaturally acting against his African parents and that may well be the case but I feel there might even be unexplored facets of inquiry in this matter.

One side to be explored is the reason why the parents decided to live in separate households from 2004, one in the UK and the other in Nigeria where the father is a special adviser for the governor of Rivers State.

It is quite unusual by Nigerian standards that the mother is referred to by her maiden name Lydia Erhire, the son has a double-barrelled surname and his father is identified as John Idogun.

Parents are not entirely blameless

The idea of being tricked into something we are not keen by our parents is an age-old thing that many of us have not been able to question or challenge because of the sometimes misguided view by ourselves and society that parents are omnipotent with untrammelled control of our lives – well, times are changing and kids are wising up to how the law can and will defend their rights.

Whilst, I am not advocating indiscipline and intrusion or invasion of homes in the meting out of requisite controls and discipline by the state, parents would just have to find ways of working within the system rather than resorting to archaic methods hoping the preponderance of parental sympathy with end up in their favour.

Once the matter had acquired a legal face with the police involved, some of these matters were already outside the control of the parents and it was foolish to think that the hand of the law could not be extended to protect the as it were outrageous rights of a wayward child that dared to take his parents on with the law.

The sum differs from the product

Look at in each case, the things the young man said he suffered could be considered trivial; beatings are things parents do, many have not advanced to a level that could eliminate corporal punishment and still maintain discipline and the confidence of the child in accepting that the decisions made by the parents are right.

Exorcisms are both interesting and of great concern, having seen a number of these conducted in so-called churches in England, the brutality of such ordeals is unspeakable. Nigerians in particular with their unreasonable dread of the supernatural – this is a generalisation – can so easily attribute unusual or things they do not understand to demonic possession requiring the services of exorcists in the unregulated African-Initiated churches that litter London in particular.

The matter of forced marriage at 17 is a bit far-fetched, Nigerian men usually marry a bit later, usually in their late 20s or early 30s after they have completed their education and are able to fend for themselves and raise a family of their own.

Looks like a sexuality crisis

Taken together, an interesting picture emerges and whilst this is speculative, it might be closer to the truth.

A 17-year old has a lifestyle that the mother disapproves of, she beats him but fails to notice any discernable change and decides this is beyond her that she considers exorcism rituals the underlying concern being the child’s reluctance to get married and then she sends him to Nigeria where she hopes this issue would be sorted out.

This can only be a sexuality aversion situation where the young man might well have been exhibiting homosexual tendencies – everything falls into place – the only reason why the consideration of marriage would have arisen would be to probably convert him to heterosexuality, it would explain the beatings and the exorcism too.

Grasping at solutions

Sending him to Nigeria would have been due to the misguided view that homosexuality is a Western concept and being exposed to a rather more homophobic society would force him to adapt and probably cure him; it was the nuclear option and his mother was will be risk breaking the law for this probable solution.

If at 17, he was not looking like a virile eligible young man bringing girlfriends home, I could well understand that the mother might well be concerned; there might well be other indicators, but the truth is somewhere within these unfortunate developments which would require that all parties in this matter be saved from themselves – even if it takes the law to ensure that everyone is able to become whatever they are becoming without unnecessary duress, deception or demonization.

Sources

[1] Send boy, 17, back to UK or face jail, family told | News

Nigerian mother faces jail in the UK | Daily Times Nigeria (Beta Site)

Childhood: The ways we were punished

It brought a wry smile

Maybe the time is ripe for a biography of sorts; the many seemingly inconsequential things in the past all seem to find a way of generating paragraphs of text that could mean nothing at all.

Fear but not loathing was always present at home, though I had never seen the patriarch raise his hand to his only brother who lived with us a while, his kid sister did feel the harsh end of corporal punishment that terrified us no end.

Beaten to pulp

There was the rare occasion that we were not spared the rod, the brutal collisions with our backsides as we cried out with agony our parents oblivious of the hurt, maybe in concern like the blacksmith hammering on an anvil, we were being straightened out; it was knowledge they had that we were never privy to.

A witness I have been to punishment that was closer to brutal torture than a corrective exercise, I even vicariously offered myself in place of the child who had lied to her parents, it was just too upsetting that everyone became upset too.

The Yorubas of South-Western Nigeria have a saying that translated roughly to – If a child is disciplined with the right hand, it is comforted with the left hand – I have seen many instances of discipline but very few of the comforting, the child is supposed to be self-comforting in the knowledge that it has roof, food, school and clothing provided for – love expressed in the crudest fashion.

Deprivations and commands

How can one forget the other punishments in the arsenal of those who have the power to mete such out? Stand in the corner facing the wall – a child needs an independent unrestrained spirit even if it were just idling; our parents did not have the more sophisticated tools of docking pocket money, that is, if you ever had any; detention or grounding – those are liberal Western constructs that could hardly tame the almost “feral” African child – allow my expressive licence, I pray.

More disconcerting was – raise up your hands and close your eyes or the more cruel – kneel down, raise up your hands and close your eyes. The raise up your hands part was really stretching up your arms and hands vertically – you could be there for hours deprived of visual perception, the restraint borne from the command tires you out, arms aching or knees hurting – the child might end up crying.

I could never tell if you were released out of pity or that the sadistic nature of the torturer had been exhausted to the point of not being able to bear it anymore. Only this time, the release always seemed to come with some admonition.

You sense they never want to do it again, but the child just seems to be punishment-prone, unfortunately, there is no therapy for this situation, rather you are back to sensory deprivation in the hope that some lesson will be learnt.

He stoops to ponder

Stoop down! If you don’t know it, you have never been there – The index finger of one hand touching the ground, the other arm behind the back with one foot raised as you stoop forward, the leg you are standing on must be as straight as possible and you should maintain that balance for as long as the wicked instigator will have you stay there.

Parents, elders, teachers and seniors in college have exercised that level of control and rotten tortuous power over lesser ones – we know your names and some of you we would neither forgive nor forget.

I could never understand the emotion my mother expressed in not having arrived early enough to witness the burial of one such guardian who meted out such unspeakable punishments on her when she was a child – somewhere these people earn respect and reverence in the broad context of life, what they did was only for a while and hopefully it would never ever define what we eventually become.