Life through the lens of abused child

“Uncle, my daddy slapped my mommy and my mommy started crying”
…life through the eyes of kids raised by abusive dads

By Kingsley Obom-Egbulem

If you are a Sunday school teacher, you definitely would be familiar with how the children in your class rush out whenever it’s time to share testimonies with the rest of the class.

By the way their testimonies are sometimes predictable. “I thank God for keeping me, my brother, my mommy and my daddy alive”.

And the next child comes on; “I want to thank God for allowing my daddy to travel safely to London and back “.

At some other times,the lines could sound like this ; “I want to thank God for giving me a baby sister, her name is Oreoluwa and my mommy gave birth to her in the US “.

O yeah!

You need to see the looks on the faces of these children each time they testify even when they really can’t figure out this God they seem to be giving the credit for these fortunes. Of course,we can’t also rule out the fact that some of them are also exhibiting a tendency to show off.

And just while you are waiting for the next testifier to show off and possibly wow! the class with what God has done for her family,you are hit with what sounds like an anomaly:  “I want to thank God for my mommy; last week she and my daddy were fighting, my daddy hit her on the head  and she fell down but I thank God she didn’t injure herself and blood did not come out”.

Silence.

The rest of the children obviously could not identify with such a testimony.

In the first place, was that a testimony? If it was, what sort of testimony was that? Why would your daddy hit your mommy? Is your daddy meant to hit your mommy in the first place?

Puzzles!

It’s also possible some other kids in the class to whom the scenario that was painted by their classmate was not only a familiar scenario but a regular one.

When a child begins to testify about God’s intervention in the life of her physically abused mother especially how God ‘saved’ her mother from the potentially devastating effects of the pummelling and battering she receives from the one she calls husband (and father of her children) , then the abuse has assumed another dimension.

Obviously the abuser has a second victim; the children who daily watch their mom as she is constantly battered by their dad and cannot do anything to stop him. They’re also programmed either for or against a lifestyle of abuse. The abuse continues to take its toll on them as they relate with their mom because whichever way we look at it, an abused woman cannot raise emotionally healthy children. Her situation would also remind them of what to accept or accept from a man.

She’s going to try extra hard (albeit unsuccessfully) to help the children make sense of the physical abuse. Even if she succeeds, how would she uninstall the “all men are beasts” feeling the children are about growing up with? How would she deactivate feelings such as “woe betide any man that would try this rubbish on me when I marry” that some of her daughters may have developed?

Three years ago, a teenager vowed she’ll kill any man that tries this with her. She had called us to come and rescue her mom as the dad was hitting her, pulling off her and none of their neighbours could enter the house. She insisted we dash down and break the door to gain entrance when we arrive else we could meet her mom dead in 30 mins. You could imagine the drama when we arrived.

Looking at life through the lenses of a child raised by a physically abusive dad and a mom constantly wearing dark goggles and tick layers of make-up to cover the blackeye and facial bruises sustained during numerous beatings from the man she claimed to love can be disturbing.

Indeed life from the eyes of a girl child raised by an abusive dad is brutish, hostile, uncaring, unromantic and filled with resentment against what could be termed patriarchal irresponsibility. For the boys, the line is drawn ; if a lady messes up with me or she’s trying to grow wings I’ll beat her up and she’ll fall in line.

Period.

He grows up with a terrible self esteem courtesy of his emotionally unstable and insecure dad who cannot engage because over time he couldn’t develop capacity to reason with a woman and make logical and ideological statements. And so, he leverages on brute force when he’s not unnecessarily raising his voice.

Yesterday’s abused mothers have given birth to children who have also become mothers and are raising children based on the hangover they’ve had. Yesterday’s boys raised by abusive dads have also become fathers struggling to break free from the abusive programmes installed in their system.

We need to end this ugly circle. Talk to men and women you believe need help and don’t fail to refer them to places where they can find help. Women’s fellowship and indeed men’s fellowship in churches could organise programmes that speaks to these issues instead of “cosmetic events” that doesn’t address emotional trauma that women are children are living with.

Let’s work together  towards a healthy nation made up of healthy families.

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