From Discipline to Abuse: The Thin Line in African Parenting
Freshly ground pepper rubbed into the anus is just the tip.
My daughter is almost 4 years old and unlike the average Nigerian child of that age, she is boisterous. She will approach adults and children alike to say, “Hello”, and she will ask you, “What are you doing?” If you are holding a toy or a book with an attractive cover, she will ask, “Can I have that?”
In Nigeria, my daughter is the epitome of a spoiled child and recently my spoiled child was ill.
The hospital requested I take her to a medical lab for some bloodwork. The Lab Tech I met seemed within my age group and as someone who has heard so much about how I seem standoffish, snobby, and unapproachable to people, I have learned to apply a trick to break the ice — I ask them about themself and their work.
I have learned people love talking to people who show interest in them. This Lab Tech was happy to chat with me while she worked and I waited for the result of my daughter’s bloodwork.
When my daughter was some months over 2, she went missing at the beach — every parent’s nightmare, and those 30 minutes she was missing, remain an ongoing trauma for me. In close spaces, I give her some distance and this Lab was no different.
There were mainly staff working, my daughter had made her turn greeting them and the Peppa Pig playing on my phone had her complete attention occasionally broken by staff who tapped her to interact with her. Completely uneventful time from my perspective until I had my daughter’s result in my hands and it was time to leave.
I stood up.
Lab Tech: Do you beat your child?
Me: No…
Lab Tech: She is beautiful
Now my guard is up cos…
Me: And?
Lab Tech: Please sit down.
I did.
Lab Tech: I have seen this Lagos trend where parents do not beat their children. Let me assure you, children are not salt that dissolves in water and no parent beats their child because they hate them. Parents beat their children because they love them and want them to grow into responsible children.
Remember that “standoffish, snobby, unapproachable” tags I had borne most of my life, I regretted that chatting up this woman had given her the audacity to speak to me about my child in this way but, I decided to hear her out. People talk bullshit about others. It wasn’t every day they said it directly to their target.
Lab Tech: See, I have a son about your daughter’s age and he would not have dared do what your daughter did
Me: What did my daughter do?
Lab Tech: You know, going about… talking to everyone… did she ask your permission?
Me: She did not need it to say, ‘hello’. Was anyone uncomfortable by her interaction with them?
Lab Tech: No… that is not the point but you see, as I said, your daughter is very beautiful and now is the time. She is supposed to walk in, sit down immediately and not talk unless you give her permission. These types of children grow up, grow wings and become uncontrollable.
These types of children?
Lab Tech: When I had my son, I will look at his face and not know how to beat him but my mother-in-law, thank God for her, my mother-in-law, she cautioned me and told me to harden my heart. My sister, I started flogging my son.
My mother-in-law told me it wasn’t enough and I needed to be tougher and I got tougher. Now, I don’t even say much to my son. With my eyes, we now communicate, and when he forgets, (making flogging motions and whip sounds): piam piam piam! He remembers!
I stood up.
Me: I have to go
Lab Tech: Oh you are in a hurry?
Me: Yes.
Lab Tech: No problem but please think deeply about what I said. It is for your own good and your daughter’s good.
I turned and walked away.
I had been intrigued by the woman’s job and I loved their setup but I left feeling many emotions. Among them — are anger, disappointment, and uncertainty.
As someone raised by a mother who did not spare the rod and in an environment where this IS the norm, almost everyone close to me has called me a variation of crazy for raising a spoiled child. A spoiled child is basically, a child who I do not physically hurt which gives her the ‘wings’ to have the luxury to ‘negotiate’ with me to see if my instructions are suggestions or laws. In my country and continent, my method is not the norm.
And I used to defend myself a lot:
- My child already seeks my approval and validation. I only have to nudge her.
- She can debate what I task her with but I don’t relent and my size and gaze are enough to get her to obey me without the need for physical hurts or verbal insults.
- She loses time with Peppa Pig or has something she wants delayed or denied until we pack up the toys or books or clothes or whatever. She hates it and I won’t budge.
- This isn’t the military. I love that my child loves being close to me, talking my ears off, and wanting to play with me. This luxury will not be this pure forever. I cherish it now.
But, people do not get this. According to critiques:
- Talking is a long and harder route. Spoils the child
- You beat the child and they will not be in a hurry to repeat the mistake
- Our parents beat us and look at us! We are now so mature and responsible.
- Look at the West — too much “my rights”, people disrespect their elders, transition their genders, and misbehave a lot because, there is no discipline in the home.
- Even the good book says, spare the rod and spoil the child.
I agree — it can get frustrating having to ‘explain’ to your child why they have to do something where screaming or beating could have made it a breeze. But, at what cost?
Africa remains the poorest continent on earth. We live in countries controlled by the most corrupt, incompetent rulers, and yet, we have been raised too scared of our shadows to do anything about it. The ‘pacifism’ of Africa towards anarchy is, I strongly postulate, a direct consequence of our upbringing. This is no true pacifism and I say this because Africans are the biggest keyboard warriors I know.
On Twitter and Facebook, the African warriors reign supreme. They call out politicians, they insult celebrities and shockingly, they can speak boldly against religious leaders, and parts of their religions they do not agree with and tell you how much Feminism has destroyed the greatness of society. Ask them to come along to a protest,
Na only me my mama born.
I am the only child of my mother.
This is almost always false though but it is intended to get someone to back off.
At home, our parents beat us into the molds they desired. Disobedience was greeted with a stick or a belt.
My classmate:
My mother will bite us with her teeth or she will use her sharp nails to pinch us. Her father’s name, interpreted from our native tongue is ‘rope’. Imagine that your father’s brand of punishment is to tie you up with a rope for many minutes to an hour, depending on your annoyance.
My friend:
My parents will hit a cane on the ground until it is loose. Then they soak it in water filled with pepper.
Another friend:
My mother will put ground fresh pepper in your buttocks and anus.
As appalling and as unbelievable as these will sound to people not raised in Africa, do not insult us with, “I do not believe this”. You only need to ask us. These are some of the lighter horrors. And in the minds of our parents — all done in the love of discipline.
At school, our teachers beat us into their molds. Some parents will not let their children attend a school where teachers are not allowed to discipline (flog) said children. I concede that schools are getting more civilized and moving away from beating students but the change can be faster.
Imagine children raised in these environments. We were raised to be scared.
My friend remembers this:
My mother will routinely say, ask me any questions you have yet when he asks her questions about whatever, she often ended it with a slap, a yell, an insult, or a knock on the head. “You ask too many questions!” She will yell.
African children are trained to ask no questions or trivial questions (shouldn’t be too deep and don’t be persisting).
African children are trained to blend in and not stand out. The standouts raise eyebrows so like a panel-beater with a metal, a carpenter with a nail, we are hammered in.
Children are raised to obey adults unquestioningly which was why at 6 years old, I was constantly sexually abused by the big help in the house and because children are raised to fear their parents, my elder brother and not me, was who reported my abuse to my parents.
Fearful children become fearful adults. Fearful adults see the police and military abusing people on the streets and they will cross the road rather than help their fellow citizens. Fearful adults become keyboard warriors rather than street activists.
At work, fearful adults are TOLD by their employers that their pay is less than the minimum wage or just a little bit more. They are too fearful to negotiate or question anything but will work morning to midnight, doing every scrap of work, and putting up with dehumanizing conditions all for the pleasure of those in authority over them.
The mold is to fit in. You stand out and you raise eyebrows. No one wants that.
Fearful people also claim that in the West, children are “spoiled” but the innovations, the breakthroughs of the world, continue to come from those spoiled children.
I know a 20-year-old neighbor whose father broke open his head because he came back home at 10 PM — an hour after his father’s stipulated curfew.
So is their trade-off or a trend here? If you raise your child as a sheep, they march in unison to the beat of their masters and if you raise them to be fearless, they can become innovators of the world who march to the beat of their own drums.
What Privacy?
Whatever Africans say, cows and dogs should not have more dignity than their children.
A dog can be left to move about. An African girl child has neither that privilege nor that right. Her every move must be explained to her parents because even the neighbors are there to beat her, report her to her parents, or gossip about her. It takes a village after all.
I never knew there was such a thing as privacy as a child or as a teenager. The concept was alien to me into my adulthood. You mean, it isn’t normal for 6 children (male and female) to share a room? It isn’t an entitlement to complain?
You mean a teenager can go out without stating where, who, when, what, or why? Shocking.
You mean a teenager does not have to have her friends approved by her parents?
You mean a teenager is NOT A PROSTITUTE because she is hanging out with boys or even *hold my beer*, dating a boy?
You mean that it was wrong that my friend at 26 years old was still being told by her father to stretch out her hands and he will flog her? SHOCKING!
Parentification? What Parentification? You mean helping to take care of your siblings?
My friend told me she was held back from graduating from primary school twice because her mother wanted her to help take care of her younger ones. Leaving for secondary school will be harder as the secondary school was farther away. My friend said she accepted that she was not smart. She was just failing. She will study hard and her mother will say, sorry, you are in the 5th position out of 30, in your class. Should have been 3rd at least. I cannot let you enter secondary school with such a poor result. It took years to realize what her mother had done and the paranoia of being stupid she gifted her child.
But parentification in Africa is not just expected, it is normal. Older siblings take care of their younger ones sometimes from as early as 5. This is no exaggeration after all as early as 7 years old, many children are given away as house helps to other people, and from 12 years old, many girls are married off so their father can take pittance in the name of bride price to drink and maybe marry a new wife and father more girls.
And let us not forget verbal diarrhea.
“Idiot!”
“Bastard!”
“Animal/Wild Animal”
“Waste of sperm”
“Corpse!”
“Prostitute”
These are not words from your enemy but from your parents. Sometimes, you get them daily because as we know, children are neither the sharpest tools in the box nor often on their best behavior on account of being, well, children. But for parents, those are just excuses.
These children raised by abusive parents somehow grow up and come to argue with me that continuing the cycle of abuse on their children…is right? They insist this is the way. You do not rub ground fresh pepper into the anus of your child but flogging them like wild animals is…right? You have not recovered from abuse if your reaction to abuse is abuse.
I often ask people who advocate for beating and flogging and all of such — do you ever beat someone out of joy?
I ask because you can only beat a person while angry. You do not beat joyfully. You are angry. Let us not dance around it. There is no law anywhere that your anger toward a person must be satiated when you beat them to discipline them. Why do employers not beat you?
You are angry, you beat. You take a cane and begin to flog your child. What makes 22 strokes of the cane the magic disciplinary figure and not 1 or 2?
You come back mad about whatever. Your child annoys you and piam! Now you feel relieved. You have dumped your anger on your child.
While writing about this topic, a friend said:
Okwy you are on point with that one. I fear that sometimes I come back angry and continue to beat my child until I feel lighter about what was troubling me. The more my child cries, the better I feel. Am I a psychopath?
I cannot answer that question but if she is just realizing it, how many more parents are doing this?
My child is NOT spoiled and my defense is, she is just a child. She has her right to not be whipped at my whim. It is my responsibility to choose punishments that are fair and not intended to dehumanize her.
Because of my approach, my child remains unafraid to speak up about whatever troubles her. She gets on my nerves. She can be loud. She can cry easily. She also needs discipline from time to time and I follow up on it with dialogue, a matching stubbornness, and a willingness to remove what she will otherwise enjoy.
My route may be longer and harder route in terms of discipline but one thing I do know is that my child will not live with the trauma and the cruelty that is abundant in Africa. This cycle will remain broken with me.
Thank you for reading. How is the training of children in your culture?
Because my country is not covered by Medium for partnership, will you like to Buy me coffee? I will appreciate you.
