Ephrem Endale Contributer
It was one of those scenes you’d have liked never to encounter; and in the middle of the street at that. A woman who could probably be anywhere in the forties age range was severely beating a girl of probably not more than eleven or twelve. The wails of the child were so blood-chilling it was one of those events you just can’t turn your back on. The place was full of commotion as people gathered and some even tried to physically separate her from the unfortunate girl.
She was holding the child cloth with one hand while throwing all sorts of blows you’d think of. The attempts to physically involve on the part of some infuriated her even more and the blows became even more vicious. Under the very eyes of the crowd the child was getting weaker and weaker by the minute and the woman, who we later learned was her mother didn’t miss an ounce of energy.
Now though it’d take some real smart effort the right approach would probably have lessened the suffering of the child. Some in the crowd were insulting the mother all kinds of insults; insults which at her age were too much to take and too humiliating. No one knew how he really did is, but an elderly man of maybe in the seventies cautiously approached her and softly said something to her.
The tigress she was she turned to him with eyes glaring and as soon as her eyes rested on his gaunt yet half-smiling face and fast receding snow white hair she was completely transformed. She let the girl go and soon she fell on her knees weeping like you’ve ever seen anyone weeping. I can tell you they were real mother’s tears! By some strange work of nature the young girl stops wailing for a moment and taking a few steps towards her mother and then continued weeping.
She threw herself on the bent back of her mother and wept with her mother. It was some scent worthy of screen time of tough to explain mother-child love. The way her mother was beating her you’d think the girl once she frees herself from her mother’s grip would run and disappear into nowhere. That didn’t happen.
Now all the spectacle aside what really caught me and the two guys with me was the sort of argument. Many, in this doesn’t sound nice, said as a mother she had all the right to punish her child. They said no one can tell her how to treat her own child. This, ladies and gentlemen, was the typical ‘conventional wisdom’, so to say, around here.
Now ours is still a very conservative society. And when it comes to bringing up children the general mood was that parents don’t only have the right, but also should physically punish their children. This is one of those things you can’t do away with workshops all never-ending propaganda like narratives. That is the right approach. By the way a fortyish man dressed like a teen rapper said she should be turned over to the police. Believe me he was taken as the bad apple in the basket. He tried to tell people what happens in America from where he came for a visit.
Speaking of America there was a story I probably must have told you about somewhere down the line. This guy had two children whom he and his wife took to America while they have barely learned to walk upright. They were doing all they can to give them the kind of upbringing they never ‘enjoyed.’ But when the two kids, both boys, were a few years older their parents learn the hard way that they were in a different society and the way they were brought up as children didn’t work in this instance.
Every time they had hard words for them the children went for the phone. The police knocked on their door too many times for comfort. The mood within the family came more stressed with the parents on side and children on the other. By the way, as the father believed in real disciplinary action including physical punishment the mother was on the same boat. Finally the father decided to act.
He brings the two children to Ethiopia and leaves them under the …of his mother. His mother was a very conservative woman and left no stone unturned when she brought up her children; a no-nonsense mother. So the guy specifically tells her he wanted her to teach the kids disciplined. She was more than happy to do so. The sad part is that we never heard of the sequel of how they behaved once they were back.
A distraught guy was back home after some two or so decades. He had three kids two of them past their teens. Now as he grew up under parents who never tired of trying to ‘discipline’ him he was that the father in America. Of course, he never went the distance his parents went with him though he would have liked. His parents, especially good old daddy, left the kids with bruises all over their tender bodies whenever they felt the kids have done something wrong. Now that two of his kids have jumped over the age eighteen threshold the ball, so to say, was on their side of the field.
They began accusing their parents of having abused them as children. The way the father narrated the story you’d have felt sorry for him. He and his wife have practically stopped living their life to ensure their children a better world and this is what they get! He said the accusations left deep wounds in the hearts of him and his wife. The only thing you can do is wish they finally accepted reality and live their own lives, much part of it they’ve sacrificed for the very two kids who ended up accusing them! The kids, he says, brought up events and nonevents which came no closer to abuse and maltreatment as my village is to the planet Saturn.
All said what me and my two friends collected from the incident that this country should talk to itself on how to raise its children as we’re in an unpredictable world and given things are changing with speed difficult to keep pace with. This might for long has been a society where parents ‘restored’ discipline in their children with the belt rather than reason. Maybe there are rough edges in the whole process at which we should look even closer.
The Ethiopian Herald April 9/2023