What do you teach your kids?
I guess the best way to say this is to tell you a story. A story of what a little boy learned from his parents and how the lessons were painfully taught.
He was only two years old when his parents were divorced. What did he know? Only that his Daddy was no longer there for him. Soon, another male figure appeared in the home. At first this other man was nice to him, but as time went on, things started to change. He doesn’t really remember when, all he can remember is fear. A terrible thing for a two year old to recognize as his earliest memories. He was a bed wetter. Probably the result of him feeling abandoned by his father. Or maybe because he was also being beat up and picked on by his older brother who was also psychologically damaged by their parents divorce. In any case, and for whatever reasons, fear and anger were all he knew. One of his particular first memories was being woke up in the middle of the night being whipped with a belt for the bed wetting. Little did his family know that this was only the beginning of what would turn out to be a lifetime of physical and psychological torture and intimidation. Instinctively, he learned first how to survive.
He stood by and watched his mother and step father argue all the time. Lesson learned. All those who were older than him, his mother, his step father, his older brother, were angry all the time. Lesson learned. They used bad language, cheated on school test, drank alcohol, became violent, smoked cigarettes, lesson learned. He suffered merciless beatings from his step father and older brother, lesson learned.
All he knew were anger,violence, and hate! By the time he was five years old, he was picked up over his step fathers head and thrown against the wall, beat with a mans fist with full force, watched his mother suffer the same beatings he learned to withstand, and fear so deeply ingrained within him that he would begin to shake when he woke up in the morning. He hated his own existence. The years went by and nothing changed. He was pistol whipped and scarred at fourteen by his step father. His mother carried many scars on her face as well, but the worst scar of all, was the scar in his soul.
As he grew older, the lessons he learned as a child began to manifest in his own behavior. He became a bully. Always fighting someone, often for no reason other than to be what he was taught to be. He started to smoke at fourteen. He had no morals, so he became a thief, a liar, a cheat, he had learned his lessons well. None of the popular kids liked him, and why should they? This only stirred the anger within him. He began to search out the other “bad” kids in his neighborhood. His first experience with drugs came earlier than for most. Always searching for something, anything that would make him feel better, forget who he was, who he had become, where he came from. Something to fill the void of loneliness and betrayal. This is not who he was meant to be! He knew deep, deep inside him that he had to change his life. Fortunately, there was something inherent within him, something that grew a little stronger every day. There was a battle going on inside him. On one side was his learned behavior, on the other was the person he was supposed to be. Whether it was genetic or something else, he didn’t know. All he knew now was that he was changing. He wanted to be a better person, but didn’t have the skills to accomplish changing who he was just yet. He quit school at 16 and moved out of the house. He was now on the street. He struggled every day to control his anger. This was an emotion that was instilled in him at such an early age, but he didn’t give up like most people with his background would have. He joined the Army at 17 and started his life over again. He married, had a child, felt a little better about life, but his learned behavior still reeled it’s ugly head all too often. He would argue with his wife and yell rather than talk. He would still fight at the drop of a dime. He knew he was wrong and tried every day to change what was so deeply ingrained within him.
It’s been a life long battle for this little guy. And eventually, all his efforts began to bare fruit. He became a generous, loving grandfather. But, nothing ever comes easy. All those years it took him to finally change did not come without a price. By exposing his child to his own anger and rage all those years, he succeeded in passing that anger down to his only child. Who can blame this child? She became a product of her environment just like her dad had. He blames himself every day for not providing her with the kind of childhood that all children deserve. If only he could do it all over again………. Lesson painfully learned. By the way, after becoming an adult, he didn’t blame his step father any longer for the way he was raised. He began to understand that this was the very way his step father was raised. Instead of continuing to hate this man, he felt sorry for him. He understood that instead of receiving the love and trust that we all want from our children, this man had cheated himself out of this wonderful feeling and experience by repeating the cycle of violence that he himself had suffered as a child.
You must realize that your children are an extension of you. If you smoke, odds are that your children will. If you swear in front of your children, they will swear. If you don’t respect your children now, how will they be able to respect themselves later? If you argue and fight in front of your children, your children will think this is normal behavior, and the mate they choose may, and probable will, argue with and abuse them. What you teach your children now, will not only effect your children, but it will effect your children’s children, and yes, even their children. What you do now will live on for generation after generation. I ask you this question; How do you want to be remembered? Or, will you be forgotten? What will your legacy be?
When will the cycle stop? When will parents start taking responsibility for what their children say and do? If your child is five years old, the person they will become is already in them. You have either been a great role model for them, or, you have not. You must control your anger in front of your children. If you must punish them, do so with love, not out of anger. Punish them because what they did was wrong, not because they made you mad. They will understand this, and the lesson will be learned.
As a post script, There are those that use this abusive upbringing as an excuse to be weak. They commit crimes like rape and child abuse. They say they do those things because they were abused as a child. I don’t buy it! At some point and time in every body’s life, we make a choice. We decide to continue the cycle of violence or take control and change our lives, and those lives that we have such a profound effect on. No one understands the pain that abused people have suffered more than me, but this is a decision. You don’t have to be a victim if you choose not to be.
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