"You know, Your mother never started to respect me until I beat her, that way I showed her that I was the man" A father confidently said to his son who sat quiet with his fist on his jaw digesting every detail of it. The boy grows up, does the same and tells his son the same. On and on it went, generation after generation until it became a norm, a way of displaying prowess. How abuse started to be a way of showing prowess, no one can tell but it could be traced to a simple message of a father and son like the one above. A lot of people grew up with different ideology on how to gain respect, and example of one of such philosophy is one coming from a bad home , alright, let's say a weak man who had lost direction yet hold up to the wrong direction with so much confidence and preaches it as fact to the younger generation.
Unfortunately, many young men believe such messages are true. They could argue for hours giving beautiful points why a little violence is healthy in a relationship. "A slap can correct some of her madness" a young man proudly said, but no one told me that the same slap can spoil a beautiful thing and the same respect they hope to achieve. Wrong teaching had filled the ears of the youth, some probably tried it and the woman's fear is assumed to be the respect the old was preaching. "It's true, she started to respect me" when actually "she started to fear him, afraid of the beast he had become, afraid that he had become a shadow of himself, afraid that her opinion would be misjudged and she lives in that fear and not respect.
"A little abuse is good in a relationship" , it's that little that develops into something big and scary. The issue on abuse had become rampant, most youth who had been misdirected on ways to gain respect in an African home have become fathers and their display of prowess as belief has just been a bad egg the society is now trying to correct. The same negative message on how to gain respect is actually the same message that is hindering one from having respect.
Posted using Proof of Brain
