Love comes in different forms I guess
If there's one sickness every African parent has (most especially in Nigeria), it's the "Always right" syndrome. Every African parent (most especially the fathers) believe that they know it all and that there's no way you, their little kid would know anything more than they do. And the sad thing about having such mentality is that when they eventually find out that they were wrong about a particular thing, they find it hard to apologise or tell you that they were wrong and you were right.
Two things an African parent would never do, the first would be admitting that they were wrong and the second is them apologising to their kid. They see this two things as something that is beneath them, something a parent should never say to their kids. So whenever they find themselves in a situation where they messed up, they would rather buy you that bicycle or that video game (or in most of our cases, biscuits), to shut you up rather than admit that they messed up.
I remember this one time where my dad had flogged the living daylight out of me, eventually breaking one of my nails in the process. The whole thing had been so nasty because the nail broke off right on top of my flesh, kinda like it peeled off, so now I could see the flesh that I wasn't suppose to see and I remember it hurt like hell.
After about an hour of that ass whopping, he had called me into the living room (because he noticed that I hadn't stopped crying which was odd), and when I answered, he too could see the damage that he had done. I had expected him to at least sympathise with me and probably just say sorry because we both knew he didn't mean to hurt me that much but that didn't happen.
Although I could see it in his eyes that he felt bad about the whole thing, when he opened his mouth to talk, the only thing he had said was for me to go get his wallet so that I could go to a pharmacist and have my hand treated. This was the same man who got ready to fight my teacher after I got home with bruises from school the other day, lol. I don't know who gave parents the memo that said that they always have to be tough in other to train their kids right, but if you ask me, that method is outdated and they really need to add more love to their recipe of training a child right.
Over here, I could throw a stone in a crowd and I'm confident that the first fifty people that stone would land on will confirm to me that they've never told their parents that they love them and they've never hugged their parents and this is because aside from those two things I listed up there, the third thing African parents don't believe in is affection between parent and kid.
But who's to blame them, they were brought up that way and the only reason why we all think differently from them is because we were lucky to have things like television and the internet where we get to see how other people relate with their families, and that's the only reason we know that something is wrong with ours, lol.
But the good thing is that at the end of it all, one thing is certain, and that is our parents love for us. They're just too shy to show it.
Proof that we need balanced approach, where parental authority coexists with open communication and expressions of affection. Cause sweetening the deal with treats is for parents... like art. I have done it a few times myself 😂
Hehehehe that means you're guilty too 😂😂😂
But yeah, I believe that the approach has to be balanced.
African parents do have their way of showing that they deeply care for you. They'll hurt you and buy you gifts. It is their way of saying sorry. Like the saying goes, action speaks louder than words.
However, there are times when those words are needed. Showing love to their children and expressing themselves instead of sucking things up all the time. Thank goodness for the invent of technology.
Exactly. Although all of the gifts might be good for the child, it just shows how fat they will go just to avoid admitting that they maybe went too far in punishing that child.
That's true. Apology goes a long way and help build a sane relationship with them.
woah your dad hit you O.O thats crazy. i remember getting caned when i was younger but everything pretty much stopped when i was around 12-13 i think
Getting hit by a parent over here isn't a huge deal.. We get caned everywhere, at home, in school by our teachers and sometimes in church too 😂.
Over here, we're a huge believal of "spare the rod and spoil the child" so getting caned really isn't really a big deal or seen as an abuse like in the western countries.
My dad stopped when I got to the age of fifteen.. Although he would occasionally cane me whenever I messed up in a huge way.
I see o.o i think there was a point where child abuse coming up and thats when a lot of caning stopped in malaysia.
O.O im not sure why your place still does it oof
Lol.. Over here, it doesn't look like anything that would stop soon and sincerely, I don't think I want it to.. I believe that caning a child has a lot of role to play when it comes to discipline.
Talking and grounding the child is just not enough.
O.O I see so they wont categorize it as child abuse in your country or is it just not a law there? I feel like theres a lot of ways to discipline but physically hurting i dont think is necessary. like for me if u said i coudlnt play video games that would alr be a huge punishment for me lol if i was a kid
It is the same in countries like this which are poor and the parents there have to take care of their children a lot, especially the women who are also have to work and take care of the children. If so, they start working with children and work very hard.
Thank you for reading.
I think it's our responsibility not to make them feel bad and at the same time parents also need to be flexible otherwise it's not good in my opinion. But in most cases, parents choose no to be flexible.
They choose not to be flexible because they don't think they should. They believe that they own you and know better, therefore they don't have to apologise.