Is it okay to bully children «out of the best of intentions», or is it just an excuse for one’s own sadism? Will parental abuse make a child a “person” or will it cripple the psyche? Difficult and sometimes uncomfortable questions. But they need to be set.
“Education is a systematic impact on the mental and physical development of children, the formation of their moral character by instilling in them the necessary rules of behavior” (explanatory dictionary of T. F. Efremova).
Before meeting with his father, there was a «minute». And each time this «minute» lasted differently: it all depended on how quickly he smoked a cigarette. Before leaving for the balcony, the father invited his seven-year-old son to play a game. In fact, they’ve been playing it every day since the first grader was first given homework. The game had several rules: in the time allotted by the father, you must complete the task, you cannot refuse the game, and, most interestingly, the loser receives physical punishment.
Vitya struggled to concentrate on solving a mathematical problem, but thoughts about what punishment awaited him today constantly distracted him. “About half a minute has passed since my father went to the balcony, which means there is time to solve this example before he finishes smoking,” Vitya thought and looked back at the door. Another half minute passed, but the boy did not manage to collect his thoughts. Yesterday he was lucky to get off with only a few slaps on the back of the head. «Stupid mathematics,» Vitya thought and imagined how good it would be if it did not exist.
Another twenty seconds passed before the father silently approached from behind and, putting his hand on his son’s head, began gently and affectionately stroking it, like a loving parent. In a gentle voice, he asked little Viti if the solution to the problem was ready, and, as if knowing the answer in advance, he stopped his hand on the back of his head. The boy mumbled that there was too little time, and the task was very difficult. After that, the father’s eyes became bloodshot, and he tightly squeezed his son’s hair.
Vitya knew what would happen next, and began to shout: “Daddy, daddy, don’t! I’ll decide everything, please don’t»
But these pleas aroused only hatred, and the father, pleased with himself, that he had the strength to hit his son with his head on the textbook. And then again and again, until the blood began to flow. “A freak like you can’t be my son,” he snapped, and let go of the child’s head. The boy, through the tears that he tried to hide from his father, began to catch the bloody drops from his nose with his palms, falling on the textbook. The blood was a sign that the game was over for today and Vitya had learned his lesson.
***
This story was told to me by a friend whom I have known probably all my life. Now he works as a doctor and recalls his childhood years with a smile. He says that then, in childhood, he had to go through a kind of survival school. Not a day went by that his father did not beat him. At that time, the parent had been unemployed for several years and was in charge of the house. His duties also included the upbringing of his son.
The mother was at work from morning to evening and, seeing the bruises on her son’s body, preferred not to attach importance to them.
Science knows that a child with an unhappy childhood has the first memories from about two and a half years of age. My friend’s father began to beat me in the earliest years, because he was convinced that men should be brought up in pain and suffering, from childhood to love pain like sweets. My friend clearly remembered the very first time when his father began to temper the spirit of a warrior in him: Vitya was not even three years old.
From the balcony, my father saw how he approached the children who were lighting a fire in the yard, and in a stern voice ordered him to go home. By intonation, Vitya realized that something bad was about to happen, and he tried to climb the stairs as slowly as possible. When the boy approached the door of his apartment, it opened abruptly, and a rough father’s hand grabbed him from the threshold.
Like a rag doll, with one quick and strong movement, the parent threw his child into the corridor of the apartment, where he, not having time to get up from the floor, was forcibly placed on all fours. The father quickly freed his son’s back from his jacket and sweater. Removing his leather belt, he began to strike at the small child’s back until it turned completely red. The child cried and called for his mother, but for some reason she decided not to leave the next room.
The famous Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said: “Suffering is the first thing a child must learn, this is what he will most need to know. Whoever breathes and who thinks must weep.” I partly agree with Rousseau.
Pain is an integral part of a person’s life, and it should also be present on the path of growing up, but go side by side with parental love.
The one that Vita lacked so much. Children who felt the selfless love of their parents in childhood grow up to be happy people. Vitya grew up unable to love and sympathize with others. Constant beatings and humiliation from his father and the lack of protection from the tyrant from his mother made him feel only loneliness. The more you get for nothing, the less human qualities remain in you, over time you stop compassion, love, and become attached to others.
“Left entirely to the upbringing of my father, without love and without respect, I was rapidly approaching death, without suspecting it. It still could have been stopped, someone would have stopped my suffering sooner or later, but every day I believed in it less and less. I’m used to being humiliated.
Over time, I realized: the less I beg my father, the faster he stops beating me. If I can’t stop the pain, I’ll just learn to enjoy it. Dad forced to live according to the animal law, submitting to fears and the instinct to survive at any cost. He made a circus dog out of me, who knew by the look when she was going to be beaten. By the way, the main process of upbringing seemed not so terrible and painful in comparison with those cases when the father came home in the strongest alcoholic intoxication. That’s when the real horror began, ”recalls Vitya.