How My Son Beat My Wife And I Up: A Father Bemoans
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May 24, 2017
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In this life, truth can never be swallowed up by any shenanigans from any of the parents when it comes to raising quality children who will be responsible and live up to the expectations of their fathers. Family politics some call it but it is not good to involve it in the way we raise our children because it destroys them just like it is destroying Nigeria today due to the crop of politicians we have.
When I advised my wife to stop having a favorite among our children, she refused to heed my advice not knowing that I have seen part of the tomorrow of her favorite son, Onyeka.
When my wife finally had a male child for me, her conduct changed completely. She started behaving like she has the answers to all of my worries as the head of the family. The most annoying aspect of her change was wrestling my powers as the man with me. If I say our children should go right, she would counter-command them to go left. It was a total anarchy but I kept my peace knowing that he who fetches ants infested wood would have lizards for neighbours when the need arises. We had four girls before the coming of Onyeka who was followed by another male child and we called it a wrap. On the number of children to make, we had agreed on four but when the first four ended up girls, we shifted our goal post to entertain the important male sex to avoid my lineage wearing out.
The birth of a son that was to bring me joy became my greatest regret. No man is ever happy if his first son is living far below his expectations despite the fact that my second son is well-behaving and the temptation to make him my favorite child always constant, I refused to allow my wife destroy Onyeka completely without a fight. Whenever he misbehaved while growing up and I cautioned him either verbally or I broke the rod on him, my wife would tear out her hairs to prove to him that I hated him, while she loved him the most. When it became obvious that I could discipline my other children without my wife engaging me in some shamefaced ructions, I did my best to resort to sitting my children down and having my corrective chats with them. This became the savior of my other children. I refused to use cane on them but instead whipped them into good conduct with my tongue.
Because of the way his mother handles him, Onyeka continued to grow into a nuisance in our neighbourhood. Even in the church and elsewhere where he found himself, he would bite more than he could chew and end up having his mother engaging every other mother in a fight whenever Onyeka beat up their own children. They would excoriate my wife that at a point, I stopped feeling for her as she was adamant to my appeal to her to change for the sake of Onyeka’s future.
When Onyeka eventually made it to the university – he gained entrance into the university three years after his younger brother – my relationship with my wife started improving but not for long as Onyeka started using every available ruse to cause me lose money to him. Anytime he calls for money and I didn’t send it to him through his bank account, he would come back home and start making trouble for my wife and me. He threatened to beat me up one day in his second year if I refused to part with the sum of thirty thousand naira to enable him engage in a jamboree like birthday celebration. I gave him ten thousand and advised him to manage it as business has been dull and seconded that with another as he would live to see many more years to celebrate his birthday with his own sweat instead of spending my sweat on such frivolity in school. He went berserk and told me to prepare my mind on losing one of my cars.
On another occasion, he came back after I had sent him fifteen thousand naira out of the forty thousand he asked for. For an undergraduate of Political Science, I knew he is asking for too much. Instead of threatening me this time, he drove his mother’s car to a spare parts market in Onitsha where we live and had his mother’s car cannibalized while the poor woman was engaging in some church activities in preparation for the Mothers Day celebrations while I was at the market. There was no one at home. All my daughters are comfortably married and in their husbands’ homes. His younger brother is also in the university where he is studying Law and wasn’t at home on this fateful day.
The mother broke down completely when she realized that her car had been stolen. We were about to alert the police when one of my tenants told me that he saw Onyeka drive his mother’s Toyota Corolla out and didn’t see him come back with it. I put a call through his number and he answered like nothing was amiss. Without greeting me, he asked me why I bothered with him.
“Do you know what happened to your mother’s car Onyeka?” I pointedly asked him.
He killed the call and switched off his handset. His mother who was by my side broke down when she saw me shaking my head in pure grief. That was the day she knelt down and started asking for my forgiveness over her wrong approach in bringing Onyeka our son up. She confessed to me that she did all that for Onyeka owing to the mockery she got from other women over her ability to birth only girls. It came too late in the day.
For six months even while schools were on break, we didn’t see Onyeka. Then one day, he came back home. I was very happy to see my son even though I hid it perfectly but his mother has become hypertensive when we realized that his gsm number is eternally switched off. In the night after our dinner, we summoned him into our room to find out what he had been doing away from home for over six months.
He told us he had been in school facing his academic challenges. When I broached the topic of his mother’s car, he warned me very sternly not to ask him such question or else…
When I retorted: “Or else what happens?” Onyeka landed me a hard slap across my face of which the impact made me fall down as tears from the stinging slap leapt out of my eyes. My wife screamed and jumped on him and he dealt her a stronger slap. We were stunned and beyond words. At the age of twenty-two our son beat us up. Alu! When I wanted to curse him, my wife begged me not to if I still want the boy’s life salvaged. I swallowed my shame and allowed the pain to eat me up. When we woke up in the morning, I had to rush his mother first thing to the hospital as her eyes were swollen and coupled with her condition, we feared for the worst.
I have decided to cut Onyeka off my Will. And that would not be the end to it. I am ready now to take the fight to him, let me see why my loin cloth would not blind him.
