At the age of thirteen, my father began to come around and wanted to spend time with us. My brother had no interest at all but I want to get to know him. It’s every little girl dream to be a daddy’s girl. My father was a very handsome, well groomed, muscularly man; and every time he came to visit there were always different women with him. One day he came along and wanted me to take a ride with him. He took me to the homes of most of his women. He charmed them then he would flip the script and hell at them and beat them.
I had never been around anything like that. I had seen violence on TV but that was a pretend world to me. I was scared to death and wanted so badly to go home. Home after home; he did the same thing to each woman. With a few of them, he would start the beatings first then love on them after. I could not believe what I was seeing. I thought I was in a nightmare that would not let me wake up. I was to frighten to ask to go home because he my get mad and beat me. So I sat there; powerless.
On the way home my father stopped the car. Look over and said, “Baby…if a man really love you, he will never treat you the way you saw me treat them. That’s not love. Stay away from men like that. They don’t care anything about you.” He reached over hugged me very hard, kissed me on the forehead and took me home. Before I got out he said, “Daddy loves you." He never let me see that side of him again. That lesson had been taught and learned very well.
Even though I was not abused by him, the abuse and volience he exposed me to damaged me and my view I had on men as a whole. I believe he thought that his "stupid and brutial act" was his way of protecting me from violence by exposing me to it firsthand. What an awful and cruel thing to do; especially to a child. It is hard for me to imagine that children have experienced that type of abuse or live in an environment where violence is an everyday occurrence. I am 44 years old and I still sense that anxiety and fear from that day so many years age. If it had not been for my grandparents instilling positive things in my life, that experience alone could have changed my life outcome dramatically.
Violence in Japan
There has been an enormous increase of reports of violence committed by youth in Japan. A girl at the age of 11 has killed a 12 year old girl with a box cutter at school. A 14 year old boy decapitated a 11 year older on school grounds; he left the boys head at the entrance of the schools gate for everyone to see. There were 29,300 reports of violence committed by children on Japanese schoolyards in 2002. Japan feels that the children are getting these ideals of violence from video games, movies or TV; media. When interviewing the 11 year, they found out that “Battle Royale” was one of her favorite games. This game was once a movie that became an internet game where children kill their classmates in vicious ways.
It is not really clear way children in Japan have become participates of such crimes; the children are not showing any signs of being troubled nor are they showing remorse. “In many of the cases, the children involved seemed to snap without warning, in fits of kireru, sudden acts of rage.” (Failoa, 2004) Are they snapping or are they merely acting out want we as a nation have allowed them to be exposed too. Have we taught them through our media system that violence and outrageous behavior is a part our everyday world? Japan has lowered the age to prosecute a minor to the age of 14 to eliminate any more violence from children.
Reference
Faiola, A. (2004, August 9). Youth Violence Has Japan Struggling for Answers. Retrieved January 27, 2012, from Washington Post Foreign Service: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50678-2004Aug8.html
Hi Katrice,
ReplyDeleteThe story about your dad is very sad. Unfortunately, not only your dad, but many other dads and moms give their children an example that is not what they would like for their children to do. Many of them do not understand that you teach your children by example. They do not think they can negatively affect the life of their child. I believe that, as parents, we should not do things of which we could be ashamed or embarrassed. If you do not want your child to be a drug addict, don’t use drugs, if you don t want them to be a prostitute, don’t be a prostitute, if you don’t want them to be promiscuous, don’t be promiscuous, etc.
All I can say is that parents sometimes do things because they do not know any better. They love their children, but they do wrong due to lack of knowledge and information. As professionals in the early childhood field is essential that we not just educate children, but also the parents.
Katrice,
ReplyDeleteYour story is so fascinating. It really makes you wonder if your father planned that day as he did to teach you about men of violence. Could that really be what he was thinking? Having no regard for the ladies harmed in the process? I am sorry you had to witness that and I am thankful too that your grandparents were that stable presence in your childhood. My blog story has some similarities yet the abuse was ongoing in my son's case. We can never really know the impact that a loving and caring adult can have on a child in negating trauma.
I had no idea that Japan had school yard violence of this nature. Did you know that all of the US school shooters were violent video gamers? Did you know too that it takes about two days of withdrawal time for the brain to recover from addictive gaming? The decision making/problem solving center of the brain actually registers no activity on brain scans and it takes two days to begin working properly. Why would there be emotion or remorse if you had killed in that same way hundreds of times before in the game?
The use of interactive gaming makes it even more dangerous as you are not only killing but you are moving your arm in a chopping motion for instance to make it happen, just as in real life. This type of activity trains the brain to kill through muscle memory. There is a relatively new game called School Shooter where you are not killing the enemy, you are killing innocent students and teachers. Very disturbing.