Husbands and wives don’t call each other stupid in front of your Children.
When the storms and brawls brew in your lives and you want to release you aggression towards each other. When you feel you have been wronged and want to show your other half how bitter you are over the issue. There is anger that brews deeper inside you and it’s like a hot furnace that blows everything that comes on its way. I have witnessed these kinds of issues arising time and again in families or between mutual friends. To some people it is their daily bread and they cannot live even a single day without scratching or shouting to each other.
I wonder what their children will learn from these parents, yet they are role models of the children. Recently I have visited a most respected family. They love their God and worship Him with their mind and their soul. I have always enjoyed being in their company and helped me to lift up my prayer life. Within this course, I noticed that the other day the husband arrived earlier than the wife from work, and the wife had phoned me five minutes before the husband had arrived and she had wanted to know whether the husband was already at home. Obviously my answer was no. With a curious tone of an investigator, I probed in to find the cause of the panic in her tone. She explained over the phone that she was shopping in one of the big supermarkets (name supplied) when she left her husband waiting for in their car. It was an hour after when she called out after discovering that her husband had left her for home.
When the husband came home he was fuming, that his wife took long for shopping and he had gone looking for her in the supermarket and failed to find her. I mentioned that she had called for him earlier. He called her back and roared over the phone like a lion, accusing her for being very slow in her shopping. Fearing the wrath of her man over the phone she rejected to answer any further phone calls that the husbands had made afterwards. She hired a taxi and came home. She called me to open the door. I opened and ushered her into the house. The moment she came in face with her husband, the brawl began and the husband poured out her venomous words. “You are very stupid, whom do you think you are?” He kept on pouring out hurting words and I felt very uncomfortable to be in their presence and quickly I went upstairs. All along some of their children where in their presence, and they heard every single harsh word the father had used to attack their mother.
Upstairs was their eldest daughter, and she was having a bath and it was her birthday. When I popped in the bath, she spoke to me. “Aunt I am not happy with what dad is saying to mum. He is being nasty, disgusting and horrible to her. He is already spoiling my day. Should I go and stop him?” She asked me with her eyes darting about and anxiously waits for confirmation. I asked her, whether her parents had ever attacked each other like this before? “Yes, they do it time and again, but in the past one of my aunts used to physically interpose between them.” Hummm? I sang a song of shock. I advised her not to go because I feared the father would totally ruin her birthday. In the end everything was calm and the storm seemed to have ceased.
I went down straight into the kitchen and helped the wife to pack the things and showed a beautiful cake that I had made the previous night for her daughter whilst she was at work. We talked about the brawl and I only told her to keep calm that everything will be well.
I do not hesitate to say I was shocked with the husband’s reaction over his wife that he dishonoured her in the presence of their children. You would think a family that fears God would have much respect of each other, and when they got angry, the would know how to handle the situations and talk to each other in a manner that allows the two of them to be much involved without letting the children knowing that there was a brawl between them. Christian or non-Christian families they do face these challenges everyday. Most people they don’t know how to handle their temper and children are the most affected till to their adulthood.
As it so happened now, the brawl family, some of their two children who are less than five years are regularly shouting; “stupid” word to their mum, father, sisters and anybody when they are angry. It is the start of lacking respect in their lives, so I believe. Could we blame the children? The answer is No. The parents are the roots of their discipline in their lives. How could they discipline their own children when they are failing to discipline themselves? I have witnessed in schools some young children as young as four years, permanently saying “f…k off” to teachers and other children. It hurt me to see the children getting some negative influence from their parents or other older siblings. Children learn from what they see and some children become violent in their lives as they grow older because their experiences having lived in an environment where parents were always fighting or having a brawl. They end up thinking the solution to end a problem is to fight or to steal and many of ugly things.
If these kind of brawls are constantly rising, time and again in the family, would always have some repercussions in life as it divides the family apart, children taking sides of the mother or the father depending circumstances of the situation. One parent can be thoroughly hate by the children if s(he) is the wicked one. Parents end up manipulating each other in the presence of their children just to gain favour from their children. Mocking themselves in the presence of their children, and yet this should not be the case.
The bible says in Proverbs 22:6: Train a in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not return from it. Just to add verse from the bible on 2 Timothy 3;16,17 : All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, and correcting and training in righteous, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. There are more than 25 verses that will help you to equip your child in the way the Lord our God has always wanted.
I hope by reading this short article from me you have learnt something that might be very important in living in harmony with your family. If you go angry go somewhere release your anger without hurting someone or go in a secret room or bedroom and talk calmly to your wife without causing a brawl that affects the family. Learn to forgive on petty issues. Always learn to listen to each other and be respectful always. Our God is a God of patience and He is slower to anger. Some people always pray to ask God to control their temper. Always laugh and take your wife or your husband for an outing. Challenges come and go but learn to handle each situation as it comes. Remember your children will always soak up everything you do. It is the image they will present when outside. Don’t ruin their childhood with negative or bad influence that would stick permanently in their lives and becomes a family chain of abusive languages and brawls in their lives. Could you permanently cut off bad, horrible, disgusting words, or language that you always throw around in you family? Take a positive route that brings a positive impact in your lives!!!!