For Mary Judith Openji and Pius Wakhu, the first lessons about marriage came from watching their mothers suffer. As children, they watched their fathers beat their mothers and, on some occasions, feared they would kill them. Most times, the two could only run after mothers as their drunk, angry fathers chased them with pangas and rungus.
There was little they could do. In the communities where they grew up, violence against women was often normalised, even romanticised by the belief that a woman who was beaten by her husband was loved more.
The experience stayed with them long after childhood. Mary grew up fearing marriage, convinced she would end up living the same life as her mother. Pius feared that marriage would turn him into the violent man his father was.
“I settled down very late because I grew up hating marriage life. I got married after one of my bosses in Nairobi assured me that I could have a different and pleasant experience in marriage,” Mary recalls.
She got married to her boss’ friend who was working in the same company. They lived together for five years before Mary was transferred to Ravine and her husband to Limuru, a decision that she says worked in her favour.
“We live like boyfriend and girlfriend, and only visit each other. That helps me a lot because we do not have time to argue with each other. Like now, I have just come from my August leave while my husband is going on leave this month.”
Growing up in an abusive home really affected Mary’s parenting skills. She says she unknowingly used to shout at her children.
“I did not know how to talk softly with my children, even in phone calls, and I did not know that my shouting was affecting them. Every time I used to shout, they would look scared. In fact, my children were happier when I was away than when I was home. We got to a point where my daughter started telling me to lower my voice whenever I was talking so that neighbours could not hear me. My husband used to tell my children that I am a lion.”
Mary Judith Openji is a mother of three who grew up in an abusive home.
Photo credit: Pool
Things changed a few years ago when Mary enrolled in the Women’s School of Leadership Programme funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and implemented by Fairtrade Africa and Fairtrade Norway. The year-long programme, she says, equipped her with skills to become a gender champion within the flower farms where she works, while promoting gender equity at workplaces and within communities.
“I was raised in a home where violence was the order of the day, and I adopted that life, and that affected my children so much. Whenever I asked my daughter a question, she would just cry and not answer me. Today, we are good friends. We can sit down and talk.”
Asked about her memories of the violence at home, Mary recounts experiences that left deep wounds. She says she had not forgiven her father by the time he died in 2022.
“After my mum had given birth to all of us five siblings, my dad married a second wife, and we started living a very difficult life because dad stopped sending money and coming home. There were no phones, so mum could not communicate with her parents,” Mary recalls.
Left with no option, Mary’s mother began brewing illegal alcohol to get money to feed them.
“The day my dad came home and found out that my mum was selling alcohol, he beat her thoroughly. He started by asking my mother where she had found money to buy the omena he saw in the kitchen. As my mother was being beaten, we managed to escape with that omena and ugali to the maize plantation. She followed us even though she was in so much pain. As we were eating inside the farm, it started raining, but we could not go back home because our dad was there.
“That day, my dad broke mum’s hand, and she was rescued by one of her drunk customers who called police officers who later arrested dad. That is the day my mother decided to make a move.”
Mary, her mum and siblings moved to their maternal grandmother’s home before her mother got a job in Nairobi, and relocated with them. The news about her father’s death, she says, did not hurt her.
“While people were mourning him, I was only reminded of how bad he was to us. I remembered the day he chased our mother in the whole village with a rungu as we were following from behind while crying out loud for help. It was so shameful. Villagers had to hide my mother from my dad,” recalls the mother of three.
Gender Based violence advocate Pius Wakhu.
Photo credit: Pool
Her story is similar to that of Pius Wakhu, a father of two who saw his dad beat his mother almost every day.
“My mental health was affected to an extent that I hated all men. I never thought I would marry because I thought that I would also be beating my wife the same way. I hated my dad for a very long time. I didn't even want my mother to serve him food or wash his clothes.”
When his time to marry came, Pius travelled from his village home to Nairobi with his wife in a bid to escape his father’s influence.
“I feared that she would not accept me because people used to say that I could become as violent as my dad after marrying. The good thing is that my mother never stopped going to church, so I was raised in church, and that helped me. She also talked to my wife. I hate alcohol because it was the reason my dad used to beat my mum,” Pius tells Parenting.
In Nairobi, he was mentored by different organisations like Amref Health Africa, and he is currently a Gender Based Violence champion in Nairobi.
“That man could decide that at 7pm that we should carry lamps and go and sweep our stepmother’s compound before we could eat. Sometimes, he would divide portions of the farm for us to plough in the morning. Later in the day, he would pass by to check whether we had completed the work before going to drink alcohol. On days when we did not finish the work, there was no eating. He would beat mum, asking her why she had stopped us from doing the work he had assigned us.”
Pius believes his mother’s vulnerability, coupled with his father’s alcoholism, contributed to the abuse she endured in marriage. He was determined not to repeat his father’s behaviour in his own marriage.
“Mum used to spend most of her time on the farm ploughing with bulls. Still, our dad used to beat and chase her away every time he came home. It forced mum to cook dinner very early whenever dad was around. By 4pm we had to have eaten dinner because if my dad came home drunk, he would pour that food out with the cooking pot. He even used to pour water to the fire to put it out so that we could sleep without eating,” he says.
