How punitive parenting fuels the manosphere and gender-based violence
A mother scolds her daughter. Children should not be brought up to believe that violence begets compliance.
What you need to know:
- Harsh discipline fuels aggression in adulthood; you can break the cycle with empathy, positive reinforcement, and better conflict resolution.
- Teaching children non-violent conflict resolution today ensures a peaceful, emotionally intelligent generation tomorrow; parenting shapes futures—choose wisely!
My late mother, an indefatigable disciplinarian, used a special plastic tube as her weapon of choice to punish us for major crimes like slacking on chores, and canes for ‘soft’ crimes like rudeness.
That’s how she was parented, so that’s how she parented. I often reminisce with friends about growing up with parents who never spared the rod with a certain fondness and amusement. Until recently, I had never stopped to seriously consider the physical or emotional scars of that experience.
Reacting to my article titled ‘Why are young men in Kenya so angry at women? A manosphere crisis unfolds’, Pharis Mukuria emailed to point out that the violence against women issue was much more complex than the manosphere influence on young men.
The boys’ mentor and men engagement practitioner argued that the violence young men were meting out to women was most likely rooted in their violent upbringing, which includes physical violence and societal norms like asking little boys to “man up”.
“While in many cases girls can be gentle and obedient, boys in many cases want to climb trees; they want to play in the mud; they want to throw stones at dogs, birds and anything else. Boys want to fight because of their heightened testosterone. An environment that does not teach conflict resolution skills but instead teaches violence to children can only make matters worse,” he posed.
His arguments are supported by a 2014 Unicef report, titled Hidden in plain sight: A statistical analysis of violence against children, which concluded that violence learnt in childhood, including within families and communities, is carried into adulthood.
In the same vein, a 2009 World Health Organisation report, titled Preventing violence through parenting programmes, highlights how punitive parenting, including physical punishment, increases the risk of children becoming aggressive and violent in adulthood. The report promotes positive parenting programmes that focus on non-violent discipline and conflict resolution.
Read more: Are we raising our children right?
Boys and girls should not be brought up to believe that violence begets compliance. As a parent, I can freely admit that I haven’t led by example in teaching my children, and the children around me, that there are more ways than one to solve conflict.
Like my mother before me and many other parents I know, the words “I’ll beat you up!” slide more easily and more frequently from my mouth than I care to admit. I’m also guilty of parenting my nieces more gently than I do boys, and I wonder what their little minds conclude when they see us parenting them.
We can all do better. Let’s improve so that our parenting styles don’t become the breeding ground for violent behaviour in our children in adulthood.
The writer comments on social and gender topics (@FaithOneya; faith.oneya@gmail.com).