Beating your Child and Other Humorous Tales

I wasn't beaten enough as a child. I know it, and everyone in my family knows it. We all have our regrets. Back then, I threw well-aimed tantrums to get what I wanted. If a knock had targeted my head as surely and more often, I might be a different person now. For one thing, I'd have a lot more stories to share when my friends and I are swapping discipline stories. For the first eight years of my life, no one laid a finger on me - honestly, I had no idea that you could get beaten for doing things wrong until my brother, a recent graduate from the Nigerian Military School, flattened my left cheek with his rugged palm. I don't think I even cried, I was so shocked! (Which shouldn't be mistaken to mean that it didn't hurt - his slaps have haunted me ever since, especially that one in 1996, which left me seeing green stars and picking up radio stations in Cotonou.) After my first slap, I spent many minutes trying to decide what it was that had happened to me and recall where I had seen that look on his face before. You know the look: the eyes narrow and pull back - nostrils sharpen and expand as the slapper gathers force behind his lungs for the blow - lips tighten over bared teeth. I knew I'd seen that look before. But where?


The year was 1987. I was five, precocious and famously ignorant. I also had a very active and troublesome imagination; having a father who was greatly amused by all my antics didn't help reign me in at all. I said everything that was on my mind back then - there was nothing cute about my strong opinions except maybe the Munchkin voice they rode on. On this particular day, I was feeling particularly opinionated about my little life. My hairstlye (one in front, two in the back); my dress (pink, with bows tied as tightly as possible to show off my "shape" - at that age, I was a figure zero); my nap (I wasn't going to take it). On my high horse, I was barking orders to everyone, informing them what I would and wouldn't do (mostly the latter). And my mother had had it.

We were standing in her bedroom doorway. I still don't know what I said. Sassed her in some way, no doubt. My father would have laughed and called me a "troublesome girl". My mother made the "I go SLAP you" face, and threw her hand back, high above her head. I remember looking at her, eyes wide with curiousity. What is she going to do, I wondered silently. Another one of my older brothers was there - he couldn't have been older than fourteen at the time. Fourteen, but wise to the ways of the slapping hand. Rather than watch my chubby face - which was now gazing dreamily at the hand that was about to descend rather heavily upon it - crumple into a severe fit of tears, he jumped between us and held her back. "Mummy, please, Mummy, please - she doesn't know what she's saying. Please, Mummy." She blinked, then heaved a deep sigh. Shook her head, started saying something about me being "stupid". I was confused and mildly disappointed; it was an anti-climactic situation. I waddled away, oblivious to the fact that I had just escaped my first beating.

Like I said, it was three years until someone took it upon themselves to cut me down to size. By then, my mother had died and the guilt that comes from beating a girl who has just lost her mother had worn off. Life was less than rosy, but still - I feel like I missed out on a lot of learning in the early years. For example, it never occurred to me that you could run to escape a beating. Never. I stood there and took everything like an idiot. Granted, I was too rounded to escape even if I had tried to run but that's knowledge every child is entitled to and I didn't have it!

So in honor of all those empty years, I've decided to recount, in the next few posts, some of the more vicarious tales divulged for my listening pleasure by my more astute friends and colleagues. They were nimble; they were quick. They tried their darndest to outwit their punishers, though none escaped. They have much cooler stories, and deeper scars. I envy them. And you will too.

to be continued...