So here I am, trying each day to find positivity on this Earth and share it with friends, new people and in my life. I just want to share with you a page of my thoughts and what I have witnessed, then after that I may write about my personal experience towards disciplining children, how much is too much and what a spanking did to me as a kid. So please review the situation below:
This has to be the worst night of my life in a shelter. Not only, did I hear and see a mother beating her kids excessively with a belt, but they were no more than 5yrs old two black little girls who were holding each other as their mother stripped their clothes down and beat them as the water sprayed onto their little bodies. I was taking a shower myself and happen to look out from all of the hollering and whipping noise. That was at 7pm. I was in shock and couldn't finish my shower, I had to leave the bathroom to process what happened to those girls, was real and sad.
It's now Midnight and this same "mother" woke me up outta my sleep because she was beating one of her 5 yr. old daughters senseless in a bathroom stall, while the other child sat there outside the stall waiting for her whooping. At first, in disbelief at what I was hearing, but I could no longer hold myself back or heart from this outrageous abuse. 20 lashes every 30 seconds, didn't give the child enough oxygen to even breathe thru her screams as her "mother" beat her into a corner. I had to step in, this child was in danger.
I walked in the bathroom through all of the child's hollers and begging to confront this evil person. I told her to stop beating the child, WE all can hear her and she has to stop now. She abruptly told me to mind my own business and go in my room. Abusers abuse because they were once abused first. I get it, but that child needed to know that she has a voice and people in this world will protect her even from her own mother. So I told her several times to stop, while the child shook in the corner with fear. The "mother" then said to me, "Mind your own business, do you have kids? Oh, well when you have your baby then you will understand. My child wet the bed and I'm beating her for that."
So, she revealed to me why she was beating her child excessively and why she's doing it in a locked bathroom stall. To me, she was an admitted abuser who needed to be dealt with and the look of violence in her eyes told me she was going to hit me next if I didn't leave. So, now she became a threat to that child, both kids, and to me.
I got loud saying how outrageous this is so my room mates can wake up and notice, it's serious. I called the police and walked around looking for the staff members to catch her in the act, she was continuing to beat the child even when I left. it echoed all thru the shelter, and even downstairs. The staff members are Catholic and real Nuns, who pray and try to have a positive attitude towards us. I went down the stairs to see if any staff was there, and just like upstairs it was pitched black dark, all you can hear was a child screaming and 20 lashes of the belt and hands. Not a soul in the hallway to investigate the horrific noise. Eventually the local authorities came out to investigate, I told them what I witnessed and how disruptive the whole shelter is because this mother won't stop. Unbeknownst to me, one of the officers in particular said to me personally that he does approve of "beating" your kids because he "beats his own kids" and proceeded to say, he will come investigate but "even if that child has marks on her legs, I will let her go because kids move" Shocking and personal reaction from our local law enforcement, wow. Finally, I told him why she was beating the child in the first place. Because the child "wet the bed" and his reaction was a surprised look. So, I was hoping they would act and see proof asap.
Eventually they head upstairs and talk to the mother who was still in the bathroom stall with the child. I was asked to go back in my room so she would stop trying to verbally abuse me. her roommates, other mothers came to be noisy and ask" if everything was okay and if they needed to watch the kids. People need to ask first before calling the cops" I was told in a passive manner.
So the next morning, there's a face-to-face argument with 2 of the women in the shelter about loud music at night when one has to work. I discover, the aggressive mother was still here and the cops must of let her off the hook. She stared me up and down and tried bumping into my 5-month belly and missed. Ironic isn't it, I was getting persecuted for standing up for Justice. Anyways, I tried to distance myself from her sight, but now everybody was talking about the fight between the women and me calling the cops on the abusive mother. The women started staring me down and trying to make me feel bad for a whole hour, gossip spread like fire. The icing on the cake was when the Abusive "Mother" confronted me and thanked me for calling the cops because it "Helped" her, and I told her "I'm glad to be of help to you" and she was getting madder and madder, walking to my face with her bullying. And the last thing she did was call me a "stupid hoe for even calling the police" right in front of the Nuns and other women. they all just looked away and looked at me like nothing happened.
My Experience: Let me get short and sweet to the point. Growing up, my mother was very strict, she liked the house spotless and if I didn't do a chore right I would get beat with an extension cord, a thick belt, a slipper, a switch from off a tree until there was whelps on my legs. being young at age 5-14 I would get whooping for the smallest things that weren't orderly in her world. The physical wounds heal but the psychological abuse stayed with me. I became shy and even more quiet in school, I was an A's and B's student who had very few friends. I was called "heifer" "bitch" "water head" "ugly" by my own mother, she was a total bully to me. I did my best to love her unconditionally.
All that excessive beating over if I left a book for church at home, I got a red ass for it and sent to bed with no food, or no internet by the time I was 14. She would evolve into "grounding" us for a month or two, taking our PlayStation, games, and not allowed outside, even cut off the internet for a whole month if we didn't do our chores correctly. Me and my siblings weren't terrible kids. All I can wrap it up as that my mother was born in the 1950s, thrown to her family members, abandoned by her mother and the household was full of abuse, they would get hit with wooden or metal spoons, pots thrown at them. There was incest in the household and jealousy from her own siblings and family members. So she had a hard life, and all she knew was what she learned from her family on how to discipline kids.
I feel personally, more communication, less physical abuse, less psychological abuse, more patience and a parent as to be eager to not repeat generational curses would of helped me become more of a whole person instead of hollow. The beatings made me feel less than human, like I was made self-sufficient which was good, to cook and clean, but in a violent manner caused a lot of resent me towards my mother. I try to love her thru it, but as of today we do not talk because she is very hostile towards me even after the loss of my first son, Benjamin. It made me fear my mother more than God, made me fear talking to her about anything, made me feel worthless and that was not true.
Talk to your kids, be more patient, pray for them, and yes I'm being persecuted right now verbally by this mother at a shelter, but I have boundaries and will not tolerate her bullying me for doing what was right. God had the finally say in everything, and I will do my part by protecting myself from harm, especially my unborn child.
Stay Blessed, and I will keep posting more topics. Ask yourself, if you witnessed real abuse, would you step in or stay silent. Are you a follower or a Leader? Ask yourself.
