I remember photographing this puppy, which was hiding under a bush after having been chased by two quarrelling adult dogs. They were two adult dogs whom we used to see often in the hospital campus and one of the dogs chasing this puppy was its own mother. This puppy stayed under this bush for several days and children in the campus offered it food and water. The dog looked cast down, with no response to all the care provided by the children. Puppies by nature do not recover easily from fright, anxiety, rejection or physical attack.
Today, I heard a story of a child who has attempted to take life, out of desperation due to the raging marital conflict of the parents. The child narrowly escaped from a catastrophe due to prompt medical attention. It was distressing to hear the heart rending story from the child of dejection, abuse, punishment and threats.
How are we to care for children, when parents go through prolonged marital conflicts! It is necessary to provide parenting substitute in an affirming way during such times. It is unwise to ignore the impact of conflict in varying intensities on children. The youngest and the oldest suffer most. The youngest because he or she would need special attention for childhood formation. The oldest may already be facing transition of adolescence and it is too much to return home to watch the parents quarrelling.
The care of children would fall on older siblings, relatives, neighbours, friends, or teachers at school. Often, it is not possible to offer the needed quality of attention by fostering them as parents often would insist on caring for the children on their own. Sometimes this involvement with children may help parents to review the situation of the needs of children, in which case one or both partners may tone down the arrogance towards each other.
On many occasions, children are left to fend for themselves. We do not have good social welfare programme to help children go through this tumultuous period without suffering from traumatic stress.
When parents seek dispute resolution through family therapy, children need to be included in therapy to help them recover from their emotional devastation.
The child whom I met today, asked me, 'Why are my parents quarrelling! Don't they think about us! They have everything materially, but they do not seem to value their own children'.
This is a new social malady, more urban children are faced with. When parents fail to honour their marriage vows, the silent sufferer is a child. The children would suffer from pain, fear, loneliness, reduced self esteem and social alienation.
Most broken marriages can be redeemed over a period of time. The starting point is for the couple to say to each other, 'I am sorry' and walk through marriage enrichment process, sheltered by people who can care, counsel and support to find the way forward!
Marital conflicts inflict injury to children. Let us keep this as a sound reason to protect our marriages from decay! Marriage relationship is larger in purpose than for parenting. I wish more families would discover the larger meaning and richness of sharing lives intimately as married couples!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
Very True ! You have addressed a deeply real and widely prevalent issue - Broken Marriages. We see many around us and it makes me sad..we need to remember to work hard at Marriage and not give up !
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