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Dear Parents : Fights and Arguments

It was only later in life when I understood what FIGHTING really meant, according to the dictionary fighting means ‘to take part in a violent struggle involving the exchange of physical blows or the use of weapons’. I witnessed my parents fight verbally and physically without telling anyone in my family. I didn’t think it was my place to even do so because the way it happened so much if felt normal. I remember I asked my mom “why does my dad hit you so much”? and she couldn’t answer me. All she said was “your dad loves you okay” and that is how I stopped questioning and just observed and kept it all to myself. I had many distractions, friends and church school activities so I had no time to obsess over their fights. Even if I obsessed about who do I run too? Who would believe me? Who would take my side? Who do I even tell? I think when you a child you have no say in many things that happens between you and your parents. I was just too scared to even find someone for them to intervene in whatever problems they had but I know I would be in so much trouble after or I was thinking I would be.



When you fight or get into an argument do you ever look around and see who is watching you? Do you ever just think of the things you say to each other because somebody is watching you? How do you think the fights affect the one looking at you? Remember the child you made and gave birth to? She saw….



I grew up with both parents from the day I was born till the last days before my mother’s passing. Although my parents were not married, I saw them both every day. I lived with my granny, aunt and mother at that time; my dad lived just a block away from where we lived. My school transport used to drop me off at his house and my mother would fetch me there after work. Some days I would get off at my friend’s house, it just depended on how day was lined up. Some childhood memories I don’t remember quite clearly! But because I witnessed the fights more than once, I remember them. I sometimes felt like they were programmed in my head. They always fought in the evenings outside my house or at my friend’s house and they were physical fights. I read on the internet an article, I don’t remember which newspaper, but it was parents fighting and the child jumped in. I was not that child, I always tried to ignore, and I made sure I don’t get involved. I watched them from a distance or the drama would happen next to me. I grew up knowing that you don’t interrupt adults; that was just my mentality. In most cases I had no idea what the arguments were about.


When my parents used to fight, it was intense I always felt it, but my mother used to try to keep my mind off that specific occasion. She used to buy me things I liked. It worked a lot because I ended up being used to the routine and I expected treats every argument they get into. In the beginning of my post I asked questions “When you fight or get into an argument do you ever look around and see who is watching you? Do you ever just think of the things you say to each other and how they may affect?” and these are the questions I wish I had the chance ask them, but unfortunately it was too late.
So, after my mother passed away (blog for later during the year). I started to think back a lot with their fights and arguments. I felt very guilty thinking I wish I did something to stop it before it went too far like it did. I regretted not trying to help them. But also, I felt they were both very selfish despite their differences.


They didn’t think about how I would feel, the fact that their fight led to a dead body just shows that ‘baby girl did not matter’. It pained me think that, that’s how one of them would leave this world. I used to write them letters and threw them away because I didn’t want anybody to read it, so every time I write I destroy and throw it away. Here is a bit of what I remember I said on the letters: ‘Hey Mom and Dad why did you fight in front of me and then leave me after? Did you care about me? You bring me to this world and hurt me so much. I have forgiven you because I know this is what God wants me to do and I think about you every day’. That is the small portion of what I remember about the letters I used to write to them. Even though my father is alive he I still have no courage to question him about it all ‘some things are better off left unsaid’. But I think in their head they saw it like “she’s too young she probably doesn’t understand”. Yes, I may not know what the arguments were about, but I saw, and one thing parents don’t realise s the “later affect”. We respond differently as kids, and It could affect me when I get into a relationship, we don’t know. I just want parents to understand that, communication with their child/Ren starts at an early age.




To be continued 11th April 2018……

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