When I look around myself, one of the issues that hurt and bothers me the most is; how parents are mistreated – by their own children. But no one seems concerned with this issue, and no one seems to be talking about it. Parents who bring up their little ones going through thick and think, are at the end, found being physically and mentally tortured by their so called “apple of their eyes”. Yet they never complain.
Elders being tortured by their children is a type of domestic abuse which leads to many factors like depression, loss of physical health, job loss, family breakdown, hatred, aggression, losing trust on others, feeling of being left alone, loss of confidence and so on. According to my opinion, the reason why parents’ harassment in not discussed or researched whereas domestic and child abuse is the talk of the town, maybe because parents feel ashamed and humiliated so much that they don't want themselves to be discussed outside the homes. But I personally think that we must, like child abuse and domestic abuse; discuss and address the issue of parental abuse since it may lead to more social consequences if it is ignored.
If we generally look at the age group involved in this obnoxious behavior, are the youth starting from ages 11-19 and also elders from the age 30 onwards.
Also the statistics in the link indicates the category of abusers and their groups in which the highest percentage is of sons, which clearly states that their own children are torturing the elders. (Retrieved from https://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/parents-in-elderly-home-children-to-be-shamed/)
A survey was conducted and the results showed that the violence was more related to women as it is their prime responsibility to take care of the family and children and the main reason was the wrong perception of culture and society in which women are considered inferior. This is the reason that the male members (fathers and sons) in our society are found abusing/harassing the women of the family or society. However, this is not the case in every family but it is the general observation. Also, it has been studied that the children who abuse their mothers have found and observed their fathers abusing the wives and hence they are influenced by the same behavior.
I would also like to shed some light and discuss the Islamic perspective on how we should be treating our parents. But first I would like to discuss the types of mistreatment.
TYPES OF ABUSES:
There are mainly seven types of Parental Abuse.
1- Physical Abuse
This includes the physical violence, hitting, bullying, locking up in a room or tying up with knots, verbal threatening with the use of weapons, abandoning to escape or going out anywhere, giving high dose of medicines or other drugs, making them starve hat is giving no food and water etc.
2- Mental Abuse:
This includes telling lies or ignoring them, being silent and just staring on anything you have disliked, throwing your faults or mistakes on them as if they did so and not answering to their questions and so on.
3- Verbal Abuse
This includes threatening, scolding and using harsh words, raising your volume and using the in appropriate tone, screaming or mocking on them, not apologizing and continuing the argument.
4- Emotional Abuse
This includes teasing them or making them feel shameful in private or even publically.
5- Financial Abuse
This includes making them deprived of their own money as whatever money or belongings the child has actually belongs to the parents so we can say that this kind of abuse is making them being deprived of their own belongings and money, stealing parents’ money or going out of the budget.
6- Sexual Abuse
This includes doing unwanted sexual acts or touching the private parts, making them to see the private parts, rape or forcing them to have sex by using drugs.
7- Spiritual Abuse
This includes division of family into parts and half of the family is on the side of mother and half on the side of father, demanding happiness from there at all times, forcing them to blindly follow the child no matter what the child is saying.
ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE:
Living in an Islamic republic state it is our foremost duty to follow the teachings as indicated in Islam. We also see that parents were tortured even before the advent of Islam, but Islamic teachings strictly condemns and orders us to obey our parents. We see that Hazrat Ibrahim's (May the blessings be upon him) father forced him to leave the house and his father with his nation built a huge pit of fire to throw Hazrat Ibrahim (May the blessings be upon him) in it, yet he sought forgiveness for his father and treated him kindly. We as Muslims are told not to even say 'UFF' to our parents which is word of dislike and shows our aversion to a certain thing, also we are told to be kind to them as our mother's had hold us for nine months when we were left free in her womb to kick her.
Once a man asked the Prophet (PBUH) that I have carried my mother and made her perform pilgrimage, have I paid back all her rights? And the Prophet (PBUH) said not even the right of a single pain which she bore during the time of your birth has been repaid.
One more beautiful self explanatory story tells us about the reward of treating parents kindly which is as under:
“Three persons of ancient days were once travelling in a mountainous region. The rain, thunder and lightning made them take refuge in a cave. Mudslide made a stone block the opening to the cave they were entrapped inside. When the storm stopped they tried to push back the heavy stone to get out of the cave but they couldn’t. They wondered ‘what to do now’. At last seeing that their joint efforts also cannot move the stone they decided to pray to Allah sincerely. One of them suggested, ‘each one of us should relate one good thing he has done in his life and beg Allah to move the stone. One said, “One night my old mother asked me to bring a cup of milk for her. During the time I milked the goat and brought it to her she had gone to sleep. I did not think it proper to disturb her. So I stood by her bedside for the whole night till she got up in the morning and then I offered her the cup of milk. O God, if this act of mine was approved by you please shift this stone.” The stone slipped a little but not enough to let them get out. Similarly, the second and the third man mentioned an act of goodness and prayed to God to shift the stone. The stone slipped down and the entry to the cave opened up. So the men got out.”
I would also like to mention as in what should be done so let me share a few personal life experiences. We all know how our parents feel especially mother if she has given all her life in upbringing her children all alone after the marriage of her son. I have mentioned this experience first since I have recently got married so I can relate this very accurately, so yes once I took my wife for outing without asking my mother to accompany us though this is not a kind of parent abuse but this is something which also needs to be corrected in order to have kind feelings and love among the family, yes so I was telling about the outing which I planned with my wife, it took us a little long to reach back home and when I reached back I felt that my mother didn’t like that I had gone without her, now I know that young generation thinks that so what, couples should be given a free hand and after all they are not kids and why does parents act as kids, my dear readers I must mention that the parents are actually kids now, once they enter their old age they have started going back to the mental state of children so yes our mothers act such because they are now thinking as kids so don’t worry and feel annoyed. Coming back to what I had to do, so when I felt that my mother had not liked that just from her facial expressions I at that moment said to her “ammi we missed you on our dinner tonight and we have decided to go out for one again day after tomorrow and we all will go” this was just a little thing which showed a huge change, I could see her gestures calming down at once and she smiled. One more experience I bought flowers for my wife the ones which the girls wear as bangles and my mother was also with us, just to make sure she doesn’t feel left out I gave two of them to my mother and two to my wife instead of giving all four to my wife which again left a generous impact among us. These are tiny things which can create harsh feelings among the family so just think if we actually abuse or ignored our parents from the types mentioned above how bad the living will be and how hatred there will be among our lives and none of us will like to live together in a family which we can see that today girls prefer homes where they don’t want to have a mother in law or father in law and if they have one they try to escape from them, or to be rude to them or finally they say ok I am doing sabar till they finally go left us or what we see in our dramas today that they themselves poison them.
At the end, I would only say that this issue must be researched upon so that our parents sufferings in their own homes or old homes should be safe from the tortures and last but not the least we must always remember that torturing the parents is such a deed whose punishment or we can say outcome is such that the person is doomed in this world before death approaches.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/parents-in-elderly-home-children-to-be-shamed/