Parental Bullying - The Bully At Home

My father believed that a very strict upbringing along with steadfast adherance to religious principles, would make some "fine upstanding citizens of me and my siblings".

So, my world, at that time, was based on what my father deemed "good" for us to do, to speak or to learn, along with our school work, of course. Every decision, has to go through him. My father said "No", to everything fun!

Boy, was he was critical! We couldn't giggle together, we couldn't laugh out loud or too much laughing for that matter. It made him annoyed if we run around and play too much and we couldn't sit for too long, unless we have homework.

When I was growing up, spanking was the only cure for bad behavior in families, but my father took it to extremes. He would even hit my mother when he thinks we're not around.

I wasn't allowed to go anywhere with my friends! They would all get to go to movies, fun fairs, etc., not me, I was told that I would become brainless and that only stupid people go to those "things".

If I argue with him on anything, I was told to :-

• "Shut my mouth, you're not a big woman!" or asked,
• "Who is working (a job) to feed who here?"or
• "Who is wearing the pants in the house, me or you?"
• "You are not the mother here"

School was all the fun time we had. I learned about a classification for him in my Social Studies class. Authoritarian!

Our elementary school was within a 15 minutes walking distance from my home and I was allowed to go home for lunch. I would hurry back to school for games, one of the games that me and my classmates would play is called "Dog and Bone"

I have explained how to play it below, and there are pictures. You get to have visual of the way the game is set up and played. I have explained it at the "difficult" level, but feel free to change the positions of the two people in the center of the game and loosen up the rules if you decide to play it.

They would then bend over towards the "Bone", from the waist, with one arm extended over other person's back, not touching, but fairly close.

• The objective here is to be ready, once your opponent touches or grabs the "Bone" you touch or tap him or her on the back before he or she runs away with it.

"Sometimes people would get extremely exited and administer a hearty slap on the back. Do not do that, please."

You are only making a tag to get an "out" for your team. You can also run after them to make the tag.

The other hand would be extending down to the "Bone", again, fairly close but not touching the "Bone".

• The objective here is to be ready to snatch the "Bone", and dodge your opponent's tag. You also need to race back to the safety of your team, as you can still be tagged before you reach your team dugout.

The referee should be fairly close, (but out of their way), by the two players to observe and pay close attention.

Here is what he or she would look for:-

1. Any scare or bully tactics.
2. At what point was the other player tagged, to prevent lying.
3. If one player's foot was preventing the other from snatching the "Bone".
4. To be sure the hands are not resting on backs. There is no touching without the bone in hand.
5. Then there is the part where the referee has to run with the players to make certain that the teams hadn't inched closer to the center point to give their "Dog" an advantage.Basically, no cheating.
6. Basically, cheating of any sort. I can practically, hear the hot arguments that we used to have, again.

As I promised, here is the "how to" on the game "Dog and Bone".

1. You need two teams.
2. Two team captains.
3. One referee, usually the person whose idea it was to play the game or that person can defer the role to someone else.
4. An object/ Bone, preferably one that is tricky to pick up, though not too heavy.
5. A space that gives the teams about 20' apart. To form Dugouts, basically, a marker that you need to stay beyond.

O.K. now that we those requirements, we can begin!

The two captains choose their teams, and they go to opposite ends of the area that was chosen for the game.

The captains or group/leaders, and each player would then discuss game names for each player, in hushed tones e.g mango, peach,diamond, sapphire, etc.,etc., .

This would also be strategy time, each team would discuss who would be paired with a player on the other team, taking strengths and weaknesses into consideration.

While they are doing that, the referee would be marking off the center point from each teams area/dugout and would place the object of the game in the exact halfway point between the two teams.

This should only take about 10 minutes or less.The referee would then call the game to order.
Each team captain would send a player/Dog to vie for the object/Bone.

• The objective here is to grab the "Bone" and get back to the safety of your team before the other person tags you.

The referee would begin the match when both players/Dogs are ready. You can also call a time-out during the vying, for the "Bone".

• There is a bent over, forward posture that we would use whilst vying for the "Bone". This would make the game more tricky and even out the odds sometimes.

Read on to the next column to know how you do it.

Hope you get to play the game sometime soon and have fun as we did playing it!

One of my father's favorite lines to say to us was "Honor thy father and mother". We would always feel like ungrateful kids when he used that one. You see, my father was a very bossy individual, he believed that he is the law in his house.

Guess what? We were his children, so we were bossy too, except we wouldn't bully to get our way. He knew that, so any opinion we have to voice against anything he has to say were "crushed" as nonsense. And we wouldn't argue, his temper would rise, and that would start a beating, if we ran away. And once we were old enough, we did run. The second we see him pick up something to hit us, we were off!

My father wasn't one to shout and yell. When we ran away, he would set and wait for us to come back into the house to pounce! Or if he was busy, he would come and beat us in our beds at night, even if we were sleeping. Then he would laugh at us at a later date, that was his way of teaching us subservience.

As I got into my teenage years, his method of parenting only instilled anger and hatred in me, although the hatred wasn't deep rooted the anger is.

Although I sound biased against my father, I do love both of my parents. In my childhood years, most girls used to go to school to grade 11, after that, they had to stay at home, learn to raise a family and then get married.

My parents didn't do that to me. I wholeheartedly appreciate my father for that, actually, any boy who thought of me that way couldn't get pass my father.

In religious families, the religious education were taught to be God fearing and that your husband should honored as if he was God. This didn't sit well with me, "When I get married, it would be to a human being". This was my thought pattern. Although my father made himself lawmaker over my young life, I was thought to honor God only.

I do, however, thank God for my father and mother. They encouraged education, so I went all the way through High School and on to College, and, the real world.

This is where I began to define me and in the process found a soul mate who was the complete opposite of my father. Oh Happy Life!!!!