Generational Hate

"And she gathered the children of many races into her arms, And said, "Hate dies here — be brothers."
~Harriet Monroe, "America," in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, December 1918

BY Chimamkpam Onyenezi

In a world with concentrated focus on love, with peace between even whole continents and cultures - It's a terrible thing that a lot of families are at war among themselves.

This article isn't about how to fix family problems, but rather on how to avoid it's extension to the young  generation. The future. So they won't grow, to carry on, from where their parents stopped.

I believe "What happens at the party should stay at the party", which here, means - the problems that parents and relatives have with one another should not be transferred to the children. They should sort themselves out and not involve the children in any way.

It's devastating that our parents, instead of trying to solve their problems and fixing the family, would involve us by telling us horrible things about our uncles and aunts, or some agonizing things they've suffered through their siblings - which automatically primes us with unnecessary hatred for our cousins and their parents. It's wrong, and it shows that our parents aren't even ready to make peace among themselves, they haven't forgiven each other. It shows only that they want us - the young ones, that know nothing about the history of their problems, to carry it on. And it's absolutely heartbreaking, that most of the children who find themselves in this situation would allow themselves to be used and will carry on that hatred; and when you ask them why they hate their relatives so much, they wouldn't even have the slightest idea why they carry the hate - they just blindly followed their parents.

YES... It's good to obey our parents, but is it also good to follow in their bad footsteps? We should remember that our parents are still human beings. They make mistakes, they've made mistakes - and we shouldn’t follow them in that, but rather try and correct and improve upon them.

Someone once said to me “Chimankpam, let me tell you, our parents have lived their lives the way they wanted, and they can’t come and live our own. You have your own life to live”. I saw the truth in what she said; and so I try, as much as possible, to avoid having problems with people and family. I decided to be more cool with people, because you don’t know if the person you have a problem with today will be the one to save you tomorrow.

TO PARENTS, please if you have family problems with your siblings, do not transfer it to us (your children). Even if you believe your sibling is bad news - and you want your children to avoid him/her, don’t make it glaringly obvious by not allowing your children to relate with theirs. Do not make your children carry on with that problem, which you and your siblings could have resolved. Even if you're too proud to solve your problems, you can always use your children to solve it by telling them how to live right with their relatives - it will make the children build up the love which you couldn't. It will help the children avoid inheritance of a hatred they know nothing about. PLEASE HELP US.

AND TO US (THE OFFSPRING). YES!! Listen to your parents, but don't tell me that if your parents put their hands into a fire and told you to do the same, you would blindly follow them. For me.... I de craze??. I won’t put oo… we should try to listen to good advice and dump the bad ones. I believe, even if our parents have decided not to resolve their problems, that we can help them by relating well with our relatives because if they see us relating well with our relatives they might have no option than to see the light they didn’t want to see in them.

As I said… this article is not about how to fix family problem because I no be God… I know that every family has a problem, one way or the other, but the outcome of these problems are variable.

It all depends on how we all handle it.

EVERY FAMILY HAS A PROBLEM.

EVERY PROBLEM HAS A SOLUTION.

ARE YOU READY TO SOLVE THEM????