thinking out loud...

‘You are lazy. You’ll never amount to anything’

This is what a father told his kid.

Kinda makes me wonder about things. Like who gives a human being the right to verbally degrade and reduce another human being. Does the fact that a person is a parent give him/her the privilege to destroy the life of the child? Because the way I see it, a parent is a custodian. He has a duty, not a right, to bring up the child. But people often believe that because they give someone else their money, this automatically confers the authority to talk as they wish. Such a sad mentality. I mean, if its about the money, then anybody can give money. Or, i can pay you back every dime you ever spent on me, once I am old enough and buoyant enough. But parenting can’t be just about that. I imagine that the way God designed it, the custodian- parent, is supposed to teach the child, and guide the child, train him to live successfully in a world which he is unfamiliar with.

So how do you train a child that you have decided tell that he won’t make it in life?
Why do people, not just parents, decide to break other people down with words? Why would you call your impressionable child all sorts of names, feed his mind with the false sense that he cannot become great? Why do you open your mouth and call another person horrible names, like retard, or imbecile, or moron, like you designed the person and you have a say in his make-up or his future?

Perhaps its because we feel that we are justified, like a parent who thinks, heck, i give him food, clothes, shelter, so I can say whatever the hell I want. Or the person who views himself on a higher pedestal, whether financially, intellectually or spiritually, so when the ‘lower beings’ mess up, its his 'God-given right' to point out their flaws.

Its all the same you see, it’s all verbal abuse. Whether it be in the form of ‘correction’ (which is more accurately destruction), or it is in a fit of rage, or justified indignation, it’s all the same.
No one has the right to make anyone feel like less of a human being. The only person that has that right is the creator of the human being, and even He won’t do that. No one has the right to oppress another person, because he happens to be on a higher echelon, whether by age, or class, status or intellect. No one has the right to belittle another person, whether in his presence or behind his back. Imagine a girl whose boyfriend repeatedly cheats on her, to her knowledge, telling someone else that the other person is too disgusting to be in her clique! See me see wahala o! Its almost laughable, mostly pitiable.
I find that the people most willing to bring others down are those who have hurts they are trying hard to disguise, those who are constantly mocked by their own imperfections, so they try to focus on those imperfections they see or manufacture in others.
The Bible says that the tongue, though a little member, is a flame of fire, a world of wickedness. Everyone talks so recklessly, spewing forth words that they don’t really understand, which they cannot take back, breaking down the esteem of others, creating deadly impressions and mind-sets.

I guess this is just something that really gets to me, and I felt the need to blog about it. Nobody is justified, or allowed to destroy another person with words. Nobody.

By the way, that kid, by any standard, is now a very successful doctor, much more successful than his father was, or is.