Hitting Back: A Response to Gendered Violence On The Playground
Pain for pain and everyone feels it.
Over the last weekend, the second child to hit my daughter because he was angry, decked her on the nose with the blunt end of a plastic guitar — my daughter’s own plastic guitar.
Enraged, I jumped up and pulled the guitar out of the child’s hand. He started crying as his mother stood up to console him. At three years old, he should know better than to settle his issues by hitting anyone. Period.
When my daughter was two years old, another child playing with her had hit her on the head with a toy truck — her own toy truck. The child was almost five years old.
I point out that both times my daughter owned the objects that were used to hit her so this wasn’t about her trying to take what belonged to anyone else. Both times, the hitters were boys, and both times, they were of age to have been raised better.
As a woman in Africa, I continue to see the disparity in the way boys and girls are raised. Rarely, quite rarely do I see little girls whose first instinct is to hit another child, when provoked in a play with their playmates. Girls who hit exist. I do not say they don’t. I am saying that it is a rare sight. And often the corrections TO them are swift —
- Why did you do that?!
And sexist —
- Girls don’t beat!
With boys, however, I continue to see a certain leniency in their punishment when they hit other children —
First, with a weary smile that seems to beg the understanding of the victim’s (strong word, I know) caretaker, the abusive (another strong word, I know) child’s parent(s) tell anyone within hearing distance,
- He is so stubborn OR He is just so hot-tempered.
Then, if their boy used an object to hit the other child,
- Why did you hit him/her?
Beyond this disparity in how boys and girls are raised, as an African, the hitting (flogging, caning, beating, slapping, knocking on the head, punching, etc.) of children is all legal and termed disciplining. I chose to not be that kind of parent and no one else is permitted to discipline my child by laying a hand or cane on them.
What the two boys who have hit my daughter share in common, are parents who hit them too. I think that children are the greatest imitators. And I believe these boys have learned to settle issues with their playmates in the manner that their parents and caretakers use of them — hitting.
They see you get angry and hit them them. They get angry and hit someone else. What’s the problem?
I think that between the differences in raising male and female children and also with the knowledge that these parents are equipping their growing children with physical abuse as a tool for settling issues between peers, I am immediately registering my daughter in a defense class.
Truthfully, I told my daughter —
I cannot hit another child but you can. And if a child hits you, hit them back — harder. If you are crying, they better be crying too.
Maybe not the greatest advice but sincerely, watching your child screaming in pain because their playmate gave them a bump or a gash just because they felt like, that is no fun.
Both times, I warned the parents of these children severely. If your child hits my child next time, you have three options:
- My child hits back at your child with what they used to hit them
- I throw you and your child out, forever
- I punch you myself.
None of these parents have liked my options because —
These are just kids.
Really, why is mine crying? Why is it right that your child hits my child and I should just let it go? If it were your own child, would that still be the way you would feel?
Or maybe there are better options, Medium? Please share them with me.
Thank you for reading.