“No, he doesn’t hate them. He gave birth to them so how could he hate them?” That’s the greatest lie I’ve ever told myself about my husband and kids. He screamed at them and made demeaning statements about them. I told myself, “He loves them. He wants to correct their wayward ways that’s why he screams at them.” One day, I came home and saw the four-year-old sleeping on the floor. You could see clear marks on his skin. He looked like he had been beaten by a cane. The marks were visible on his back and on his arms but he was peacefully sleeping. I asked my husband, “What happened to Kobby. Why the marks? He retorted, “I lashed him.” 

“What did he do?”

“You see the broken glass there? He ran into it, spilled the water on my books, and got it broken. I’d been shouting for him to stop but he didn’t. I disciplined him and now he’s sleeping.” 

There are two reasons kids would fall asleep. They play and get tired and naturally want to sleep. It’s easy that way. They coil in their beds, put their head right, and fall asleep. They sleep well when they sleep that way. The kind of sleep I saw Kobby sleeping that afternoon wasn’t the kind of sleep a kid would like to have.  He slept because he was running away from the pain his father subjected him to. You could see it on his face. You could see the traces of dry tears on his face. His face wasn’t smiling. He looked pained even in his sleep. I looked at my husband’s face and said, “I’ve been away for not more than four hours. What is a cup that you have to beat a kid for it? How much is that cup? If he falls sick right now, won’t we spend more than the price of the cup? Why do you treat your own kids this way?”

He answered, “I’m a man for this reason. You women treat kids with cotton palms and they grow up to become a nobody. A man’s work is to be hard on them. A man’s work is to show them the right way no matter how young they are. Spare the rod and spoil the child, that’s what the good book says.”

We have two children, Eli and Kobby. Kobby is the first child and he was only four. Eli was just two years old. Kobby is the reason why we got married. I woke up one day and found myself pregnant. My husband, who was my boyfriend then wasn’t working. We had dated for three years and he had used all the years looking for the perfect job. He had some offers but he rejected them. It was either the pay was too small or the job was too far away. I remember telling him, “Take a bad job today so you can work your way up to a good job. There’s nothing like a bad job when you have none.” He responded, “I didn’t waste my time going to school for someone to come and pay me pennies.”

He was always taking money from me. The pennies he wouldn’t take from an employer, he gleefully took from me. It’s the reason why I was sad when I found myself pregnant. I thought of getting rid of it without telling him. I thought of running away from the relationship so he wouldn’t know about the pregnancy. I was scared of what he would say if I told him I was pregnant. I took my time in processing my situation. One day I asked myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

I called him on the phone and told him I was pregnant. His first phrase was, “How come? I thought you took a drug?” I answered, “That’s not the most important question right now. What are we going to do?” He started ranting, “You know I’m not working. This is not the time to think about kids. Let’s this one go so we can plan properly.” His answer was exactly what I expected. I told him, “There’s nothing like a perfect time. There are people doing worse than us but are taking care of babies. We’ll have it. You’ll get a job someday and everything would be alright.” He argued, and I stood my ground. Later he said, “It’s alright. Let’s do it.” 

I asked him,” Are you going to marry me?” He answered, “Someday, Yes. When everything is good, I will marry you.” I told him, “Then let’s do something small. We can marry traditionally and later think about a white wedding when we have the money.” He agreed. He wasn’t working so I had to buy everything for the marriage. It was like I was getting married to myself. I bought my own ring and bought whatever was on the list. The day they were coming to marry me, I had to give him money to transport himself and the family to my place. I loved him so It didn’t matter. We got married and he moved into the house I’ve rented.

Months later, Kobby came. Kobby was a special baby. He was our first so we didn’t have much experience with babies. We struggled. Kobby would cry all night and sleep all afternoon. It got my husband pissed off so he screamed at him. He was just a month old when my husband started being hard on him. I remember one dawn it got terrible. Kobby won’t sleep no matter what I did. My husband got up and said, “What sort of a wizard baby is that?” He leaned over him, looked right into his crying face, and screamed, “Are you a wizard? Do you fly at night? Which wizard camp do you belong to? Huh!” 

He then got up, picked up his pillow, and went to the hall. The cries continued so I strapped him behind me and started walking around. I got to the hall and he screamed at us, “Don’t come here to disturb my sleep. Take your noisy self out somewhere. When I entered the bedroom, he locked us inside. I should have been angry but I made excuses for him, “He’s a man. Men don’t know how babies are. I understand his anger. If I was a man, I would have been angry too.” It continued until Kobby celebrated his first birthday. He had stopped crying and was becoming a sweet little child. Even at that stage my husband still found faults with him.

Kobby was almost two when I got pregnant again. My husband was working then so he didn’t have any excuse. Eli was different. She wasn’t the cry baby type but she loved to cuddle with me. Because of that, I wore her like a cardigan. It got my husband talking again. I remember one night Eli fell asleep in the hall and my husband suggested that we should leave her in the hall. I was like, “Are you serious? Leave a baby this young in the hall while we sleep in our beds? Would you even have the peace of mind to sleep?” I carried her on my chest and took her inside. She clung to me like she was not ready to let me go. My husband said, “As if you two are monkeys.” I didn’t mind him.

He would scream at Eli and call Kobby stupid for just being a child. Kobby was only three when he laid his hand on him. I fought it. We argued. That was the first time he used the Bible quote about the rod and the kid. 

He lost his job again—he resigned actually. He called his boss a pervert for being a boss. He fought with everyone, even the security man at their office. He’s always right. Everyone else is wrong. When he was working, It didn’t reflect in our lives. It’s the reason it didn’t bother me when he resigned. I’d always been the breadwinner of the house, the mother, the cook, the cleaner, the health giver. He was ok being a father. 

He was home so I left the kids with him when I had to go to work on Saturdays. Anytime I returned from work, I would see marks on them. When I complained, he stopped beating them at places where I would see the marks. He would raise their arms and lash them in the armpit. The kids would be complaining about pains but couldn’t say where the pain was until one day, Kobby raised his arm and I saw the marks. I pounced on my husband like a wild lion, “Are you crazy? Did your father treat you like that when you were a kid? Why are you becoming a monster to them?” We exchanged verbal assaults until I picked the kids up and left the house. 

Even at that point, I was still making excuses for him. “He’s a man so he doesn’t understand how to bond with kids.” 

It was one Friday dawn. I had to go to work the following day and I started getting scared. All night I stayed in bed thinking of what to do. I was scared of leaving them behind. I was scared I would come back home and see their corpse lying around. I was sweating though I was feeling cold. The following morning, I dressed them up and took them to the office. I left them with the security and gave her some money. I was in the office but my eyes were on them. They were playing in the compound. They were happy. I closed from work and I stayed with the security woman until it was late. I didn’t want to stop them from playing and I knew very well that the play would stop once we got home. 

Something changed in me that day. My kids can play and be happy in the hands of a total stranger but not in their own homes. I said, “I’m the reason they go through that. I have to change something.” I got home and told him, “I’m taking the kids to my parents. They’ll be better off there.” He said, “Good news. Why didn’t you think about this all this while?” I said, “I’m going with them. I will stay with my parents for a while.” He said, “Yeah, you can but make sure you don’t keep long over there.”

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If he was wise, he would have known that I wasn’t coming back looking at the things I was packing. That day he also made an excuse for me. He said, ”Women, just a few days that you’re going to be away, see the things you’re packing.” I smiled in my head and left with the kids. My parents didn’t know I was coming home yet they welcomed me and gave me ears. It was the first time I was talking about it. I told them, “I don’t think I will go back again.” My mom said, “But he doesn’t beat you?” I answered, “That’s the same excuse I’ve given myself all these years. He doesn’t beat me but he beats my kids. He doesn’t care for us. He doesn’t pay any bills in our lives so what’s the point?”

He would call sometime and ask when I would be coming back. He never mentioned the kids. The last time he mentioned them he said, “I hope you won’t come with them?” I answered, “We are not coming back.” He said, “I’m quiet because I haven’t missed you yet. I will come for you when I miss you. What do you mean by you won’t come again?” 

Surprisingly, he didn’t miss me until the rent expired. He came to my parent’s house asking us to go home. He was pumped and wild, doing everything to get me to leave with him. I knew why he was doing that. He wanted me home so I would pay the rent. I told him, “Rent has expired. Pay and we’ll come back.” When the landlord pressured him, he packed his things and left the house. 

I paid after he had left. The day we went to his house with his drinks, it felt like he was watching a movie. He kept asking me what he did wrong. I didn’t need to answer him. It was just a traditional marriage so It was easy to break it. 

I’ve never been free in my life. All of a sudden my salary feels like enough. All of a sudden the house looks bigger. All of a sudden my kids can play and sleep because they are tired not because they were beaten to sleep. I don’t think I will ever think of marriage again. I’m thirty-five. My life is not wasted. I have kids and I have life. Nobody can tell me anything about marriage because I’ve been there before. What else? Nothing.

–Akuaba

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