Being counsellors in an NGO like SIFF, we come across so many different types of men facing harassment in the hands of either their wives, in-laws, police, judiciary or all of them. Some face harassment after the court cases are filed against them, while a much larger number of men start facing the harassment much before any cases are filed against them. I’m not really going to talk about many different types of harassment they face, rather want to focus on just one of those multi facets; harassment of the men who’re also Fathers.

A lot of fathers, young and not-so-young alike, narrate their sad stories of moderate to extreme domestic violence in the hands of their wives for years altogether. They say they’ve been beaten, bitten, cut, burned or slapped repeatedly by the mother of their kid(s) since many years. Those mothers would also not spare the kid(s); in the fit of rage, beat, bite, cut burn or slap the children as well, and even the husband in front the children. However, as very typical in the so-called male-dominated society, the man is not to be heard by anyone outside the house. No neighbours would listen and understand his problems; no elders would empathise and even try to relieve his pain; his no police would file his complaint; no judge would admit his petition. And finally when they happen to find an organization fighting for men’s rights, like SIFF, they’d feel a ray of hope that someone would atleast listen to their side of the story.

However, on listening about such an abusive wife, the first question that comes to the mind is, why are you still into that abusive relationship? Why don’t you just leave her, and live a peaceful life? And ofcourse, not to much surprise, flat comes the answer; just for the sake of my kid(s) and their future! A very recent incident in the mainstream media proves this very mentality. Even when the mother is a psychic/criminal/liar, the father still hopes his child would become a better human being with that sort of an abusive mother.

You’d say, so what’s wrong in it; as a good father he cares for the kids and thus is tolerating all the abuse, sacrificing his own happiness and compromising with the wife & life. However, I’d like to present a slightly different point-of-view here.

The above statement in bold, for sure has an implicit statement as; since the mother is most important for the kids, so I don’t want to distance them from the mother, otherwise it’d adversely affect their future growth. Alright, numerous studies, research, and even our common sense indeed affirms this belief with conviction.

However, if we have a look at the same studies, research etc. don’t we realize that the same closeness to an abusive mother can also adversely affect the future of the child? In fact the studies even prove that Mothers are more likely than fathers to neglect and emotionally and physically abuse their children. You can look around yourself, and find quite a few spoilt brats or other types of useless losers; but what most of us never prod into is how was the behaviour of his/her mother towards him/her. I’m sure, if you do probe a little bit, you’d find a majority of such losers to be so because they had an abusive mother; a mother whom they expected to get the true values of life, but all they got is constant abuse. What else do you expect such children to grow up as?

It’s high time these ignorant, over-sympathetic fools, the fathers realize that they themselves are ruining the lives of their children, whom they love the most in the world, by letting their wife abuse them in the name of being a ‘mother’. If you really want a good life for your children; you want them to become a better human being as they grow up, then it’s high time you separate them from their abusive mothers.

Choice is yours, give your child a hell in the form of abusive mother, or give them a good life with yourself and your love and care, away from the abuse.