Poem: Angel Mother by Edna Ipalei

Dear mama you are precious,

You are the best of the gifts that I have ever had,

Nothing material can take the place

Of the comradeship between you and I

Dear mama you have shown me the light

The instruction received at your knees,

The maternal lesson together with the pious,

The souvenirs of the fireside,

Are never, entirely effaced from my soul.

Dear mama, there is none like you,

Dear mama, how can I thank you?

There is no gift worth your great deeds,

Forever I shall follow your foot steps

Dear mama may you live to enjoy

The fruits of your hands,

For all I am and hope to do,

I owe to you, my angel my mom

From the poet’s blog http://ipalei.blogspot.com/#!/2010/02/angel-mother.html

Edna Ipalei © 2010

Is bullying a learnt or hereditary trait?

Blame it on the genes.

Recent studies by scientists have established that bullying and aggressive traits in people can be caused by genetic formation in the DNA.

Thalia a London based scholar studied 1,523 twins in Sweden and Britain with a half of them being identical and sharing some identical inheritance found that gene play a role in formation of aggressive behavior causing bullying.

The study, published in Child Development Journal strongly tied Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) has a flaw in character trait that makes a person to be more likely to be a bully.

“Aggressive behavior can be inherited by the gene ADHD although social environment plays a highly significant role in non-aggressive anti-social manners” the research said.

The finding now adds genetics to other causes of bullying like low self-esteem, poor parental upbringing and social context.

While boys are more likely to be influenced into bullying from their environment, girls are predestined be traits in their genes into the anti-social behavior, the study said.

“In girls, a beautiful and more sexually active female is more likely to be bullied as she appears to be more attractive for mating making her more competitive” Zapito Marini’s atavistic angle in Bullying from an Evolutionary Perspective is quoted in the study.

Marni espouses that gene leads to bullying as a specie is forced to procreate and pass the dominant gene to the next generation in Darwinian theory.

Equally excess or low genetic neurotransmitter serotonin and other enzymes are a main cause of the trait with bullies having a 10% likelihood of verbal abuse and 16% chances of getting into a physical fight as compared to other people.

“Bullying is when people use their strength or power of some kind to hurt weaker people” Prof Dan Olweus of University of Bergen, Norway says.

A bully dominates, blames and uses others for their means with poor soial skills and lack of compassion for weaker people whom they see as preys.

Guest Blogger: Children in Abusive Families by Jackie Tulloh

Child discipline and abuse is often poorly defined. Many parents at one time or another have felt the urge to strike their children. With physically abusive parents however the urge is frequent and a little more stretched.

Sadly seeing parents treating each other in abusive families makes the child think it is ok to do so and it happens in other families.

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional or neglect of children. Neglect involves not providing adequately for the child’s food, shelter, medication and even affection.

While physical abuse involves assault, sexual exploitation include pressuring a minor to engage in sex, showing a child pornography or showing adult private parts.

Additionally there is the emotionally abuse which involves name calling and bullying the child.

Major cause of child cruelty is unemployment where parents without income to sustain their children become increasingly depressed. At such emotional turmoil any mistake by the child leads to over-reaction in disciplining which harms the kid.

Equally parents under substance abuse like alcohol, cocaine and other hard drugs often get out of control in handling their children especially when disciplining them. Under the influence they are pushed overboard which might include sexually abusing the children.

So what are the effects of abuse to the children? Physically a child is left with bruises, cuts and fractures with some leading to their early death.

Psychologically, the effects are worse and affect the child permanently.  This affects their attentiveness in school, learning abilities and stress related experience. Neglected they bear emotional scars which affect their self esteem by being insecure and having a sense of guilt thinking they are the main cause of their problems and those affecting the families.

Growing up with these low esteem makes them easy victims of verbal and physical abusive from the society with a more likelihood of being criminals as adults. Sadly as boys end up being abusive the girls are socially constructed to accept abuse in families as a norm!

Sadly with limited number of resource centers for child protection for increase number of children in abusive families makes child protection to be strained.  Governments need to help in stopping child abuse in the society and everyone needs to be committed against the vice and report any violators to child rights authorities.

Jackie Tulloh is an Internee journalist at Kenya’s Vice Presidential Press Services (VPPS).

Dilemma; The Pressure for Premarital Sex

 (An article for Nuru cartoon column, in response to the dilemma of issue 33 of Supa Strikers on 22nd November 2005)

Firstly I’d like to congratulate the girl fir the action she has taken. It is good she didn’t have sex with his boyfriend and secondly, for choosing a reliable source to share her predicament.

I’d like to note that most girls are nowadays falling on the same trap.

Symbolically a girl is like a fruit on a big tree. Some are on the low laying branches while the rotten and the half eaten fruits are on the ground.

Only lazy boyfriends go for these girls for short-lived untrue love and easy sex. Meanwhile the golden fruits on top of the tree are always the hardest to get because many boys fear the risk of falling and breaking their bones.

Such girls always wait for reliable and enduring boy(couple) who knows the value of true love waits thus having sex at the correct time: when married. I may advise the girl to be the golden fruit.

If I may refer to the bible about such love, Amnon was deeply infatuated by his lovely sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1-32). Such a union was not possible.

Amnon was so vexed that he laid a trap to rape Tamar after being advised by his subtle cousin Jonadab. Ironically after the ordeal Amnon hated Tamar more than she loved her!

That is exactly what happens about boyfriends who insist on premarital sex; soon after they have got what they want they will treat the girls like things left behind in a deserted homestead.

Sex is not a receipt of love. Sex, too, is not an opiate for love.

This is a true statement! During my high school years boys had girlfriends in almost all girl schools in the district. They used to threaten girls for sex to proof their love to them.

After sex during the holidays the relationship will usually break up with the girls receiving cold-booting letters and being laughed at for being cheap prostitutes.

This paves the way for other girls who will be acquired during the interschool activities for the following holiday.

In school general knowledge will be great in schoolwork but self-knowledge is best for survival during such period because first love is always overcome by the second sight.

I also think that by having enlightened friends always help in such a dilemma. If I may refer you back to my bible quotation, When Absalom (Tamar’s brother) revenged by killing Amnon and King David thinks that all his sons are dead, Jonadab (the subtle advisor) tells King David that its only Amnon who is dead.

On the same line, in most cases friends who advise girls on premarital sex know about the other side of the coin.

When the girl will be infected by sexually transmitted infection; gets pregnant and her studies terminated they will be the ones babbling, howling and spreading the message with a let-me-tell-you tone.

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. It is only the rough time in relationship that you know about the real intention of your boyfriend. “He won’t tell everyone that I’m is chick” fear shows clearly that the outside force and not the inside define the relationship.

This shows that what the girl will have to say will not work because the boyfriend will listen to the outsiders.

If you drive your car up the mountains, you are not going to cruise to the edge of the cliff to see how close you can park without actually plunging over it. No! Common sense tells you to stay as far from the edge as possible.

You should tell the boyfriend about the value of “true love waits” but if he still sticks on his guns then the girl (Boy) should quit because she may get infected with H.I.V/AIDS, be pregnant and her studies terminated.

This may seem to be tough but the next time she is “on the edge” of the premarital sex cliff; she should look down, she will see some of her friends down there who didn’t think they would fall either but they did.

My late grandfather, a fisherman, once told me: Only the strong fish swims against the current. With all this pressure on premarital sex affecting youths we should always be strong.

But if we might have almost fallen then it is much easier to be wise about the mistakes we made yesterday than the ones we are in process of making.