Words of wisdom on 'starting and KEEPING a family'

Todays featured author: James has a few words of advice for the 'about to weds'. Enjoy!

A wise saying says ‘The Apple never falls far from the tree’. I spent the most of yesterday mulling over this saying and wondering why some people do the things they do. I have often wondered why women were made? Why men exist at all? What is their purpose? But what set me off, is why man is inherently a BEAST. Why would anybody take it upon themselves to kill a fellow human being, lets not even talk about killing millions. I did some research and came up with a few pointers I feel are worth sharing.

IDI AMIN

Born between 1923 and 1925 into the Kakwa tribe in Koboko(pointer no 1), near Arua in the northwest corner of Uganda, close to the borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. His father is a farmer and a follower of Islam. His mother is a member of the Lugbara tribe and is said to practice sorcery(yet another pointer). Amin's parents separate soon after his birth. Amin is raised by his mother, who becomes a camp follower of the King's African Rifles, a regiment of the British colonial army. She will have more children from other relationships, with Amin becoming the third of eight siblings.

ADOLF HITLER

Born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria, into a lower middle-class family of peasant origins. His father, a customs official, is 23 years older than his mother, a domestic servant. Hitler is dominated by his father and spoilt by his mother. His father dies in 1903, his mother in 1907. He has one half-brother, one half-sister, and one full-sister.

JOSEPH STALIN

Born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili on 21 December 1878 in Gori, Georgia, in the then Russian Empire. He is the fourth but only surviving child of a poor and struggling family. His father, a cobbler, is a violent alcoholic who becomes estranged from the family. His mother is a seamstress. She is devoted to her son, who she nicknames "Soso", the diminutive of Joseph.

MIKE TYSON

Tyson was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He has two siblings: a brother, Rodney, and a sister, Denise. Tyson's father, Jimmy Kirkpatrick, abandoned his family when Tyson was 2, leaving his mother, Lorna Smith, to care for them on her own. The family lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant until their financial burdens necessitated a move to Brownsville when Tyson was 10 years old. She died six years later, leaving 16-year-old Tyson in the care of boxing manager and trainer Cus D'Amato, who would become his legal guardian. Tyson has been quoted saying, “I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally.” Throughout his childhood, Tyson lived in and around high-crime neighborhoods. He was repeatedly caught committing petty crimes and fighting those who ridiculed his high-pitched voice and lisp. By the age of 13, he had been arrested 38 times.

These 4 men have in their own ways left indelible marks on the face of the earth, and they all seem to have something in common, their early childhood upbringing. They all had seemingly violent domineering fathers, broken marriages, and mothers who probably spared the rod to the eventual detriment of the child, not to mention our poor world. But lets not be generalistic. Am sure there are probably 1000’s of other men who fall under this category but didn’t end killing millions of people or cannibalizing their fellow humans. Mike Tyson made this select list because he was once a pin-up poster boy for ‘women batterers Inc’ and that was actually what set me off on wondering why men are such BEASTS. But lets not get it twisted, ‘Men’ in this lexicon is not targeted at the male species specifically, our female counterparts were just as evil.

JEZEBEL

Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, King of the Sidonians (1 Kings 16:31).
Her name originally meant 'The Prince Baal exists'. Baal was a weather god worshipped in the Syro-Palestinian world. In Biblical Hebrew Jezebel's name means 'there is no nobility'. Jezebel's domination of her husband was directly responsible for the whole of Israel falling into the sin of idolatry. The whole nation suffered a famine caused by the lack of rain. This was God's judgement on them 1 Kings 17. This was particularly humiliating for Jezebel since Baal was supposed to be the god of weather.

Personally I think Jezebel never really had a chance at living a godly life as the odds were seriously stacked against her from birth. I mean what do you expect when your parents decide to name you after a weather god(mood swings for 1) and probably brought you up knowing no other god but baal.

This simply makes my earlier assumption correct. We are who we are because of our up bringing and the kind of family we are raised in. This is all the more important in this age where parents rarely have time for their children and leave them to the whims and caprices of house helps and guardians at school. Spending just 2 hrs with your children daily before they go to bed (since you don’t get in till 7pm daily at the earliest) doesn’t count as quality parenting time. Lets not inadvertently be responsible for the next mass murderer or even worse still the anti-christ. We shall be judged by our actions or in-actions.

Don’t be fooled by his/her seemingly meekness, quietness, kindness, richness, or even humility. If theres serious baggage in his/her nuclear family (parents, siblings), chances are they are bringing it with them. So before you make that all important choice of marrying someone and raising kids, spend time with their family. Make sure their grand-father or great grandfather wasn’t a serial killer/mass murderer or something.

It sounds old fashioned granted, but it will save you a whole lot of future heart-ache…gaddemit, it’ll save the whole world a whole lot of pain!!

James Famo

Mena's thoughts: What James did was to give a snapshot of the lives of certain notorious people, tracing the actions they took during their lifetimes,to events that must have affected them during their childhood stage of development.Personally I believe there are many situations we cannot control in life's journey, however we can be more vigilant to certain character traits inherent in ourselves or in a potential mate before making that big step to starting afamily or even leaving an abusive partner/family. God help us all. :D!