Dorothy Kweyu
23 October 2011
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opinion
Last month, we published news that 15 people in Nyahururu and Ruiru had died from drinking a spirit that blinded four others.
It was not the first time a drinking spree had turned tragic, nor will it be the last time we face the spectre of wananchi succumbing to killer spirits.
But far greater than the tragedy of periodic deaths from alcohol consumption is the looming crisis of thousands of children born to alcoholic parents, who grow up in drinking environments.
Such children bear the brunt of their parents’ indulgence with far-reaching effects on their psychological, emotional, social and overall well-being, according to child counsellor Florence Mueni.
Although we’ve been treated to frequent demonstrations by women lamenting their husbands’ sexual dysfunction due to excessive drinking, little attention has been paid to the tragedy of children growing up in alcoholic homes.
While laws to protect under-18s from the harmful effects of alcohol focus on banning sale of hard drinks to them, the real issue is the psychological trauma of children growing up in homes where father and mother are alcoholic.
Children of alcoholic parents have to put up with their parents’ double personality. Ms Mueni routinely counsels children who have to cope with parents who are very good when drunk and very bad when sober — or vice versa!
They promise the world when they are drunk but can’t remember a thing once they are sober such that trust — the vital ingredient in parent-child bonding — is shattered.
There are also children who are verbally, physically, or even sexually abused by drunken parents, who don’t remember what they did while inebriated, yet children remember and suffer silently. Some live in self-blame, thinking they must have done something wrong to make their parents alcoholic.
Drunkards’ children also suffer loss of childhoods as they often become their parents’ care-givers. Imagine a pre-teen who has to pull his or her parent from a drain and clean him up!
“It’s like watching a horror movie”, a child said during a counselling session with Ms Mueni. Any child would wish to escape from a situation where they have to put up with a father who not only wets himself, but goes about with an open fly.
Coping strategies include children attempting to change their parents’ drinking habit. They feign illness to keep away from school so that their parents stay at home to take care of them.
But there are also those who immerse themselves in books; they wear a façade of hardworking pupils, when, in fact, it’s their way of escaping their harsh reality.
Some lie to classmates about their parents, who, hooked to the bottle, neither attend school functions nor remember their birthdays. They lie that their parents live far away or that they are dead.
They keep to themselves to avoid talking about their parents’ dark side or fantasise about the ideal parent they long for. Because of the unreliable world they live in, they are anxious, moody and depressed. At worst, they drift to drinking, which, like their parents, they come to associate with problem-solving.
It’s time anti-drinking campaigns focused more on child victims of their parents’ alcoholism.
Ms Kweyu is a Revise Editor, Daily Nation. (dkweyu@ke.nationmedia.com)
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