Sidney McGill
ONCE UPON a time there were two women claiming ownership of the same child. They were prostitutes who lived in the same house and gave birth to sons three days apart. No midwives were present and no men came to claim the paternity of the children.
One night one woman accidentally suffocated her child as she slept. In shock over what she had done, deceit entered her heart so she exchanged her dead child for the next woman's baby in the stillness of the night.
Now both women stood before the king locked in a power struggle claiming that the one 'bright eyed' child was theirs. And the king said, "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other". Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, "Oh my lord, give her the living child, and by no means slay it." But the other said, "It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it." [1 Kings 3:25, 26]
The story which is thousands of years old is pregnant with figurative speech that even in our post-modern day is strikingly relevant. In this article I will consider the dead child and the living child as the states of the child within each Jamaican woman.
If the 'child' is the budding identity and sexuality of the Jamaican girl, we can infer from this story that many Jamaican women experience death of their inner child through sexual abuse, physical abuse and most importantly emotional abuse. A case in point is the woman who must live with the fact that her father or step-father, older brother, neighbour's son or mama's boyfriend "touched" her or penetrated her over many months or even years when she was left alone at home with little or no protection.
HARD-FOUGHT IDENTITY BATTLE
Her insides revolted against his advances, she felt powerless, wondered "why me?" In secret she allows the vulnerable inner child to die. The victimised girl grows up into womanhood feeling something is desperately wrong with her body and that only a man (much like her abusers) can affirm her that it is still a good body.
It is hard for her also to win the identity battle when the media relentlessly drives the poisonous message home that she is indeed flawed. The message sent to girls is that if they are to be beautiful they must be thin and sexy. Sexually traumatised women may give up trying to protect the sanctity of their sexuality or become paranoid of the potential of their body being violated since it is every man's target. It is at this crucial stage in the girl's life that the decline of any civilisation accelerates. The woman whose inner child is dead loses much of the capacity to be a compassionate and nurturing mother or becomes emotionally dependent on her children. (She may go to the school her children attend to fight the teacher if any of her children are scolded. In some ways the teacher who scolds the child represents her abusers.)
If Jamaica is to become a socially and economically healthy place it must protect the sexuality of its women since women's wombs are the first nurturing environment of the nation. If it protects women's sexuality, women will psychologically grow into becoming whole persons who can effectively give psychological nurturance to their children.
Next week we will look in more detail at the significance of the womb to nation building and our responsibility to provide physical and psychological safety to girls in order to stymie the violence and other social ills we currently face.
Dr. Sidney McGill is a marriage and family therapist and executive director of Family Counselling Centre of Jamaica, St. Ann; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.
