One of the teen issues in the book, The First Stone, is having an abusive parent. Even though Reef‘s parents died when he was very young, he went to his grandparents. His grandpa was and abusive alcoholic and his grandma was the exact opposite! She was nice, caring, gentle, etc. Here are some key ideas about having an abusive parent/being an abusive parent.
This affects you as the abusive parent’s child, not just emotionally, but physically and mentally. Having an abusive parent, makes the kid think, ‘When I get older, I will never be like my parents!’, but it rarely happens. When you grow up having an abusive parent, you sort of get used to getting hurt, and when you leave the house you’ll follow your parent’s footsteps, and your mind thinks it’s okay since you’ve gone through it and you survived. When the kid has grown up, they don’t really know what’s right from wrong anymore, so they do whatever they feel like doing.
How do people become abusive parents? Most parents may not always have been abusive; they may have had a rough patch during their lives, maybe they were in debt, they may have lost a loved one, so they probably started to take all their anger out when you made a little mistake of forgetting to close the tap, breaking something, etc. because they’re so stressed and they can’t keep bundling it all in their heads. Or your parents may have started to drink to numb the pain, they got addicted to it and now they can’t stop. So they start to take it out all the stress on their kids.
There are many consequences when it comes to having an abusive parent. One consequence is that it changes the persons’ life forever. Knowing that you hurt you own creation, just because they made a small mistake, or even just taking out all the pain and suffering you’re going through, it makes a huge difference in your child’s life. It changes their lives and maybe even their kids’ lives too because they see what you do, and they copying your footsteps because they don’t know what’s right from wrong. That’s just one consequence of many of being an abusive parent.
Having an abusive parent is an issue that relates to novel. It may not be that big of an issue, but it’s the issue that has started all the other issues. First off, it relates to the novel because it has the same effects. As I stated before, it doesn’t just affect the child being abused, but also the people around him. Reef is a young offender, that has followed parts his grandpa’s footsteps, by being abused, Reef probably thinks it’s okay to do the same, and take out all the pain he’s felt and make someone else feel bad. An example is that he changed Leeza’s life by throwing a stone onto the highway. He took out all his pain and tried to make someone else feel bad by throwing the stone while thinking about the only person that showed him love, his dead grandma. Another way it relates to the novel is that it has the same, as a doctor would say, symptoms. Reefs’ grandpa was probably dealing with a lot of stress before he became an alcoholic, then he probably began to take all the pain out on Reef when he didn’t have alcohol in his system. So then became an abusive alcoholic. Thirdly, it has changed Reef’s life by showing him that it's okay to swear, to give the finger, hurt others, etc. and it would be okay to hurt his future kids. It has already affected Reef’s life by getting himself 12 months of volunteering, moving away from the only people that he cares about, his friends. In conclusion, those are just 3 ways of many that having an abusive parent relates to the novel.
A couple of ways you can get help if you have an abusive parent is that you can tell someone that you trust. When you tell someone, you’re not just getting everything out of your brain, but if the person knows, they can help. You can go visit http://www.oacas.org/ to find out more information on foster home care, if you’re under 18 and need a home, etc.
