Chapter 2: The raising of a family part I: The role of parents

There is an air of tension in the hospital. Screams can be heard from one of the rooms where a young mother is giving birth to her first child. The father isn't allowed inside; it is culturally inappropriate. So he helplessly trots back and forth in the corridor. His family consoles him that everything is going to be alright. Fingers crossed, everyone is expecting the news anytime. The screaming stops. All of them look at the door. It slowly opens, ages seem to go by when the nurse brings a little bundle in her arms.

"Congratulations," she says softly, handing the newborn baby in the father's arms, "It's a boy!"

Tears of joy in his eyes, he takes the baby in his arms, "He's going to be an engineer!"

A few days later, his wife tells him, “My sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl just now, I’m going to ask her if she is going to be our daughter-in-law.”

So there you are, your career decided for you right at birth, your spouse decided for you right at birth. And then…

Two decades later, when the young couple has just got married, the mother tells the son, “Now son, bless us with a beautiful baby boy. We want to see this last happiness before we pass away.”

Now it's decided whom you are going to bring into this world.

This might seem far-fetched to you, but this is the reality in Pakistan. Your parents decide everything for you. You are allowed to choose nothing for yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, I warmly welcome you to the controlling culture of Pakistan. How and why did we end up with such a thinking as this? It is because…

Pakistan was part of India, which is religiously and culturally very rich. You are not allowed to question the “Why” of things. Just the how. Asking questions means that you go against God and traditions of the elders, and elders are not fools: if they’ve decided something, it must be good. They have had years of experience and knowledge which us youngsters don’t have. So we don’t have to question/disrespect their decisions. This is the law. Even after the separation of this region into two separate countries, the ideas remain the same. The culture and the religion dominate in these two parts. For this reason, people in the Indo-Pak area are very sentimental towards religion and cultural values. Unlike the mindset of Westerners, who ask the "why" of everything, we are not allowed to reason about things.

This thinking has been developed because of the religions which have dominated this area. The first one was Hinduism, who worship idols. This can answer for a lot of confusion: people who illogically worship a god who's deaf, dumb and blind without question will believe anything people say without question. Another religion which dominated this area first in the 7th and then in the 12th century was Islam, and since there are many confusing doctrines in Islam (see the next chapters), its adherents are also required to follow it without question, a form of mysticism if you like.

So we come down to our time, where we are not allowed to ask questions but to follow whatever is thrown our way. God bless the western civilisation, which was founded on the basis of reason and logic thanks in part to the influence of Greek philosophers.

In conclusion, people don't think rationally or logically and then make decisions, but they let their cultural and religious values determine their actions without considering the "why" behind the decision. This translates into families as well. You dare not question the reasoning of the elders. If you do, you are disrespecting them. Questioning means you’re actually thinking about their position, whether to take it yourself or not. Which means you doubt them, and no one should doubt their elders. This is an insult to their knowledge and experience. And dare I say, no one likes to say, "Sorry dear child, I don't know about it", they take it as a personal humiliation not being able to answer a child.

This reminds me of a very interesting example. My father, like every other man in our culture, thinks of himself as a polymath, having expertise over a wide area of subjects. He once challenged us all kids to tell him how the devil took Jesus on the top of the temple to tempt Him. The explanation he gave was that they were not present there in flesh, but rather spirit, this is why they were able to travel long distances in short periods of time. Of course this is not the case, and I made a point that if they were present there only in the spirit, and not physically in the body, the devil couldn't have challenged Jesus to throw Himself off the temple, since gravity only affects a physical body. My father got really fiery over my thinking, and told me to shut up and not to say anything else.

This has been really troubling for me, for I have always asked questions, and many times I was ridiculed by them. Thus, you cannot engage in a meaningful conversation with your elders. What they decide is the law. And since India and Pakistan have been heavily influenced by their religion and culture, even Christians believe something which is not biblical: that parents are always right.

Parents are always right.

This idea comes from paganism, of course. To show respect towards your parents, people are taught that parents are always right, they can never make a bad decision. And you should never question them, they gave you life, they took care of you and raised you, they got you married, and made a lot of sacrifices for you. Thus, you should spend your life for your parents since they are the ones who brought you into this world, you owe them your life.

This race of giving the utmost regard to your parents comes from the competition that is between the religions. Each religious worldview, Islam, Hinduism and now Christendom, tries to show that their God is the superior one by claiming that he requires his people to follow the superior laws, one of them being respectful towards your parents. Thus, they teach that parents are always right, being the image of God themselves.

This thinking is not Biblical. Of course, the idea of respecting your parents actually comes from the Bible, rarely parents are given the place of honor in any other religion which they are given in the Bible. Let’s look at the commandment which tells us to honor parents.

You shall honor your father and mother.

This command is stated in Exodus 20:12, as stated below:

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you."

Numerous books have been written on this commandment, so I'm not going to linger here for long. Just to be clear that:

This is the first commandment which is in regard to the people. The first four were regarding your relationship with God. Who are the first people with whom your relationship must be strong, before anyone else? Your parents.

Parents really are the image of God towards a child; they feed him, take care of him, clean him, carry him, protect him. Etc.

The word “honor” is the same which is used for God. Thus, parents deserve the same respect as God Himself.

But nowhere in the Bible it is said that parents are always right. You see, the God about which the Bible tells is a Holy and just God. He is a right God, and He tells us that parents, even though they deserve honor, are not equal to Him, and thus, can't always be right.

Why Parents can’t always be right.

Romans 3:23 states that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Paul also explains that because of the sin that rules in our body, we can’t have rational thinking. Then he talks about the struggle that everyone has because of this sin (Romans 7:14-25).

The conclusion is this: everybody is a sinner, including one's parents; they can also make wrong choices. Infact,

“I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being--forgive me--rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” (By Albus Dumbledore)

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

If you are at an age and position where your decisions affect a lot of other people, you need to be very careful. One slip and the consequences will be disastrous. Adults make mistakes as well, but this can’t be said in Pakistan. You will be called rebellious for saying that out loud, a heretic, lunatic might be the right word I suppose, for I was called a lunatic for saying these things here. As I have said before, a lot of pagan cults have penetrated Christian thinking, this is why people don’t think rationally but emotionally.

Studying examples from the Bible, we learn about Saul, Jonathan’s father, the first king of Israel, the nation chosen by God. Saul fell into jealousy and then into hate so much that he wanted to kill David without any good reason. He even ordered everyone to kill David on sight. This command was for Jonathan as well, who was Saul’s son. And what did Jonathan do? He saved David’s life! This was disobedience according to Pakistani culture, but this is what he did. And consider this: if Jonathan wouldn’t have saved David, and Saul really would have killed him, then what? Jesus Christ came from the line of David, Jonathan not only saved David, but he in denying his father helped in accomplishing God’s great plan of salvation. Would you still call it disobedience to the father?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not encouraging rebellion against the parents. Neither am I encouraging disrespect against parents who are disobedient against God. What I am trying to say is that it is quite foolish to say that parents are always right. They are not God, only God can always be right.

Another quality of Jonathan, which men in Pakistan lack: he talked to his father! He told his father that whatever he was doing was wrong! He told his father that his decisions are wrong! And Saul listened to his son! He accepted that what he was doing really was unacceptable! (1 Samuel chapters 19 - 20).

This is what we need to realize: not only that parents can be wrong, but children can be right as well. And parents should listen to their children and think if what they’re saying is right or wrong. Don’t reject their thoughts solely based on their age and their relationship to you.

There are numerous examples which can support this view, but that will take too much time that can be given to other things. So, maybe a few more. Another case in point: King Asa, one of the godly kings of Judah, actually dethroned his grandmother because she was an idol worshiper (2 Chron. 15:16).

And there are numerous examples in which walking like your father is discouraged, if he is walking in sin. “He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, because he followed the ways of his father” is repeated numerous times in the Holy Bible. Just go and read the book of Kings and Chronicles!

Now, why am I giving you this example and verse? Because at one time, I met a pastor who said that you must follow your father regardless of what he does. Even if he is doing wrong, he is right. I presented the above-mentioned verse and asked him for explanation, he simply said that I am disrespectful to pastors and I don’t know how to talk respectfully to others.

Asking questions is disrespect, and God had to put me in this country. As my teacher says, even God has a sense of humor.

The Bible clearly tells us that a sinner needs to be corrected, regardless of his relationship to you. He can be a brother, father, mother, sister, spouse or child. Everyone has sinned, and sometimes they keep on sinning until and unless they are stopped. They need to be corrected. But no one wants to confront the sinner. This destroys the Church and the society, in effect the whole country.

Let’s go back to my life, so we can talk about other issues of my culture.

My father was extravagant, thriving on the money from my grandparents. Mother was, I don’t know how to define her actually. There is a saying in Urdu, “Allah miya ki gaye '',

اللہ میاں کی گائے،. which means the cow of almighty Allah. This expression is used for an overly naive person, who doesn’t know anything. This is probably true for my mother.

With my father, neither of them knew how to handle money, children, responsibilities of the house, or pretty much anything in life. Let's start with my dearly despicable father’s love life.

An adulterous father and self-indulgent mother.

I don't remember a time when dad didn’t have a girlfriend. I even remember the name of his first girlfriend, Tania. It is very interesting that I don't remember the names of other girlfriends which will follow after Tania over the years. But I do remember that he had pictures of them in his mobile. He used to watch porn, spend money to watch women dance naked in front of the webcam, use to visit them in theme parks of Karachi and what not. He never wanted the woman he got married to nor did he want her children, so why should he care about them? He will spend his money on the things that make him happy.

Of course, this would leave children without a father, and our mother without a husband. And the husband isn’t only there for physical relationship with his wife, but for companionship, help, support and encouragement when she’s having a tough time in life. So how would a mother cope with the absence of a husband? The absence and neglect of the person who promised himself to her, to be a companion and protector for life? What about her sexual desires, which were left unfulfilled? Well, she vented out her feelings in only one way she knew: she buried herself in book porn. Reading erotic novels.

So this was my father’s and mother’s love life. Dad wasn’t interested in her, and she was neglected from day one. This made her stop caring for herself. She gained a lot of weight, which in effect, made it very difficult for her to do anything. She wasn’t able to sit properly, walk, or work. With that much body weight it was difficult for her to manage household affairs.

This wasn’t all, the cherry on top of it all was that she knew about his extra marital affairs. And she did nothing, said nothing, took no stance. Nada. Zero. Null. It wasn’t only her who didn’t say anything. Many of our relatives knew about his immoral lifestyle and even they didn’t say anything. All they could say was that father, after all, is a father and no one can take his place. Even if he is living immorally, it is okay, because he made a lot of sacrifices for his family so he can have a little bit of leeway. And by little bit they mean he’s got leeway with everything.

But you don’t get leeway from God.

You shall not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14).

Dr. Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist, once said that when God gave the commandments, the commandments are, well, commandments and they cannot be broken. You might think that you’ve broken them, but later in life, you realize that it is not you who broke the commandments, but rather, you rebelled against them, and in effect, it is the commandment that brakes you. He has been practicing psychology for quite a while now, and he said in his lectures that the truly broken people are those who broke the commandments themselves or were victims of the people who broke these commandments. This damaged both.

So it was with us.

It is already difficult when one person is breaking the commandment, but when both the parents are breaking it, it is a disaster. It is called desecrating the name of Christ. And no one desecrates the name of Christ.

So how are parents who are sinning actually desecrating the name of Christ? Let me explain. Ephesians 5:23 says, “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.”

The thrust of this verse is, the husband is the representative of Christ in the marriage. As Christ is the head of the church, so man is the head of the family. So, if he misbehaves with his wife, he shows that Christ misbehaves with the church.

Are you beginning to see the repercussions of the wrong actions of the husbands? If they abuse their wives, they show that Christ abuses the church. If they slander their wives, they show that Christ slanders the church. If they are unfaithful to their wives, then they show that Christ is unfaithful to his church. If they are committing immorality against their wives, they show that Christ is committing immorality against his church and, in effect, is an adulterer.

I hope that this opens up your eyes to the great amount of responsibility which lies on the shoulders of the husbands. It gives you the opportunities to either glorify the name of the Lord in the highest, or bring down his name to the mud. This is what it is called desecrating the name of Christ, to show utter disregard of what He has given you. This is not something which is to be taken lightly. In the Second Commandment, it is written:

“You shall not take the name of your LORD your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. Exodus 20:7”.

People think that taking the name of the Lord in vain means saying things like, “Oh my God!” or “My God, what have you done?” It is degrading God’s name, yes, but there is a deeper meaning than that.

In the original Hebrew, the text reads that you shall not “carry” the name of the LORD your God in vain. That means if you carry His name, it should be reflected in your life. If you are called a Christian, then you should reflect Christ. If you are a husband, then you should reflect how Christ is treating the Church. Thus, if a husband is unfaithful to his wife, then he is taking the name of his Lord in vain. Note what God says here. He will not leave the offender unpunished. Such a dire warning is not given in any other commandments, this should show us how highly God’s name is to be considered.

This should show you how grave of a sin it is to be unfaithful to your wife, and the Lord shall not leave you unpunished.

If it wasn’t bad enough that my father failed as a husband, my mother also gave a very wrong opinion of what it is to be church-like. The church should be holy and obedient, not self-indulgent and gluttonous. A wife and then a mother should show how a Church is to Christ. She is holy, well dressed and clothed with good works (Rev. 19:7-8).

Marriage is to be intended to reflect Christ and His Church. When you don’t fulfill your intended purpose as a husband or wife, your marriage will drown. You will have a failed relationship, a broken house, lost children and a ruined family.

In the midst of it all, that is, in this disastrous relationship, they had four children who were ruined. One by one, each of us reaped the harvest of our parents and our culture. I had two sisters after me and the last one of us is our brother.

The destruction of the children.

In Pakistan and in India, parents want to control everything. They want to control what their child studies, and what will be his / her career, who will be their spouse and when they will have children and which child shall be the first, a male child. All this controlling is given another name to make it sound appealing: the suggestions of the parents.

Suggestions and total control differ from each other. In an interview with Woody Allen in 1969, Rev. Billy Graham was asked a question about respecting parents. Billy answered that his children don’t always agree with him, but that doesn’t mean that they disrespect him. This just shows that children are making their own decisions and the parents should help them become independent, otherwise they won’t be able to grow and mature as a person.

Of course, this is very difficult to understand for Pakistani people. One thing is that their culture doesn’t allow them. Another is psychological: when something is done to a person, he takes revenge from the only people he can have control over: their children. If they were not allowed to marry the person of their choice, they would not allow their children to do so as well. If they were not loved as children, they will do the same to their children. If they had a ton of limitations on them when they were children, so they will do with their own children. Thus, people are controlled by their parents, they want to control their own children in order to have recompense.

The other reason they want to control their children is to make sure they would get in the habit of obeying their parents from the very beginning and won’t forsake them when they grow old. You might be thinking, why would they forsake their parents? Let me explain.

We don’t have the concept of “building your own house” in Pakistan. It is a poor country, and having a place of your own is a luxury which not everyone can afford. Thus, we have a joint-family system. If the parents have managed to build a house, they would divide it into portions (storey-wise) to their sons who will live each with their own family. Nobody moves out of the house, which is seen as shameful and utter disrespect for the parents.

Moving out of the house and living on rent won’t be a problem, if it wasn’t for the other issue: finances. We don’t have a concept of saving, and people don’t get pensions when they are old. So the responsibility of taking care of the financial needs and well-being of the old parents falls onto the shoulders of the children. And as everyone who has seen enough of life knows, taking care of old people is one heck of a job.

All would be very easy if you could leave your parents in an old age house, where they take care of the elderly. But those places are disastrous. They are filthy, not properly kept, and not fit for the elderly at all. Thus, the parents need to make sure that their children won’t forsake them in this critical age. So we come to the problem: parents train their children to be controlled from the very beginning so that when the time comes, the children will take good care of their parents.

Of course, it is not the right thing to do. But people, afraid that their children might desert them in their old life, start mentally preparing their children to make sure that they take care of the parents. From an early childhood they say things like: it is a special blessing to take care of your parents, it is an honor to take care of the parents. Those who don’t take care of their parents will in turn reap the same harvest and their children will not take care of them, regardless of how much care they put into their upbringing.

This is not right that you start mentally manipulating your children to take care of you. It must be done in a teaching manner with love, care and devotion, to bring up your child to full maturity. I was talking to my wife, Rose, the other day about this. And I told her that if you raise your child to only take care of you, you’re raising him with selfish motives, and that might not work. But if you raise your children to be of a good character, to take care of the neighbors starting with their own families, that will change everything. And he / she will not only take care of you but will help the society as a whole.

Another downside to this approach of raising children with mental manipulation is that people realized that they can actually live off of the earnings of their children and not work at all. Thus, in so many families, the parents are not working at all but are living on the earnings of their children, even if they are healthy and can work and even if the earnings of one child are not enough. They just say that now it is time for them to rest and for their children to take care of their parents.

It has become very common here that parents live on the money of their children. It is thought of as respect to earn and bring your whole salary to your mother/father so they can look after the house. This is just an excuse of course, this is another form of control.

As westerners, you can imagine the harm it does, but not the Pakistanis cannot.

The first harm that it will do is the person who is earning the money will never know how to handle his own finances. Take the example of my father, he always gave his whole salary to his mother and she would run the house. After her death, it was up to my parents to run the house. And what did you think happened? My parents couldn’t handle the finances. They got into a very heavy debt and the house? The very big one? Mom and dad sold it.

Still it is considered the highest form of honor one can give their parents. A friend of mine said that he salutes those people who give their whole salaries to their parents, they are the model children. What a waste.

The second harm it does is that it doesn’t make the people independent. Which is why the majority of the people of Pakistan are very poor. It is because people are not earning per capita. Imagine if there are 4 people in the house: 2 parents, 1 son and 1 daughter-in-law. Now, only the son earns, even though the father is healthy and able to work. How can one person really manage the expenses for 4? The food alone costs too much, and the salaries in Pakistan are not that high. We earn about 75% less than our Western cousins.

Only a person who is a businessman can manage such high expenses, but the majority of Pakistanis are not business class people, they are middle class people. And middle class people are thrust into lower middle class because each family has more people depending on the salary of just one person. The money which comes into the house is not enough to be saved after all the expenses are made.

Here we must learn from the west, that each person should earn as long as he/she can. But Pakistani culture doesn’t allow this. It states that when you are able, let the parents rest and not do anything and you do everything yourself now.

If all this wasn’t enough to ruin our family, my father made sure that he ruined each person individually.

First in line was, of course, my mother. I have already told you how she reaped the harvest of her husband’s faithlessness. After her were, obviously, the children.

We were raised without healthy parents, having a profound effect on each of our personalities. For me, my personal issue is now I have trouble recognising that there are good parents in the world. It is one thing to criticize healthily, but another to straight undermine them. I don’t rebel against authority, but I have a tendency to see every parent at fault now, something which I'm telling myself is not true. Not every parent is as selfish as mine.

Then my sister, Hannah. She was an okay child, but she ruined herself. As a child, she just wanted to sit on her favorite sofa and not move at all. She loved her blanket so much that she would cover herself even in the midst of terrible Summer. In Karachi, the temperature sometimes goes up to 40 degrees Celsius, and she would still keep her blanket on her! This made her bones lose density and become soft, and they stopped growing. She was about 12 years old at that time. She also didn’t go out much and started to lack Vitamin D, which the doctors told my parents but they didn’t pay attention. She developed “Rickets”, a disease of children caused by vitamin D deficiency, characterized by imperfect calcification, softening, and distortion of the bones typically resulting in bow legs.

Now she’s like a crippled, with teeth broken, unable to eat properly and is totally dependent on her father. Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. She knows that no boy will ever really fall in love with her, so she fills that void with her father, the only man who will ever love her without conditions.

Which was certainly not true.

Father used her to gain sympathy from others. He always asked my maternal uncles for money, saying that he’s treating his daughter. But he never spent a dime on her. He spent it eating out and losing money in gambling. He would show-off to his friends how rich he is and would spend on his girlfriends. My mother knew everything, but she still stood by his side and backed him up, and lied to her brothers. Something that she shouldn’t have done. I should also tell you that he always spoke filthily about my uncles. He said that they never sent him anything and that they are stupid, illogical and unloving.

Then comes Mishabel, she had epilepsy. It severely affected her brain. She started to have fits, and the frequency was growing day by day, up to a point when she would have twice a week! Father always said that she was possessed. He called priests and pastors to pray over her but never even once went to a doctor. Why? It should be obvious, he didn’t want to spend money on her medical bills.

It was I who paid her half of the medical expenses and someone else helped us with another half, and she went to a doctor. The doctor told us that if she hadn’t started her treatment by then, she would have died. She was given medicines to consume for life. And even now, father says that she should give up taking medicines and believe in God. She hides her money to buy medicine. She knows that he will take all the money to spend, but will not give her anything to spend on medicines. But still, she backs up her father in all the wrong decisions that he makes.

And now Louie, my youngest sibling, my brother. My grandfather spoiled him because he was born after the death of my grandmother. He never studied with seriousness, got into smoking and alcohol, and doesn’t have any stable job.

But all of the children say that their father did everything for them. Why? Because the culture says so. And even though he was a womanizer, a prodigal, greedy, manipulative and stupid person (and yes everyone knows it), still they say that he is the father and he is to be respected.

You might be thinking, how did I find out about my father’s adulterous life? Easy, he left his skype ID open on the computer and I read all the messages. Also, I checked his browser history on his mobile.

We know to delete internet history, not those before us.

I was good with computers. I read his hidden texts on his mobile phone. I also once chatted with him using the name of a girl! Haha! Caught him red handed. There was a program, mIRC, which allowed you to chat with people from all around the world. Man, writing about all these experiences, I did have fun with my dad, just not the type a child should have.

Those who are from Pakistan, if they are reading my book, might be thinking that don’t parents deserve to control us? They gave birth to us, they took care of us, they raised us… they have all the right to demand our whole life.

Yes, people of Pakistan do think this way. Unfortunately, again, and very unfortunate for them, this is totally unbiblical. I shall deconstruct this notion without showing any remorse, mercy or the least bit of care about how it will hurt the sentiments of my people.

Facts don’t care about feelings.

First of all, even though parents did give birth to us, they willed it, they worked for it, but God is the One who gave us life. Genesis 1:28 says that God blessed humans to be fruitful and multiply, which means that without His blessing, humans couldn’t have children. And even now, no one can have children until and unless He wills it so (Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. -Psalms 127:3).

Secondly, they raised us, yes, but they shouldn’t raise us to care for themselves, but to worship the Lord and serve Him (Deuteronomy 6:7). Those who serve the Lord will serve their parents as well.

Thirdly, they don’t have the total right to our lives. If you have studied the Bible, or not, regardless, but have studied history, you definitely know that in ancient times people used to practice detestable acts which they used to call worship unto the Lord. This included sacrificing their children unto their gods. Just look up Moloch, he has often been portrayed as a bull-headed idol with outstretched hands over a fire; this depiction takes the brief mentions of Moloch in the Bible and combines them with various sources, including ancient accounts of Carthaginian child sacrifice. The Bible strongly condemned it, and since God knew that people can be so corrupted that they will harm their own children, He took the power out of the hands of parents so they couldn’t do with their child as they wanted. Case in point, reference below:

“If any person has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father or his mother, and when they discipline him, he does not listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not obey us, he is thoughtless and given to drinking.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall eliminate evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear about it and fear.”

- Deuteronomy 21:18-21

You might be thinking that this is quite harsh, but consider this: in the Bible, we find no instance of this happening (even though it should have, like in the case of Eli and his sons, [1 Sam. 2:13-17]). You need to realize that it made sure that no child was harmed by any parent who was acting out of instinct rather than love. And if you are a Pakistani, and you think that no parent can harm their children, then just Google child abuse and you will that parental abuse tops the list, because it is the most immediate relationship that can harm a person.

So far in my life, here we are: Mom and dad weren’t ready for each other, they got married because their parents wanted to get them married. Dad wasn’t faithful to my mother, he had extra marital affairs. Children were ruined because of neglect, but none of my parents bothered about it. No one corrected my father and he went down the road to ruin.