Joseph’s story

Pastor Joseph has seven children. We met him when his 7th child Suzy Blessing was a few months old, because he had given permission for us to meet in his tin hut church.  He quizzed us about what we were doing, came to our workshops about baby bonding with the mothers and learned to show his love to her.

We’ve seen Suzy since then and it’s very clear that she is attached to her father.

We have always wanted a way to introduce men to the benefits of baby bonding and Pastor Joseph has started to take the training to the men in his community. We are exploring how this model may be extended to other villages.

We have found that our attachment sessions also create a bridge to reducing another prevalent issue in Kenyan society – domestic violence. This is so endemic in the culture that even a Christian minister such as Pastor Joseph believed that beating was the natural way to discipline children.

We are often asked about beating one’s children, and we have been shy to condemn it outright as we do not want to impose Western ideas on Kenyans.  However, on our most recent visit to his community, Joseph told us he had considered our teaching about talking to your babies and listening to them and decided to try it with his older children.  He stopped beating them but talked to them when they did wrong, and learned to listen to them.  He reports that now his children are more obedient and understanding and his relationships with them are better.  He and his wife have also stopped beating each other.  Now they talk together and work things out.