Happy Mothers’ Day!
Today, this column is dedicated to mothers who have sometimes found themselves so frustrated by the intricacies of child-rearing that they have occasionally paused at that task, turned their faces upwards and wondered aloud, ‘why was it again you created children? Today, we mothers who have done a good job deserve to put our feet up, pat ourselves on the back and begin to ask ourselves, what must we have done right? Those among us who think we have not done so well should still put up our feet, get a cup of coffee, and begin to ask ourselves, what must we do right? The reason is that I believe that there are children who can try their patron saints and guardian angels all together to a sorry point, just as there are parents who try the patience of God himself.
Recently, I heard the story of how a student was hauled before the head of his tertiary institution. He had been invited to come and explain how he came to be associated with a cult. Right in the presence of his father, the young man was said to have owned up to being indeed in the group but hastened to add that he learnt it from his father. His father, he claimed, belonged to at least four such groups. The flabbergasted father threw up his hands. He had no idea his children watched him that closely.
To say that children have seized power from their parents in Nigeria now is an understatement. For one thing, children now have their say and their way. In the past, the saying was that children were to be seen and not heard. In the present age though, children prefer their parents to be seen and not heard. Better if the parent is rich. ‘Who’s that?’, ask the young man’s friends, as they point at a decrepit looking thing sitting and ruminating over his mistakes, such as his children. ‘Oh, that’s my sponsor’, replies the unfilial son, before quickly guiding his friends past the offending figure of his disgraced parent.
For the privilege of allowing parents to call their children their own, there are now some ground rules. The first rule of child owning goes thus: that parents are allowed to give their children food and shelter, when desired. This means of course that parents can no more expect that golden sense of gratitude from their children for bringing home the bacon. Man, it is a privilege to do that now o.
Then, children can now dictate to their parents how much intrusion they are prepared to take from the said parents. No more all that nonsensical ‘every room in the house belongs to everybody’. Perhaps, reply their toddling lordships, only after they are through with their own room, such as when they go off to be married.
The third rule is that parents should consider it their duty to put down a generous allowance for the purpose of affording a comfortable life for their children. And to do this, they must work hard to earn or steal. In an e-mail message being passed around currently, the story is told of another young man who went for a job interview. Asked what he would consider a good starting salary, he mentioned something in the region of 250, 000 Naira, a figure the interviewers might not themselves be earning. Intrigued, they asked him why. He stated that he could not very well settle for anything less than that amount, since he was then on a monthly allowance of 200, 000 Naira from his parents! Too many children are being brought up on stolen money obviously.
And the fourth rule? There should not be, under any circumstance, any scolding from parents. Parents ought to know that their children come into the world complete with the manual of behavior written into their hearts. This manual becomes operational at the age of fifteen. Dear parents, in case you don’t know, this is why your child wakes up suddenly one morning in the middle of his/her teen years with the epiphanous revelation that he/she knows everything. And there you were, thinking it could not happen over-night. Well, it does. So, should your child misbehave, don’t fret or spank. The manual will open to the right page in, let’s say, twenty years and award the right punishment. This law is called regret and it never fails to arrive.
Whatever you do, dear parent, don’t break this last rule, and that is that you should never complain about your children’s friends, they are perfect. It is actually your own friends that cause your children to cringe. When your children choose their friends, they appear to you not to have applied some criteria that include the fact that such friends should be human beings. But you are wrong. Your children and their friends are normal. You’re the one who is not.
I meant to write about mothers’ day but got entangled in the very wonderful world of child/parent rearing. If your own child fits into any or all of the above, then it is time for you to wonder who is rearing whom. In Nigeria now, mothers do not mother anymore, and fathers in general are clueless about the home, because people are more interested in making money. Yet, throwing government monies around the home like confetti at a wedding, particularly in the general direction of the angelic ones, only turns them into little devils. Unfortunately, the devil has a way of turning on its own sponsor, eventually. Let’s think again, mums, can our children celebrate us?
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