Photo: President of the Supreme Court of Kenya, the Lord Chief Justice David Kenani Maraga,a model leader and parent, a good man.
Broken adults raise broken children. Question is, how do we break the cycle?
By Silas Nyanchwani
Because broken people are always blind to their flaws and can be stuck in their ways. I am talking about people with loose morals, narcissists, irresponsible people, people with anger issues, shallow people and people who blame everyone for their shit but themselves.
When children grow in such a setup, the impact on their mental health is massive. We no longer have aging parents or grandparents who used to help some of these women raise kids. Because mothers and grandmothers can help in instilling temperance in young kids.
Now you have deadbeat men who do nothing for the kids they help bring to earth and women so burdened by responsibilities that maternal instinct is basically dead.
Let us face raising a child as a single mother is not easy. Because you have to be a mother and a father. You have a day job, maybe you are still searching for a mate. And dating when single without a child is challenging enough. Dating as a single mother is doubly demanding. And sometimes leads not so cool choices.
But also, you are young you need to embrace and celebrate life. This means, you need to be out there drinking. Dance a bit. Maybe dating. And of course all these things have consequences. Sometimes you don’t sleep at home. Sometimes you come home drunk. Sometimes you bring men home. Your kid meets so many uncles he or she loses count.
Because a good number of single parents don’t know much about restraint and initiating a value system in their kids. And we live in a world where the line between right and wrong has been blurred it not there anymore.
Lately I meet adults who tell me how growing up in a broken home broke them up. How abusive father’s made them abusive or too docile to stand up for themselves when someone stepsoon their toes. I meet others who have come to terms with the ways of their mothers and how it has shaped their experience in dating and marriage.
Question is, as an adult, how accountable are you to your children, especially if you live with them? Because kids after 5 are basically computers, recording your every move and soon or later, their brains will start to process what is going on and forming a world view, that imitates you, or goes the opposite direction but truth be told, either options has serious ramifications.
So, we have two generations of broken adults raising third generation kids in a broken setup? What chance do we have of having a sober community in the future?
I foresee 20 years from now, we may be like America where a kid wakes up, grabs a gun and shoots people in a movie theater. Or a drug crazed society.
And worse, the church that at the very least instilled values in us, is no longer a Central tenet in our life as millennials are shunning it in numbers. Nowadays, we prefer amusement parks to the church. Kids watch too much cartoons or are by themselves to learn good values?
Can anthropologists and sociologists predict for us the kind of the world we will have 30 years from now? America didn’t end where it is in one generation.
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