Memo 79 From The National Welfare Desk of Men
{LONG, 10-Minute Read}
WHY MILLENNIALS SHOULD PARENT THEMSELVES
Do you sometimes meet some adults, and you feel like this one deserves a nyahunyo, or that backhand slap that can recalibrate their mind to default settings?
Often, I do.
Every day, I am meeting men and women in their 30s, some in their 40s, whose behaviour leaves a lot to be desired. And I am not saying this as some old, stiff coot. I am quite flexible, try my best not to judge (impossible as it can be sometimes), and a champion of “live and let live”.
But when adults behave like children, with no sense of self-control, no discipline, no self-restraint, I get concerned. Because some of the adults I am ranting about are actually parents and I care about society.
I have seen situations where children have had to parent their parents and it is never a funny thing. You know those families where the father is a shameless drunkard, and the wife and children have to do the dirty job of guarding the dignity of their man?
Yet, there are a number of adults amongst us who are slowly slouching towards a scarily irresponsible adulthood, and the people who suffer the most are their spouses, their children, their siblings, their friends. I have noticed that part of being an adult is cleaning the mess of our siblings, relatives, friends who should know better. And it gets tiresome.
Been thinking about this a lot.
I know where the problem started. Where the windy rain swept us.
I notice this problem is among the middle-class, mostly boarding-schooled, university/college-educated, started working early, and down the lines came into contact with some big money.
This means that most of these folks who are badly behaved, born in the 1980s and 1990s, were disconnected from their parents from quite an early age. After high school, they were sent to college, and at no point they were sat down to be taught about adulthood and its responsibilities.
That is why we have married men who leave home on Thursday and come back on Monday and think they don’t owe their wives any explanation. The wife takes so much shtick from the man, then one day summons the courage and leaves, and then the man wakes up, alone, with nothing in his 40s, but beautiful memories of ‘them days’.
That is why, we have married women who behave out here with reckless abandon, cheered on by their equally irresponsible friends, with no care in the world about their motherhood and marital responsibilities, and when called to account, the man is suddenly seen as toxic and controlling. Divorce ensues. Then the kids are carted away to her mother or father, and then the lies begin. Nobody lies more than a divorced woman in her 30s in Nairobi.
These are two adults who clearly know better, but choose a certain destructive style, living like there is no tomorrow, and ending up miserably before they are even 45. A life tortured by the inability to have some checks and balances. Plain common sense.
I have noticed among the worst behaved adults, are those who started parenting themselves at a young age. By mid-20s, they were paying their own rent. Provided for themselves. Father or mother didn’t even know where they lived, what they did for living, and were in charge of their lives, with no one above them. They made serious life-altering decisions like spouse selection, getting children, or changing careers or even countries.
And then, as a generation we stopped fearing anything, fire, flooded rivers or even God.
This happens due to the skewed balance of power in Africa, where children become richer than their parents and in Africa, whoever has money, is inadvisable by those who don’t have, including their parents. People who earn good salaries in Africa are not teachable sometimes.
Think of those from humble backgrounds where parents did their best to put them in school, shipping them to boarding school at an early age, where they scored a good grades, ended up in a good provincial school where they also scored a good grade and ended up in good university. If lucky and got a job under Kibakinomics, they got a good job where they made insane amounts of money where what they earned in one month is more than what their parents earned in their entire lives.
We see it every day. When you earn and people depend on you, you call all the shots. Your mother worships you and your father, unless principled, will be afraid of you. That means you can marry a spouse they don’t want (for valid reasons, but because he or she calls you babes or sweets right, you will go ahead), you can make very consequential decisions that everyone around you knows are wrong but can’t correct you lest they end up in your bad books. We all have friends with money who hate any form of advice. Because being broke indicates that you are stup!d, incapable of giving anyone sound advice.
Here is the other thing. Baby boomer parents (I really don’t like this fancy American classification of generations, but we can call them Independence Generation parents) were disadvantaged in two ways: they were the first to enter the labour market at its most capitalist conceptualization in Africa. But they were lucky, mothers stayed home with kids and kids did get a slice of good parenting. At least kids had a point of reference. The mothers were present and fathers, even though absent, their presence was felt.
But fathers being absent and the introduction of boarding schools, introduced the first layer of separation. The longer fathers stayed out there, and the longer we spent in boarding schools the more we turned adults who were self-sufficient, but up to a certain level.
Typically, we remain children in the eyes of our parents. But when we start making money, and assume adulthood responsibilities, sometimes the opinion of the parents stops to count. Until we burn somewhere, then we realise, how limited we are.
Our parents were out of depth when we came of age. The world shifted so fast, the economy expanded rapidly, and the technological divide created a huge chasm between us and our parents. I can’t explain to my parents what Tinder is.
So even if our parents were to be involved in our lives, we sort of live under different zeitgeists. Many throw hands up in despair and I see more and more parents have lowered expectations in their children, significantly. Those aspirations for big careers, great marriages seem unattainable.
With no parents out of depth, grandparents who don’t know what is going on, it leaves most of us in a very precarious situation.
Happily, some adults do better than others. And others need to summon themselves to a room and have a candid discussion, like we are back in high school facing the most tyrannical discipline master or mistress. Be your own tyrant.
If you are full of mischief, have no control on your usage of drugs, alcohol and other bad behaviour that your parents could frown upon, you need to rethink about your choices.
If you had no parent, or you disengaged with your parents when it comes to life-advice, you may want to become your own parent.
Listen man, to parent yourself is to know that you are in charge of your life and that of your children and making choices that will guarantee the best outcome for yourself and for the children.
Millennials suffer two afflictions.
One is the Peter Pan syndrome. Men want to be that ‘cheers baba’ well into their 50s and women want to be ‘baby gurls’ well into their 40s. At some point this nonsense has to end, and we step into our parenting roles. You can’t have it both ways. You have had your time, adopt into responsibilities that suit your age.
Without that transition from being young, to a young adult, to young parents to older parents to grandparents, we tend to have very unfulfilled lives, later in life, where we behave like someone who left a party too early.
Think about your favourite aunts and uncles. Check out what they were doing at your age, the different circumstances we are growing up notwithstanding. Was talking to an old friend who told me, that among the Luhyia, Senje is not just an aunt, or to the Luo, Dani is not a just a grandmother. Both Senje and Dani, connotes people with ability to nurture. Right now, think about it, if you died, will your siblings be able to take care of your children? Will they? If your siblings died, can you take care of their children as older people would?
When my mother died, one of the people who stepped in to provide for me was a 25-year-old uncle, with very meagre means. He did a tremendous job. Right now, there are those in their 30s and 40s, who earns millions of money, who God forbid, should they be given responsibility to take care of their nieces and nephews, will struggle. Not because it is a big responsibility, but because, their minds are stopped growing since they turned 25.
We understand the need to parent ourselves, but we don’t want to pay the price. Man up. Woman up. Let certain things we cling to go and embrace adulthood and start watching after ourselves better.
Yet, we can make adulthood to be fun. Being an adult is not synonymous with boredom. You can be an adult who derives mature pleasure out of life, it is just a shift of hobbies, a shift in places we go for fun, a slowing down and handing the baton to our children and to let them take their turn in the stage.
So, remind yourself the most basic things that your mother taught you: discipline, self-restraint, patience, don’t keep bad company, change if you are the bad one, and be your brother’s keeper, don’t stay out too late, be responsible.
You need these lessons as an adult. Teach yourself. Parent yourself.
And let us normalise telling our friends who are tripping. I notice as adults we are afraid of each other, until it is too late. Say your truth. If they hate it and cut you off, know they will remember your words, when reality sneaks upon them.
End of rant.
PS: It is a new month, and we will try and keep it positive this month, with some gratitude, and cheerfully celebrate this year’s Christmas.
This year, I had gifts to dish out to two special persons, but everything backfired, and I had to throw them away (I need some anger management lessons). That means to all my babes who are celebrating their birthday this December, I have nothing to give you, as I heal from the year’s disappointment.
However, you can gift me, by buying my books. If you have not read my novel especially, this will be the best time to read it, and I guarantee you will enjoy the story. And the print edition are down to a very few remaining copies, and may be discontinued, when they are done.
The memos is still available and today, at some point in the afternoon, I will be in town briefly to hawk.
Otherwise when in town hala at Nuria ( 0729829697) and Kemunto Nyakundi
Here is to a great month and good closure to 2021.
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