Perhaps one of the most cogent admonitions the good book has for old, new and prospective parents. As simple and clear as this instruction is, my generation appears fixated on the path to perdition, especially concerning parenting.
Everyday I spend as Akintoye's father makes me respect my own parents even more. Parenting is a big deal and must be addressed with all the seriousness it entails. As if raising one kid was not hard enough, mine raised five! Knowing what I know now, how that did not confer a Nobel Prize is even more befuddling. As each day passes by and my son ticks the developmental milestone boxes, I learn that several very subtle and minute pieces add up to the big picture. Parenting is a collage. You are constantly bringing bits and pieces together to create a living artwork. This work will eventually reflect your thoughts, moods, personality and entire being. So consciously and otherwise, you are constantly working to ensure your piece of art turns out exceptionally brilliant.
It will help to admit that the opening passage is by no means set in stone. I attended schools with children birthed by renowned clergymen and yet, their rascality knew no bounds. As my people say 'pikin wey go die, go die'. But this must not deter us from doing our very best to ensure our scions turn out better than we did.
It is even harder to raise a kid in today's Nigeria, largely because of how worn and thin our moral fabric has become collectively. Nigerians raising their children in the U.K and the United States may beg to differ, The truth is everyone has a story but I can only opine based on my realities here in Lagos. I am worried for the emerging stream of parents. I mean the 'FIT' parents (where F stands for Facebook, I for Instagram and T for Twitter). I am worried for the 'selfies and twerking' generation of parents. If you stay on social media long enough, you ought to be worried also. Especially for the kids that will be raised by this current strain of parents. We are distinctly different from our parents, particularly in the quality and content of our thoughts.
Parenting should change you. Physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually. If you were still growing before the journey began, birthing should automatically propel you to new levels of responsibility, You simply cannot expect to remain the same. This is a basic flaw in reasoning I have observed today. A being relies on you for existence. A being watches your every move and soaks your vibes. A being is imprinted every minute by your mannerism and utterances. How do you emerge from that unchanged?
Good habits are easy to inculcate in early life. Take care of your body. Dress properly. Eat properly. Sleep properly. Exercise. Read. Pray. Let them see you do it. Television is dangerous. Books, on the other hand, will do incredible things to a child's mind and cerebration. The time to start is now. Television is even more dangerous when all you watch is Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Oh my! There are two critical reasons why you must guard your mind and sight from such inane tele-visioning. These are beside the obvious debilitating effect on mentation and I.Q. The first is the surreptitious erosion of self-esteem and self-worth. It feeds a part of your brain that makes you discontent. You are not rich enough. You are not fashionable enough. You are not sexy enough. You are not glamorous enough. You are just not enough and every episode hacks away a piece of your peace. It is disturbing the sheer number of young people who find this level of dysfunction in a single family entertaining. Now the question is, how do you raise kids who are comfortable in their own skins when your standards of good enough are based on the artificiality and shallowness of the E! Channel?
The second reason is the 'She-Dad, She-Mom' narrative. The truth is that we are eventually going to accept homosexuality. Sooner or later. It has become anachronistic to be homophobic. A study even found that homophobes may have a mental problem. Yes. We are at that point. A few years ago, we used to openly express disgust at the very thought of it. Today, we speak against it in hushed tones and the 'judge not so you are not judged' narrative holds sway. Liberal is the new cool. And the media, oh the media! If I ever doubted the power of the media, I am certainly convinced now. I do not envy the kids we will raise in this age. Should our parents have been this liberal also? Or even their own parents? Who knows, maybe we won't even be here. I know it is coming and is probably inevitable but I do not intend to speed up the process by exposing my offspring to shows where Daddy has a deep voice but wears make-up exactly like Mummy does. No, thank you.
The other very worrying aspect of parenting today is education. Perhaps not entirely the fault of young people today as they are victims of a systemic rot. More and more 'educated' young people can't write proper English. Speaking properly is even a luxury. Lately, I have had to interact with many unemployable graduates of Nigerian universities and I shudder at the thought of them going through homework with their toddlers. Is it the generation that finds it difficult to differentiate between 'Am' and 'I am' that will teach toddlers? Or the one that consciously writes 'Oladapo' as 'Horlardhapor'? Is it not even easier to pen the former?
Another aspect I suspect we will probably falter as our parents did is that of ethnicity and tribalistic jingoism. Our parents, like theirs, failed woefully in cementing Nigeria's unity. One wonders how we allowed such distrust fester unabated since Nnamdi Azikwe, Obafemi Awolowo and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa till date. The same divisions that plagued us then still do today, even more malignantly. Many of the 'FIT' parents display worrying levels of bigotry on social media, their favorite pastime. Tribalism assumed human form pre-elections in March. Young people who have been serially raped by uninspiring leaders lunge at the other's jugular while defending the very people responsible for their economic and intellectual stagnancy. Our parents were overly tribalistic despite the high quality and rich content of their thoughts. They were better educated certainly, thus accentuating the gravity of what prevails today. At 27, my father was a thoroughbred professional with sound work ethics and insatiable ambition. I know too many 27-year olds sagging their pants in Lagos and arguing about Olamide and Don Jazzy. They are going to be parents soon.
Our mandate is clear. We are custodians of destinies. Our parents toiled and fought for us. Our mothers even endured difficult marriages. But they never stopped fighting for us. How will we shape Nigeria's, and indeed the world's, future? The answer certainly isn't on the E! channel.
Switch off the television and grab a book. It will do Junior a whole lot of good.
Jesu a ko wa mose o...
