SOME MEN!!

Yesterday while having my lone dinner I switched on my TV and pressed buttons on the remote until I got to what looked like an interesting story. It was the Crime channel, and despite the fact that I was eating and should have kept my mouth shut, I found myself repeatedly having to close said mouth that had fallen open during the hour that the show was on air.

The show was about a husband and wife, both working for the FBI (yes!! FBI in the US of A), and how this man, who promised to love, honor, cherish and take care of his wife, turned into a sadistic monster that twisted their union into a horrible caricature of a marriage. My mouth kept hanging open because of the horrors he put her through. As if it wasn’t enough to abuse her physically and battering her like his personal punching bag he would also torture her mentally by playing loud music at night when she wanted to sleep, placing her – legs bound, hands handcuffed and mouth sealed with tape, in the trunk of a car for hours in the hot sun and when he removed her, pleading with her for sex immediately after; hiring people to put dynamite at her work place, and to do it so that it looked like she was the one who placed it there…. And when he was eventually arrested, pleading mental instability as an excuse.

I don’t want to get into what she did or didn’t do. In fact, I don’t want to get into what SHE’s should do or not do – that’s a whole other article.

Today, I want to get into Men’s Minds...

... Men who batter their wives or girlfriends repeatedly and women who do the same. It’s incomprehensible to me. Really. I simply do not understand, which is why I ask. Why do men whollop their treasured possessions and the mothers of their children? Why make her weep and cry and live in total fear of him and in misery?

Because closer to home, right here in East Africa, cases of GBV have risen – especially in homes where both husband and wife hold at least two (2) University Degrees between them, both drive cars, children go to international or good local schools and in quite a few cases, are religious and considered devout.

If, and I say IF the man is uneducated, he can tote and quote ignorance, but a Degree holder? What is his excuse? Clearly it’s not ignorance.

And as clearly, a man knows when he’s putting his wife through pure misery. Oh you women and wives and ladies who have not been battered -  don’t put your hand to your cheek and gasp and widen your eyes in shock and cruelly believe - when the woman who complains to you about the misdeeds in her house – that those are hallucinations or exaggerations of her mind – no, no, no!! Man takes time to think and proceeds to act and he knows exactly what he’s doing. Is that an insane mind? Kitchen knives put side sharp up in drawers where only the tissue box is kept, items left in a dark room so you trip when entering, TV watched on full blast at midnight when you’re trying to get some sleep? Not a TV story. Reality that happens, and worse, right here in East Africa.

Ok, so men - I have heard - think and act within mental boxes in their heads… apparently they have ‘cabinets’ or ‘drawers’ labeled, ‘WORK’, ‘PLAY’, ‘LOVE’, ‘EAT’, ‘REST’ , etc… and that only ONE can be opened at a time. I prefer to think of men like Cars.  Whether it’s a sleek fast Bugatti or a Shinde, or an old battered VW 1968 Vintage model – men are all the same in thought. Like a car in motion, the gear-speed that he is using at that particular time is the ONLY one that can possibly work. You cannot drive a car and engage two different gears at the same time. Impossible…. And neither can you shift from, say, 5^th gear to 1^st gear – you’ll blow the pistons pap! So if this man’s got his ‘PLAY’ gear on, the only thing that will occupy his mind is ‘PLAY’. Now, he’s at the local or where-ever. In the meantime, if wifey calls to remind him that … let’s see… ‘Dinner is ready' – that’s the ‘EAT’ gear - he will have to gear-down (or up) before he even acknowledges her  - and may appear at home 4 hours later and bitterly complain plus beat her thoroughly for serving cold food.

Now, let us continue assuming that the man described above has no Tertiary learning –we shall pray he will stop being an oaf and learn to shift gears speedily where his wife is concerned.

But, if he has a degree or any form of higher learning, we know that apart from much reading on his specialty, culture is learnt. And in learning culture comes the knowledge that women are not slaves or brute animals to be pushed around, brutalized and tortured, but tender human beings who need a whole batch of loving – and there are thousands of books out there that will instruct a man how to LOVE his wife and partner.

So why then all this violence against educated women by their educated hubbies?

Is it so difficult to talk and communicate to her?

To agree that differences can be lived with?

That women can’t be ‘changed’ or ‘chained’?

That if it’s the relationship that is not working, to allow the wife to bounce? With your children?

That to be tender and loving* is manly?

Where is LOVE?

I laugh hysterically (yes, certifiably insane, that’s me) when men confess their hurt feelings and attribute their ill behavior towards their wives on the singular principle, ‘but she doesn’t love me!!’ 

Why do I laugh?

Because, unfortunately – depending on which side of the coin you’re looking at - * the onus for LOVE is placed squarely on the shoulders of MEN.

There is not one single place in the Bible (which is the Christian Guide book on living) that says that a woman has to love a man. Not one. Rather, it’s the MAN who is told to LOVE his WIFE.

Oops!

Didn’t know that?

Well, now you do.

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, LOVE your wives..

Education is a good thing.

It is the man’s duty to LOVE. And loving means to cherish, to honour, to adore, to respect his partner. In thought and in deed, in the doing. Despite all and everything.

Doing meaning being affectionate, being a friend, communicating an emotion of tenderness towards her..

I repeat, despite all and everything. In a world full of trouble, men get battered with a million insults when they step out of their homes. And they are mostly powerless to correct those slurs on their characters. Even though, that’s not an excuse for the educated man to direct his particular brand of annoyance and slap, hit, push, batter, dishonor, abuse verbally and hate on your ‘better half’ like an uneducated village buffoon.

If you cannot bring yourself to Love her and treat her well, then let her go, release her, let her live in peace. And in the process, educate your children whether they live with you or leave with her.

And if you say ‘bah! I’m not a Christian, I don’t have obey God’s command to love her’, then consider this. It is a crime to beat your partner. A crime punishable by imprisonment.

And more recently, frowned upon by society. 
Think - honestly, how would the knowledge that you are a wife-basher affect your relationships with business associates and closer to home, your relatives? I’ve said this before, I will repeat it again. Saying you don’t care is a downright lie. Man is not an island and he Affects and Infects those around him.

Therefore, what will your legacy be?

_________________________________________________________________

Note from Nyakio:

This week marks '16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence'.

Click here to read about it in the Daily News.

©NYAKIO MUNYINYI-OKALLO, NOVEMBER 2012,

FOR The XpenSieve Report

GIVERS

Have you come across a species of Human that is extremely generous? Not with their money per se, but with time, smiles, hugs, and a particular gentle patience – especially the - being loving towards you for you? These are the people that when you spot them in the street or at the supermarket or gym or wherever, you veer out of your way to greet them because YOU KNOW when they see you you’ll be rewarded with a huge grin and a big special interest in YOU, plus you’ll walk away with a bounce in your step and a zest in your heart!

I call them GIVERS. They give and hand out Generosity Packages from a seemingly endless reservoir, and I try to imitate them as much as I can…

Well, I try….

Like, I have OCD - I am a clean-freak and want everything ‘just so!’. But I am also a Hugger. So, I rein in and put on Bugatti Disk Breaks to curb my ‘clean’ instincts when I pick my kids up from school or if they come with School Transport and find me at home… I open my arms wide to receive their messy, sweaty, dirty, smelly hugs and kiss them on their smelly, sweaty, grimy cheeks because I want them to know that I love them for who they are, not how they look or smell.  And after enough hugs have been disbursed and they are assured that their status in my book is WELCOMED and LOVED, then and only then do they know where they can put their smelly, stinky school uniforms.

That is my Generosity Package right there to my kids. It teaches them that Love is important, not looks and grade-cards. Yes, there is a place for those, but what honestly is more gracious and giving than being appreciated pap! - right now – as soon as I glimpse you?

Because who else should we be generous to if not those at home? It’s okay to be sweet and kind to the whole world, but why be downright nasty, rude and a selfish miserable miser at home?

I am sad when I write this article because unfortunately, I’ve witnessed those who do just that, as I’m sure you have too…

Wispy tendrils of smoke-talk like  ‘yes, I’ve heard he’s a charmer but at home he’s a brute’, or ‘she’s so charismatic but ngai fafa, aki fika home she’s a ka-total bee-aich!’

Hmm.

People respond to people in the same way that they respond to us – if I grin and smile at you, you’ll most probably (unless you have Bipolar and you’re off your meds), grin and smile right back. If I am a Hugger, people around me will begin to be Huggers, this is true, this is how I became a hugger and many many kids now hug their own mothers because I insist on sweaty hugs…! But… If I yell and shout at you constantly… well, in time you will do the same.

If your man comes home all sweaty and clammy after being out in this current Dar heat, do you shrink back, holding your Generosity Package to yourself or do you see him for who he is and hug him anyway? What type of WELCOME do you give? Maybe you don’t hug. Maybe shaking hands is your thing, or removing his shoes when he sits down, or smiling and bringing him food, or singing and dancing, or laughing is your welcome… so, do you hand out the Generosity Package or not?

Dude, when you get home, do you hand out a GP like buy flowers before you get home, - or do you bypass your Baby Mama like those new Highways in Nairobi and head straight for the shower then talk her when you’re all clean and Spick ‘n Span 2 hours later? Forget the -  ‘I didn’t want to touch you until I’m showered…’ business. We women hear only the first 6 words of that sentence… yes please, go back and count.. If you want #peace@home, first begin with her, let the wife be the one to say, Welcome home, phooooie…. Go shower!

(And anyway, what were Imperial Leather and Nivea For Men invented for?) Or are you hiding the perfume smells from hugs given by other women??? Ya, right! It’s not just me Nyakio thinking and writing that, my voice is just an echo of countless women who wonder why their men’s I’M GLAD I’M HOME shout  has disappeared!

So…Why aren’t you so welcoming anymore?

When we peer more closely at the Naturally Generous Person we learn that they are very tender-hearted. Their hearts are huge, but sensitive. Kind of like an egg. Pressing an egg and exerting gentle pressure between your palms will not break it. But hitting it with a sharp object will…. And the same is true for those who are naturally generous. They appreciate first and foremost that you’re aware of their boundaries and you understand that while they have let you enter one circle, there is yet another circle within that circle - there are like concentric circles within a tree, so please, don’t push in all the way right now….

(Lol, sounds wrong, but you get the picture….)

What’s that inner circle? It’s the one where you respect my values.

Don’t pick up and “borrow” my stuff without letting me know because we’re friends and I loaned you a gym bag last week.

True, I want you to come to my house and enjoy yourself, and you’ve come here for 3 continuous weekends, but when I tell you I need some me time, don’t be rude and ask me what you did or what’s wrong. Simply understand what I said… I need ME time.

Or don’t come to my house and find it nice and clean then trash it.

Return things where you found them. Don’t re-arrange my office-desk or worse, my FRIDGE OR WARDROBE!!

I know I have a vehicle but don’t make your plots  or kande’s around me driving you round town.

Yes, Karibu to my home, but don’t leave at 3am when you know I have to wake up at 4am…

There’s an old, old saying, ‘You give an Inch and they take a Mile’. Me, I prefer mine – I give you a Sandwich, you sneak into my kitchen and take the loaf…

The Relative as the best example:

……. if there is one type of person that pushes the Generous person’s RED BUTTON, it is the relatives and in-laws. Your relatives plus their own – the inlaws. This is a special breed of person who at the worst can camp in your home and DARE the Generous Partner MAKE ONE NEGATIVE COMMENT and crack! the spouse responds (usually) to – THIS IS MY BROTHER, OR MOTHER, OR COUSIN, how Dare you suggest they shouldn’t come visit??

The Egg Cracks…

Because when your relatives are in my home but they treat me as:

TICK AS APPLICABLE (maid, poor hubby, slave, inferior, that-lesser being-who-married-my-brother/sister/cousin/son/daughter/niece) ___________________ (OTHER)

Ladies scream: Why can’t hubby see that?

And Men ask, why can’t my wife see that her ______ is driving me INSANE?

(maybe I should say sane, as insanity has been branded as The New Normal )

Most, not all - women find it hard to be generous to their in-laws unless they live on another continent (if not planet) and leave you as a couple alone to deal with all the upheavals that strain marriages, but unfortunately, what happens is:

• most hubbies unkindly tell their wives that they ‘have 2 characters and are schizophrenic’ – even going as far as calling their wives hypocrites and having hypocritical natures.

• many men demand that we women should treat  their in-laws the same way women treat their bosom buddies.

• I have heard cases where men ask their wives to treat his best friends like her friends…(no problem, let him wait inside for an hour or so while I make my way home in traffic….)

Yes, the above applies to friends as well. Plus spouses, sisters, brothers, people close to us. In the name of religion, family, culture, whatever! That sandwich that I took time to make, the Turkham sandwich receipe that I stole from the (Ocean) Culture Café,… listen, I took time to buy the Turkey, (NOT Kuku!!!) yes, I buy Mayo, Lettuce, Thousand Island, mix it all together, buy some good nyummy bread, make you this delicious food, plus I give you a glass of Tall Cold freshly squeezed juice (not ju-wees!). I go into all this effort to make this… this nyummy sandwich for you then you refuse my offer, chuck it aside, walk into my kitchen and grab the loaf and BB in my fridge instead!

I am hurt, people!!

Out of the box advice

Generous people are sensitive and take time to understand you. Now it’s your turn to try and understand them… because pushing the Generous spirited person causes what I label as the RED BUTTON of Defense. If you continue playing with their kindness and taking  the whole loaf of bread when a sandwich was offered, that’s when the GP begins to build The Wall and you start to wonder at the ‘sudden hostility’ pouring out of this previously generous person.

Short sentences,

Avoiding you,

A lack of smiles,

Don’t ask ‘Did I do something?’

Dumb Q!!

OF COURSE YOU DID!!

Crack….!

So now we have a couple that’s disagreed on the home front about their differing views and levels of generosity..

And in the crack created by that snap, out seeps a gooey mess of un-generosity.

We stop handing out smiles like delicate gorgeous flowers but hold our mouths pursed and ugly, we don’t look for time to be with people, we refuse to return calls, because when they call it’s to ask, ask, ask, ask, ask and never to give, even if it’s just a simple ‘they just called to say Hello! I mean, how many calls have I simply let R-I-N-G!!!! because I know it’s an ‘AKS’ call?

Truly, our generosity can be so broken within us that often we end up creating an unwelcome spirit to those closest to us  - workmates, friends, Pastors and those at home - guarding our tongues and smiles and hugs for fear of rejection or more hurt.

• That’s when we may scream mindlessly at our kids for coming home dirty and smelly and snarl at them for each and every misdemeanor.

• That’s when we won’t welcome our wife home and simply sit, not getting up from the sofa but blindly staring at the TV with a bored ‘oh-you’re home’ grimace and increase the volume of whatever we’re watching when she tries to talk to us.

• That’s when we women will growl in Church and ask the poor young thing very rudely – what you doing sitting there? THIS is my CHAIR!

• That’s when we as 18+ & over 20’s snap-back at our Parents for no good reason.

• That’s when I give everyone a cold up and down haughty dismissal look as I walk past them…

• That’s when we growl at the check-in-counter in the Supermarket at (again) the poor young thing and ask her scathingly ‘what’s taking you so effing long to work that cashier machine, I don’t have all day to stand here!”…..

Woiyeeeee, Poor thing… she wonders what she did wrong. She didn’t. Our Generous person is simply hurting….

That’s when we behave like kindergarten children holding our GENEROSITY toys to ourselves and shouting ‘MINE! IT’S MINE!’ No you can’t PLAY with MINE!!

As you wander through the rest of this week, ask yourself a really simple question: Why have I become such an ungracious person, why have I built up all these walls?

And deeper yet, about that graceful gracious friend that’s close to you, ask yourself:

Why has SHE/HE built walls towards me? What may I have done? Remember: It’s impossible for a genuinely generous person to close up for too long. It’s in their DNA genetic make-up to BE a Giver.

They just won’t give to YOU if you hit their Red Button.

That sandwich up there? The one that the Generous Person is handing out to you? Often we forget to accept it with a smile and a simple thank you, instead demanding the whole loaf simply for the sake of it –not that we’re hungry but because we’re greedy and we think it’s our right. Let me tell you a secret: you haven’t earned it. Nope, you haven’t. So say Thank You and act like you mean it!

Learn to be sensitive and accept what you’re given graciously. Be generous back to the Givers in this life, we need them, they really do make the world go round while the rest of us groan and moan continually at what life throws at us. Pushing it and being insensitive to Givers will only result in you turning them into  miserable, hyper, stressed out porcupines that you don’t want to venture too close to.

© NYAKIO MUNYINYI for The XPENSIEVE REPORT, NOV 2012

SPOILT ROTTEN

There’s that song that Michael Jackson made famous when he was yet not a teenager, “One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch girl….”. In cold Nairobi weather, fruit spoiling was not a problem, especially up in the highlands, you could buy a bunch of fruit and leave it in a bowl on the kitchen counter or in the dinning room and grab a fruit each time you walked past it. Yum.

Not in Dar’s humid weather. I tried, hahahaha! The first apple went bad and at the point of contact where it was rotten, it passed it’s rottenness to the next apple. In 3 days, I had a bowl of rotten apples. I’ve learnt to put all my fruit - including bananas - in the fridge!

But this article is not about fruit being so decayed that they are unpalatable – it’s about you and me and our kids.

Yap.

I read an article recently about an American mom who complained that her twins (12) had slowly stopped doing their chores and she realized that she was very cleverly, left to do them all.  She went on Stike! Not as a Mom, but as a Maid.

But what stopped me criticizing her and her choice was an awful awareness of the reality right here at home. Are we, in cushioning our children with maids and houseboys and mlinzi’s and drivers, selling irresponsibility to our children? Yes, we are!! We are teaching them that their mess is not their problem to deal with but someone else’s responsibility!

In traffic I have often followed school buses on their scheduled school-to-home runs in the afternoons and watched despairingly as kids from those ‘high class’ schools throw litter: bottles and sweet wrappers and plastic bags, out of the window. If I am directly behind I usually end up swerving to avoid a plastic bottle on my vehicle or an already chewed saliva full gum plastering itself to my windscreen (the law of physics… what you throw out from a moving car doesn’t go straight out at 180˚, it usually lands behind you!)

I’ve watched a bottle land on a woman standing at a bus stop. Ok, you say, it can’t hurt, it’s plastic and empty….

Yah.

If that was your child, would you be embarrassed or simply shake your head and say ‘that’s life?’. There are teachers or adults on these buses/vans (I’m assuming), so why on earth does this trashing of our beautiful City by children continue?

Earlier on this year I asked my maid to leave because we’re at that stage in life where tweens and teenagers need to learn how to pick up after themselves. Which basically boils down to the fact that in our house for about 6 months now, it’s been a matter of my kids doing their own chores, or so I thought. Unless you want to die slowly of High Blood Pressure, I discovered that this is not a good idea! I have screamed, I have shouted, threatened, thrown fits, lost my temper, had tantrums, and finally I just KEPT KIMYA. Nil by Mouth. Honestly, What?? Huh, what - I ask you, is so hard about MAKING A BED? I’m not asking the teenager and tween to sweep the entire house plus mop, cook, bake, clean all the windows, mow the front lawn, clean the car,  and ____________ (add on whatever you think chores on the line), no, there are Cleaning Services for that heavy duty stuff.

 No! All I’m asking for right now is the simple stuff:

• Make their own beds – everyday. Before they go to school.

• Tidy up their own rooms.

• Use the trash bin that’s in the room, don’t throw trash the floor.

• Don’t eat in bedrooms. Drinking allowed….(hahahaha, obviously water or juice, or as we pronounce it here (juu-wees)

• Dirty clothes go into a common laundry basket.

Living area

• After meals, take cutlery to the Kitchen sink, don’t leave them where-evah!!

• Clean the dinning table top after all meals including breakfast.

Kitchen

• Regarding washing up dishes, each chose a task. One cleans, the other wipes.

(Nyakio, I can hear you ask….Is it done?)

Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa hahahahahaaaaaa!

Yah.

Continuing…..

• No plates to be left in sink overnight.

This is a huge responsibility that involves them thinking through to further than themselves – looking at life beyond the ‘just me and my music or TV’  - that many of our teenagers have today, and the beginning of true responsibility.

Not only do dirty dishes and a dirty kitchen bin bring in the cockroaches and sisimizi, but sincerely speaking, we wake up early, and walking into the kitchen half asleep at 4am to make a tasty breakfast and finding a  Kilimanjaro mountain of dishes is NOT exactly a prelude to a good morning let alone a tasty meal!

(sigh)

The kids also have a pet. Hmmm. Skittles the cat. Sitaki!! Eti who is to feed her and groom her and cut her claws and worst of all, change the litter box? I am NOT a pet person, so hapa because they collectively wanted a pet, they should be responsible for said pet!!

Are we together? You and me? Or do you think I should be feeding that…that animal when they forget? Which is almost daily?

No. I will NOT clean the litter. I will buy that Litter Freshener Powder stuff,  but no-no-no-No! I’m not about to mix it myself, I am too old for that shit! (Pun Intended)

So I persist in reminding them to complete their chores despite all the excuses. To learn how to ‘follow through’ and not stop halfway. I insist because I keep remembering that old adage – ‘as a man thinks, so he does’. For me it’s lazy mind, lazy body. Lazy at chores, lazy in Life.

Recently my daughter went for a sleepover and she came home in a daze, her eyes clouded over and gushing verbally, on and on, on how whenever her and her BFF left the living room or any room for that matter, she’d turn around to find cushions being plumped, magazines, TV and AC remotes returned to their respective spots, plates and glasses cleared from under sofas and fresh glasses with water PLUS ice-cubes replacing the used ones. Used Once. My daughter entered the kitchen and was shooed out. Jamaani!

In another home, bedrooms were cleaned and vacuumed while she and her friend slept, my teenager woke up to a spic and span room where even her clothes were folded and her (ngothas) cleaned and hung to dry in the bathroom. In yet another home, they had a midnight feast and left empty dirty plates on the floor. The next morning she thought she was in a different house, the room was sooooooo clean, even her bed covers had been re-arranged and tucked-in on her as she slept!!

She complained for a week at her chores and told me ‘when she grows up she will have a butler, a housekeeper, 3 maids and a chauffeur’. Sawa! She’d better work hard for her money.

But when my son goes to visit his friends and he insists on returning used plates and cups, mugs or glasses to the kitchen sink, most parents compliment me and hubby  - admiring his ‘manners’ and ‘thoughtfulness’. “My son doesn’t do that though I tell him to! What should I do, what should I do?” they complain….

I ask you, what’s right, what’s wrong? How early do you start?

As for my daughter, hahaha! I told her those girls should not come to my house coz their mothers will either kill me or get me arrested for child-labour because I make my them join my kids as they do their thing- a chore is a chore is a chore.

chore |CHôr|

noun

• a routine task, esp. a household one.

• an unpleasant but necessary task

Haiya, As far as I am concerned, any maid and mlinzi who works for this family works for hubby and I, period. My children are NOT allowed to send, talk down to or disrespect any adult who works within our premises…. It reminds me a bit too much of the colonial era where white kids would shout, abuse and insult adult men who worked for their parents. Is this what we’re teaching our children?

And if we don’t persist in demanding that our hard-core ATT (serious attitude) children complete their tasks, how will they learn how to make their own beds? Pick up after themselves? Clean their own bathtubs, shower stalls and yes….toilets? Learn how to look after their toothbrushes and know when they require a new one? How will they learn that there’s something called a trash bin that exists outside a computer? That the plates and mugs that we use require standing at the sink and being cleaned unless you buy a dishwasher? 

And even then, can we teach them how to load the washing machine and dishwasher? How will they know how to polish their own shoes and iron and fold their clothes, not leave them in a stinking messy pile under their beds growing strange mold and other wicked things mixed with decaying food on forgotten plates? Moms – what does your daughter do with her dirty pads? Kitchen dustbin? Do you know that germs travel by air….no sorry, they don’t walk..

Back to grown up kids. Wanaitwa AD.ULT. But wait one – Have you observed adults sweeping the area outside of their shops with ferocious determination, only to sweep all that filth, dirt, bits and pieces of paper, glass, hair, garbage, onto the street? Not into a dust pan and into a dustbin. No, onto the street, where it will simply get blown away again by the equally ferocious winds, back pap! infront of their shops?

Around the corner from my house right near the gate, some years ago I saw a pile of trash and I was shocked silent. As I passed it I held my nose like MJ did them days and muttered to myself like a mad woman…. A week later the rubbish dump was larger, the week after even larger. Did I notice? Nope! After a month I didn’t even ‘see’ or even ‘smell’ it until a friend who came to visit commented on ‘what’s that stinking rubbish dump doing right outside the Court wall?’ Micheal Jacksons ‘One Bad Apple’ song refers to the company you keep… if you keep company with constant irresponsibility and a trashy environment, you will conform to it.

We get used to seeing our streets and yards trashy. Then when it gets to be too much our minds switch off and it becomes someone else’s problem – the neighbor, the City Council, the Government. Not me. Not you.

Yet when it comes to chores for our children, our failure as parents in EA is spoiling our kids rotten until they are practically good-for-nothing when it comes to the house and home, and later, home, community, office and city.

How will they learn when we as parents get 3 maids for the house, a cook for the kitchen, a mlinzi for the gate and a gardener for all pets, dogs and cats and garden? How will our children learn to cook for themselves or do you think they will be able to afford a ‘cook’ when they leave college or will they eat out every single day rather than hack at a potato and wonder why 3 minutes is not enough to boil same potato (on a gas stove - not microwave..)  through to the middle? Where they may make the mistake in knowing that a tomato is a fruit but not understanding that you shouldn’t put it in a fruit salad?

Fine, so the excuse is that we’re saving our children from the hardships that we went through. If you and I sat down and had a chat, wah, half of what we went through we’d laugh and say thank goodness there were no child-labour laws back in the 70’s, but let me tell you, I learnt how to wash my dad’s car INSIDE OUT in less than 2 hours or else, and how to use a toothbrush to get to those hard corners too! Hmpf, Ask our 12 year olds to clean our cars today and we’ll probably get a water bill that could have run a small rice plantation plus a flooded engine!!

(plus imagine the look teenagers would give you if you told them to ‘go wash the car’)

Another excuse that we make when spoiling our kids is that we’ve worked terribly hard to climb out of poverty into the middle and upper class and we want our children to ‘enjoy those benefits’. But consider this, those same hardships are what formed our characters today, and (2), unless you’re going to give your kids a Trust Fund at 20 years old, they won’t be able to live exactly like you for years and years after leaving university unless they own a diamond mine or sell drugs. In comes the bitterness and complaining. “Why can’t I drive a souped up 4WD 2 years after graduation? Why can’t I live in Masaki or Runda or Muthaiga? Why can’t I live with YOU until I’m 38? I can’t move to Sinza or Kinondoni or Kiambu or EastLeigh flats when you are living here.….Why do you want me to catch a Mat or Daladala to work… Dad, MOM?? are you insane??”

I’ve seen it in Nairobi, grown sons and daughters borrowing their mama’s cars on Friday and return them on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Can you recite your own horror story?

Is it because we have spoilt our children rotten the reason why we have young men and women who have no clue as to how to keep a home? As in utterly clueless!! There is that old saying, that a man’s home is his Castle, but how will he care for said ‘castle’ if he doesn’t know how to fix a simple drain pipe? Or worse, screw on a bulb? Hahahahaha! Yes, true!! I wonder where that question came from - How many men does it take to screw on a lightbulb??? Anywayz, your 12 year old should know the difference between a screw-on and pin bulb, between the regular bulbs and the power-savers. And how to stand on a chair or step-ladder and replace it. As for the girls, why let her grow into an adult, leave home, go to College and while there rely on her male neighbors who will probably take advantage of her each time he walks into her apartment to help her ‘fix her bulb’ ? Remember, it takes more than one man to screw on a lightbulb………

No, some lessons are not from teachers so don’t expect them to do all the work. Many lessons are from parents themselves. A simple proverb:

Train up a child in the way he should go

And when he is old, he will not depart from it.

It’s a double edged sword - train up your child to be spoilt rotten and slovenly, and when he is old he will be spoilt rotten, slovenly and irresponsible.

Train up your child to be clean, neat, responsible and respectful of his/her environment, and they will grow up into responsible adults who appreciate cleanliness, order and beauty. It’s tough going to enforce, cajole and teach our children to care, but it pays healthy dividends!

© NYAKIO MUNYINYI-OKALLO for The XpenSieve Report. NOV 2012