Parenting Ruminations

“Mum, my teacher said that you should give her a call” Hailey said to me as I was about to bid her good day at their school’s administration block. I normally take her to this point and let her run the rest of the way to class. She had neglected to inform me that her teacher wanted to talk to me from the previous evening and the whole morning as we got ready for school, up until the point when I was just about to head to work. Sly, this one.

I inquired why her teacher wanted to see me and she gave me nothing. Clearly, she had done something wrong and withholding that information till now was in an attempt to avoid the barrage of questions that would follow.

Forget the phone call. I decided to go with her to her class and talk to her teacher in person.

When she saw me at the door, her teacher came outside. Asking Hailey to join her classmates, she closed the door behind her and turned to me.

“Hailey refuses to do the work she is given in class. You need to talk to her” she said.

I was somewhat relieved. For a moment, I thought she had insulted someone!  Or kissed a boy, God forbid! Or stolen something!

Wait a minute…why should I talk to her?  I have done my part; Hailey  does her homework without fail. Now she wants me to make her do her class work as well? If you ask me, this relationship we have with Hailey’s school is not a fair and square nusu mkate arrangement. It’s more in the ratio of quarter:three quarters, with the parents taking the lion’s share of responsibilities.  In my day, if you refused to follow the teachers' instructions you faced their full wrath and your mother didn't even have to hear about it. I guess they are aiming for more involvement from us parents, huh? After all, they are our kids, aren’t they?

Nevertheless, I promised the teacher that I would definitely talk to Hailey.

She refuses to do her class work? I can handle that, can’t I? Maybe I should just lock her up in her room and cane the defiance out of her? No, that would be tantamount to killing a mosquito with a hammer...PLO Lumumba once advised against that.  Maybe I should say no TV and deny her the previledge of watching her favorite episodes of 'Dora the Explorer' for two days? Four? A whole week perhaps? No, that would be pushing it. Kids cannot handle restrictions of more than a day or two -I must have read that somewhere. I could simply ask her father to talk to her? Yeah. I wish... no, no, no I got this. I GOT THIS!  I am perfectly capable of handling a boycott of class work. After all, it's not like she was found smoking marijuana? Md will handle the really heavy stuff during the insufferable teenage years: Tattoos, piercings and boys.God forbid! I might be tempted to kill the boys, and so he might as well step in, if for no other reason, to keep me out of jail.

My mind detoured  to how hard it was to sometimes handle stuff in Md’s absence. On rare occasions, I have answered his phone call with the words “Talk to your daughter” and handed the phone to the 'culprit' who wouldn't go to bed, who won't eat their food or who pinched, slapped or pushed their sister. He has a way of talking them into doing anything.

Focus, Renee! Focus!

Parenting. You buy a brand new cooker and they send you home with a 20 page manual with instructions on how to use it, plus additional precautionary measures to avoid damage. Then you get a baby and what do you get? Nothing. No single page manual on how to handle him or her. They send you home with just the baby and ugly stretchmarks, flabby tummy and painful stitches to boot!

Focus, dammit!

Fine, maybe I should just talk to Hailey as the teacher suggested?

The light bulb in my head came on. Talking it is then!

“Hailey, I need to talk to you” I said as I put a tea bag in my cup during breakfast the next morning.

She sat next to me with a cup of milk. She looked at me, clearly sensing that something was up.

Face her. Maintain eye contact.

I shifted  my body to face hers and stopped what I was doing .

“Your teacher says you are not doing your class work anymore?”

She looked away saying nothing.

“Why? Are you OK?”

“Yes.” She said

“Are you sure?” I asked

“Yes.” She nodded for emphasis.

“Then why are you not doing your work?”

She had nothing to say.

“Do you want to become number one?”

She nodded her head, her eyes lighting up.

“In order to become number one you have to do as the teacher says. If she gives you work in class, you have to do it. Am I clear?”I said firmly.

“Yes”

“Should I be told that you are not doing your classwork again, you will be in trouble young girl”

“I will do it” she replied, obviously eager to end the conversation.

Good. I think I got through to her. Didn't I say I got this?

“Finish your breakfast” I ordered.

When Md got wind of the incident, he insisted on talking to her anyway, to drive the point home.

“But you are not getting out of handling the tattoos, the smoking and the boys...” I said 

“Smoking tattoos??? Which boys?” he asked, confused.

“Never mind” I replied as I handed Hailey the phone.

My Sponges

Starting today, our ‘sponge’ is home for the school holidays. That is what Hailey’s Headmistress called our children when we joined them for the school parent’s day today. “They will absorb everything you do like a dry sponge takes in water. They will imitate everything regardless of what you say to them. When it comes to children, action indeed speaks louder than words. So do you want your children to be generous? Be generous. You want them to be neat? Be neat. You want them to have etiquette and use proper language? Then have etiquette and use proper language.” She said

These words hit home for me because I had had a clear demonstration about this just a few days back.

As a routine, Hailey and Heidi’s first stop when they wake up from their bed in the morning is to come to my room. If I am not awake, they will wake me up to say good morning. I don’t know how it started but it has stuck. Sometimes when I have the very rare chance of sleeping in, I bid them good morning really fast and dive back under the covers to continue sleeping. I learnt the hard way that ignoring them only helps to make them more persistent. Ever heard a child trying to get their mother’s attention when she is on the phone or when she is engrossed in a conversation with another adult? That kid will not stop tugging and pulling and chanting ‘MUMMY!’ until you pay him or her some attention. I am sure by now every mother knows that once a child starts with the incessant ‘MUMMYs’ the smart thing is to respond immediately and nip the chorus in the bud. You might think they are pestering you then but wait until you ignore them. But I digress and I don’t have a generous word count to work with so…

The events after the morning greetings are always somewhat routine;

Hailey will rush to the bathroom (thank God, she is not a bedwetter) After the bathroom visit, she will go to the sitting room, switch on the TV, search for the cartoon channel and watch cartoons as she awaits further instructions on how her day should proceed. If it is a school day, she will, sooner or later, quit cartoons and get ready for school. If not a school day, she will have to wash her face and take her breakfast.

Being the diaper kid that she is (don’t ask), Heidi skips the bathroom trip. She normally wakes up with an appetite and will want breakfast pronto! With a slice of bread in her hand, she will roam around the house. She will be in the living room for a minute to sip her tea, watch a bit of cartoon with Hailey. Then she will pinch her or grab something from Hailey and run to their bedroom. Hailey will yell at her. “I am not your friend!” she will say. Heidi will return whatever she took and ask pleadingly “Hailey, are you my friend?” to which Hailey will respond in the affirmative. Happy Heidi will then go about touching stuff and throwing things around as she eats. Calls for her to take her breakfast while seated will go unheeded. We now know why we always find a half eaten slice of bread in the laundry basket or on the shoe rack.

When she is bored with everything and everyone else, she will barge into my room, most probably finding me awake or if it’s my very lucky day, then I could still be under the covers.  Should I still be sleeping, she will exit to come back later. Should I be awake, then she will hang around. She will join me when I bow down my head to pray. She will insist on helping me to make my bed and make a mess out of it in the process. She will run out of the room to take another sip of tea, come back with another slice of bread, complain that she doesn’t like honey on her bread, complain that her tea has no sugar and bring it to me for verification. I will taste the warm tea (I love my tea scalding-hot, so tasting her lukewarm tea is torture) only to find that it actually does have sugar. I will tell her that her tea is just fine and convince her to take it. She will oblige and keep roaming in and out of every room in the house.  All this time, her sister will be laughing at something Garfield did or said.

On the material day, she found me trying on a dress I was to wear that day. I stood in front of the mirror looking at myself. Heidi stood quietly observing me. I then turned to assess my behind. Satisfied that it looked fine (ha!) I ironed the dress of choice and went to take a shower.

When I came back from the bathroom, who do I find in my room? Heidi. What is she doing? She is looking at herself in the mirror. How? She has her back turned to the mirror and get this, she is checking out her diaper-donned ass!

If it wasn’t clear to me how imitative children are, it became crystal clear to me then.

So the headmistress was right. It is indeed true that Children are like sponges. They soak up everything from us; the good, the bad, the ugly.

The pressure!

TRY INFIDELITY! but use protection.

Infidelity hurts. Whether by a woman or a man. More so in marriage.If there are children, they bear the brunt. There is the possibility of them growing up without the active presence of one parent, or if the parents decide to stick together after all, they are exposed to an environment of hatred, vengeance and mistrust before things can go back to normal again, if ever.

That said, there is this advertisement that has got the tongues of a section of Kenyans and religious leaders wagging to a point that it was pulled off air. The 'Weka Condom Mpangoni' advert was perceived to encourage immorality and infidelity in marriage. Other Kenyans however see nothing wrong with the advert and they have not shied away from stating why. It portrays a reality of what is happening in society today; the Kenya of today, they say. Objecting to it, they claim, is akin to burying our heads in the sand. Denial is not the way to fight HIV and Aids, they reason. We have to be open about such issues in order to win the fight against HIV. Valid points? I should think so.

I will give credit where it is due and state that I like the advert for two things;

a)   It carries a very relevant message; that if you insist on being unfaithful, use a condom. I am sure that every woman or man who finds out that their spouse has been unfaithful, while they will be devastated at the betrayal, will be relieved when they find out that they were not put at risk in the process. It’s a straw, of sorts, to clutch onto in the face of danger posed by the sinking boat that is infidelity.

b)   It addresses the woman. Finally, someone somewhere has noticed that women play a part in infidelity. The many adverts that have been run before have appeared to believe that infidelity is gender sensitive.

It goes without saying that the advert is clearly resigned to the fact that infidelity or as it is known in Kenya, mpango wa kando, is part of our marriages today. The 'wacha mpango wa Kando' campaign seems to have failed miserably, yet this one has not elicited the desired reaction either.

That aside, I have no qualms joining the disgruntled voices of those advocating for its ban because of just one reason: the advert blatantly sells infidelity, not the use of condoms.

The woman in question states that her life would be miserable with baba Michelle (a miserable drunkard of a husband) but since “Mbugua wangu” came along, she is bila stress and Life is good. As if to prove this, she is out shopping for vegetables. A happy child of school-going age who we perceive to be her daughter runs to give her a hug as she goes about her business. Evidently, she is accepted by her child and her friend. The woman is all smiles, she looks healthy. Why wouldn't she be, she is having her cake and eating it. The crowning of the cake is that the society does not shun what she is doing any more-It is the norm, we insist, hence giving her impetus to keep the affair going. She has the audacity to share her shenanigans with a friend, who amid laughter and  ‘high-fives’ cautions her to ‘weka condom mpangoni’ in passing.

After selling all the good stuff to us about infidelity, the advert attempts to scare us by showing Mbugua, the mpango wa kando, taken by a younger girl. If you are cheating would you be overly surprised that your mpango wa kando could be cheating on you too? Sure, we are afraid. We are very afraid.

The advert endorses every action of the woman; she sneers at her drunkard husband and makes a mockery of the union of marriage by claiming to love her side dish. She shamelessly gambles with her children's future and stability and yet we maintain our cool. But when she reveals that she does not use a condom, now life stops? Don't we have our priorities warped? 

Are we saying that it is ok to cheat but a crime not to use protection while cheating?

Seeing as marriage is not a walk in the park and most women are persevering through the hardships, which woman wouldn't want to be mama Michelle? Who wouldn't want to partake of what is keeping mama Michelle glowing and happy despite the fact that her husband is a drunkard who has neglected her? Which woman wouldn't want to have their cake and eat it?

Every woman would! But sensible women know that two wrongs do not make a right. We are dealing with spouses who are people too, and these people have feelings. Families will be left hurt and betrayed. Last time I checked, a condom cannot mend broken hearts nor restore broken trust. So if any man or woman out there feels like they deserve better, do us all a favor; stop giving marriage a bad name and get the hell out!

When I see women, who have been the family anchors, the voices of reason, the people who have shown their children direction when their husbands are out there chasing skirts, when these same women start taking the direction of mama Michelle, and worse still with the support of men, I get worried. It scares me to think of what will become of our families, of our children in a few years to come.

I wouldn't have any problem with the advert if it was solely advocating for use of condoms in ANY relationship. But it sells infidelity instead. The tragedy is not that she is not using protection. The tragedy is that she is a married woman having sex outside marriage. Or is that not an issue any more?