By By Ganiu Bamgbose, PhD
The news of African children who are dissociated from their parents has become an unpleasant but regular song in the mouths of many parents. Under labels such as Gen-Z and Millennials, many are now parenting children with whom they only share financial bond. Bring the allowance; see you next month. The attention at the moment seems to be on those who have been sent abroad for greener pastures, but those of us in the teaching profession can tell you it is not just about foreign influence. Many undergraduates do not disclose their school schedules or exam timetables just so they can stay longer on campus or in school areas. Life in Nigeria has become a drift from a generation of students who used to be asked why they were always home to a generation of students who are begged to come home. The irony however is that the generation that prefers to be distant from home is the generation well-pampered at home, while the homely generation was the one for whom the rod was not spared. What does this say about parents and parenting?
This era has a generation of parents who want to provide for their children what they felt they lacked in care; thereby negotiating the boundary of being caring and becoming carefree. The generation of parents who were chastised for their words, their actions, their movements, their choices and so on now feel life is beyond chastisement. In the typical Nigerian home until the 90s, the horn of the father’s car or the sound of his voice was a call to order for the children. A wake at midnight by any of your parents was either for a revival on your buttocks or the kind of sermon even your pastor cannot deliver on the pulpit. It was a period you would not go home to tell your parents you were punished in school or by a neighbour. Of course you would know you stood a chance of a “second round” of punishment. Do not even talk about those of us who attended Arabic schools called “ilekewu” in southwestern Nigeria when “Alfa” would send your classmates to come bundle you from home right before your parents. It was not the period to pay for assistance in WAEC, impersonate children in JAMB or beg lecturers for admission as if they own the universities. It was a time parents were ready to let you sit WAEC three times and JAMB five times until you are academically sound enough to pass by yourself. That training produced the best of parents who are now professionals and would prefer to negotiate everything for their own children. Parents raised with little that they were able to manage well now provide everything for children who find it hard to make the best of it.
Was it so much fun growing up under this regimented home structure? No! Did we all even like our parents for these hard times then? No! But are we better off for it today? Yes! Do we look back today and thank our parents for those times? Yes! Do we recount these experiences with our siblings, friends and contemporaries with so much laughter? Of course yes! Now, are we so emotionally distant from our parents like the ones we overly pampered? Certainly No!
It must be mentioned too that the era of the rod was not one devoid of caregiving and affection. It was the time we looked forward to travelling to the village for Christmas or “Sallah” so we could see our cousins, nephews and our friends in the village. It was a time we had our village friends even as city children and we always prayed for festivities to come fast so we could bond. Such relationships built in us affection, compassion and consideration for others. On the contrary the care we give today is that which isolates our children from others. They do not know their cousins in the city, not to speak of the ones in the village. So it becomes okay for them to go and not look back. After all, they have just one man and one woman called their parents to miss and not a family or community of people. WhatsApp family groups make it easy to reach out to their siblings. If you are lucky as parents, they add you to it. Alternatively, they create the redundant one where you only send your morning devotion and announcements, and they have theirs where they bond virtually.
The ways of the old may not be entirely practicable today but they must not be completely jettisoned. Even the western world that does not use the rod anymore once created the idiom that says “spare the rod and spoil the child”. The rod, of course, is a metaphor for chastisement. It does not exactly mean hitting children even though it does not exclude it, but it means discouraging indiscipline, correcting bad habits and promoting virtuous lifestyle.
In conclusion, if the closer we get as parents is the farther they become as children, then we may conclude that the use of the rod is not the problem but the avoidance of its use. May we all enjoy a happy home!
(c) 2024 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University.
