Building a good relationship with your kids

In the past, I had written a blog that talks about how different African parents show their love towards their kids. Unlike the westerners who get to tell their kids that they love them and even hug them every chance they get, we don't do that here. Not because there's a rule against it, but because our parents are always trying to be tough that they forget how to be gentle and affectionate towards their children.

And sadly, most of us end up doing the same thing to our kids and the circle just continues. What's even more sad is the fact that we see nothing wrong with any of it because that is the only way we were raised, it's the only way we know to train a child. I remember telling you guys how my family is even worse with the whole feelings thing because we never say "I love you" to each other (even though we do), and we never have celebrated any of our birthdays.

To be honest, when I made that post, I was writing based on the memory of my childhood and so it wasn't that personal seeing how it was based on my past, until something happened recently that reminded me that none of this is just my past, but actually my present life.

My aunt had sent me a text on WhatsApp some few days ago, asking me if I had any pictures of my dad on my phone. She had started her text with "Longest time" as a form of sarcasm because she has always wanted me to come visit her but I keep on postponing. Anyways, I had told her I didn't have the pictures at first because the request was a strange one. No one in the family has ever asked for anyone's photo before, so I was scared.

But when she told me it was for his birthday, I knew I couldn't go back on my word and tell her I had his photo, so I had redirected her to my brothers. But you see, this text right here was what reminded me of my dad's birthday. I've lived with the man all my life and yet every year, I never remember his birthday and that is because my dad doesn't care and he doesn't even tell anyone about it...I was probably twenty years old when I first found out about his birthday date and that was because my mom had mentioned it..That's how crazy the whole thing is.

Anyway, for some reason my aunt wanted to break the birthday curse this year and wanted to actually make this birthday special. The plan had been to make him a picture portrait, send him some cash gifts and sing birthday songs to him over the phone. Now, making a picture portrait and sending cash gifts
I can do, but the singing over the phone part however was something I found myself struggling with.

My aunt had sent a song that we all were to memorize and sing on that day and normally this wouldn't be a big deal if I was singing it to a friend, but singing it to my dad was almost like me saying "I love you dad" and giving him a hug... We don't do that here!

Well, it eventually got to his birthday and I found myself having cold feet with the whole thing. Turns out this whole thing was a much more bigger problem than I had thought. Like, I'm pretty sure if someone was dying and all I needed to do for that person to not die is say "I love you dad" to my dad's face, that person might have a 60/40 percent chance of not making it alive and that is because this whole thing that I thought was a childhood problem was more than that.

And to be honest, I should blame my dad about this whole thing because although he tried his best in raising us right, he ignored a very important part of our childhood which was encouraging us to show our love for one another as a family.. But then I'm an adult now and should take responsibility for anything happening in my life right now.

Which is why I'm trying to do better now, although this might take a while. And no, I ended up not singing the birthday song. I hope I don't end up regretting it in the future.