Parents Need To Learn To Apologise
If there's one thing African parents need to start doing, it's owing up to their mistakes and not trying to shake it off because "we're their kids and they don't have to apologise to us for being wrong".
Earlier today, I had a test that I was to write in school but something came up and the lecturer decided to postpone and seeing how I had no other lectures for that day, the first thing that crossed my mind was to walk back home. But I had just walked to school about thirty minutes ago and still felt exhausted so I decided to go rest under this huge mango tree with the rest of my course-mates, the mango tree has always been like a kind of a meeting place for us whenever we didn't feel like sitting in class.
Anyways, with all of the boys there, a conversation was bound to happen and it did. We began to talk about school and how we probably had some few weeks left to be graduates and be done with school. And so we talked about the holidays and where we all plan on spending it. A lot of people talked about going back home, while some talked about traveling or staying back in school, everyone was just mentioning places but one particular guy though decided to go into details why he has no plans of going back home anytime soon.
He began to tell us the story of how he had spent about two years at home after high-school with no job. Whenever all of his siblings and parents went out to work, be would remain at home to take care of the dishes, cook and basically was the Caretaker of the house but then he started to notice something.
Whenever everyone was out and it was just him and his dad at home and he goes to ask his dad money for breakfast before his dad leaves for work, his old man always made sure to leave comments like "Your mates are in school and you're here eating or your mate are out there working and you're at home doing nothing".
He said that whenever his dad said things like that, it always left him hurt and it got to a stage where he stopped asking his dad for cash. He would starve himself until later in the evening when his mom came back home with foodstuff for them to cook and eat and that is when he would eat. But being a young lad at that age, the whole thing was eating him up from the inside and he needed to talk to someone, so he had told his mom everything.
His mom felt sorry for him and tried to tell him that his dad didn't mean it that way which he didn't believe because he knew she was going to say that (he was her husband afterall). Anyways, fast forward to the next day after everyone had left home and it was just him and daddy again, his dad had called him and told him what his mother had told him (the dad) the other night and sincerely, when my course mate got to this part of the story, I had thought he was going to tell us that maybe his dad apologised or tried to make him understand that he had said all of that to motivate him or something, but nope.
His dad had gone the African dad way and had threatened his son. He had threatened him that the next time he doesn't ask him for breakfast money, he was going to make sure he doesn't eat anything at all in that house for the rest of the day. So basically his dad had give him two choices, it was either he goes back to collecting money from his dad or he just starves to death.
Well, my course mate said that ever since that day, he had only one prayer in mind and it was for God to get him out of that house and that if he did, he was never going back, he might go back to visit for some few days but he was never going to stay there for long.
Now looking at that story, one could tell that the dad was trying to motivate his son to be better, although he was doing it the wrong way, he had good intentions for his son. But then the moment he realized that his technique wasn't exactly working the way he wanted, rather it was messing his son up, the best thing he could have done after his wife told him what was happening, was to call the boy and make him see why he was saying those things to him, make him understand you.
If he had done that simple thing, his son won't be scarred up till this day and maybe he would have a son who's happy to return home during the holidays.
It is great to have this opportunity to share in a group. I remember my high school days because of this, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading 🙂.
Most African parents behaves this way..I am glad to be different 😉....these children have emotions too, they deserves some respects and apologies when needed and not one kind authoritative kind of parenting
I don't blame that young man..his parents should have done better and he will be happy going home more often
Thanks for sharing
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I'm glad to hear that you're different Nkem.. It really doesn't hurt for parents to admit to their mistakes every now and then.
Thanks for the gift 😊.
Honestly, this topic should not end here, rather it should be a national one. An average parent in our society thinks that their kids while young can be overridden anyhow simply because they have birth to and cloth them.
Now, some parents might not necessarily have bad intentions in how they talk like this.
But there needs to be a line drawn because interpretations may differ from the speaker and the listener. When statements like the above consistently hits a weary heart, it turns in some sort of pressure. And this has made young lads to go into ways that they themselves never thought they could.
Exactly my point. There are many kids out there doing a lot of crazy things that they probably wouldn't have gotten into if they had understanding and caring parents, and not the ones that would pressure you into doing things you shouldn't be doing.
Very well, you got the point! That's why in as much as parents want to 'ginger' their kids, they better use good examples and review their methods of doing so per time. Cos a good kid today who you want your child to emulate might turn into something else tomorrow.
In the same way parents never get to apologize because we are their children and they can say anything to us at any time even if we stand with our friends and they insult us. So we don't have any right to tell them to apologize if we do that it is very wrong. Parents can say anything to their children because they care about their children the most.
Well it shouldn't be that way. Parents are humans and humans make mistakes.. So they should own up to their mistakes when they do.
Yeah I totally agree with you.
Comparison is not a good thing and what parents do that then nothing can be worse than it. I feel lucky my parents don't do that thing with me. Once my mother compared me with another person and I straight forward said " if you want me to like him then, I will acquire all of his good and bad habits. I will be his carbon copy if you want but after that you can't complain about it. Will you agree with it? ". After that time she never tried to compare with me with others 😅.
Comparison is really bad to be honest.. Sometimes they need to understand that everyone has different timing and also different destinies.. Because Mr A is doing good today doesn't mean Mr B won't do good tomorrow.