Thought Picnic: The wonder of identity in kids

Were we ever kids?

There is a Yoruba song from which I derive a very poignant saying, and it goes, "Wonder if you grown-ups can swear that you were never kids before."

Such was it that as I queued up to check-in my baggage at the poorly manned KLM/Air France desk at Hamburg Airport, a family with two small kids arrived behind me, just as I offered to help a lady going to Ghana get her boarding pass when her German husband was flummoxed by the touch-screen technology.

All for play

They helped move my baggage along with the queue, but the boys were playfully boisterous that their mother was quite apologetic.

I dismissed her concerns as what was to be expected of kids excited about travel, to which she ruefully opined, it was not like the adverts of well-behaved and quiet kids holding the hands of their parents.

I responded we were all kids before and she replied with, 'Karma!’

The boys with probably 18 months between them with the older looking no older than 4, conversed agitatedly whilst jumping around a bit and then I saw an opportunity to introduce myself.

I shook hands with the elder whilst the younger was overcome with shyness that he ran to the refuge of his father's legs and started the hide-and-seek peeping game.

Polyglots by nature

They were returning to France, and yet I could see what the future of the world was in them, as the question, "Where are you originally from?" Will make no sense to them as it doesn't to me.

They spoke German with their parents, the parents conversed in English, she being probably a speaker of English as her first language as the father was German and the kids attended a bilingual French-English school.

As it happens, the kids will naturally speak German at home, French at school and will only speak English to people who could manage neither German nor French.

Identity by influence

I do not know where they were born, these are the archetypal third-culture kids who are defined more by environment and experience than by where their parents are from. The issue of originality is complex, if not confused, just as it is for me.

When I am asked where I am originally from, it is not an identity crisis to say I am English, I was born in England, yet my parents are Nigerian, but we have different identities and experiences.

I have lived in Nigeria and have been fortunate to master Yoruba as a second language and Hausa at a rudimentary level, but I am more defined by the wealth of many cultural influences - English, Nigerian and lately Dutch.

No pigeonhole identity

The fact is many will have to begin to appreciate is that we no more fit into the traditional pigeonholes of singular national identities and we will not repudiate any of those influentially diverse identities, but embrace them as third-culture kid world citizens.

The passport is just a travel document, we are a lot more than what it says we are. As for the boys, they could not care less who they were, they were happy and it is really the system that forces us to identify with a nationality, they probably have the choice of one of three passports, a decision will be made by their parents until they decide otherwise.

Yet we must never belittle the world of wonder that is the world of kids, oblivious of these strictures and expressive of their will within the loving care of responsible parents.

Holiday Snaps: The message to kids about the times

A mind on the run

Wandering thoughts as the mayhem and noise around you gets blanked out for the mind to consider, contemplate, ruminate and meditate.

Between the madness of the outrageous to that goodness of the sublime pictures and scenarios are created, analysed and discarded one thought jumping to another without any sense of how they link up.

Cleaning up with English

The sign I saw, “Need? Clean you house, #”, got me thinking about how English can be so forgiving that we almost fully understand what is intended. This was no doubt a collision of Spanish and German aspiring to a global audience.

A little help from an English friend would have cleared out your house not leaving a speck of dust and the malapropisms that accompany describing a mess. “Do you need to clean your house?” or “House Cleaner Needed?” for brevity and directness, but everyone seems to have the notion of being better users of English than they really are.

Just because their command of English is better than your fluency in their language does not automatically mean their command of English is of the quality that allows for publication of good notices, it only means you can both communicate, even if barely so.

From David to everything else

Children; sons and daughters; their parents and the interactions but it never ceases to amaze me the resemblances I notice seeing that visage of the father or the eyes of the mother, evidence without the need for intrusive testing.

Michelangelo’s David is probably the most perfect specimen of how a man should look; the excess of lipid tissue or muscle just does not enhance the appreciation of that bearing.

When a child begins to take on features that prognosticate a future of obesity, there is need to worry why we do not allow kids to work themselves out a bit and keep fit for the sake that it would be good for them as much as it would be good for the parents. However, in the absence of good example the future might be bleak.

At breakfast, it was not the three musketeers but musculars if that word might be permitted, just this once. Walking with arms almost akimbo not because they have taken that pose but the gym has seen too many visits that the muscles have become a deformity. Muscle Marys, they are called and they are – Oh! Not so David, trust me.

Hard times for tough people

The times are tough, hard and difficult, more businesses have closed, bars have notices that have hung there for months and there have been no takers.

The ones that have stayed open to the high season are having brisk business, in the years since I wrote the blog about settling in Gran Canaria things have changed and people have had to adapt to the situation and circumstances.

I braved the carterista (pick-pocket in Spanish) shops for a cable and was pleasantly surprised at being offered the cable at 33% less the price tag without having even seen the price, maybe lessons have been learnt that we would go elsewhere than be fleeced.

As for the chap who has been frazzled by the warmth of Canarian sunshine that he is planning to settle here, if you can survive these times, you will definitely live here a long time.

I must spare a thought for those who gave up everything for the hard life in the sun with the hope that they will retire here and had to make the very difficult decision of closing shop, the brave and courageous fight to avoid failure in which they might have lost homes too, returning to their lands of origin hopefully plotting a return – these have been really hard times and everyone knows that.

Thought Picnic: Kids having kids

Break a bottle or two

Just consider a situation where a parent walked into a vintage wines shop where the average price of a bottle was for instance $2,000, just to satisfy their curiosity. Having in tow a toddler or even an adolescent child who then decides to try juggling bottles of Chateau Lafite 1954 as he saw on a cocktail demonstration on television.

Or maybe just a crockery shop where the child just takes plates off the shelf without care or concern, I would assume the parent would exercise authority with a firm caution and possible reprimand knowing that the damage caused by the child would be exacted in penalties against them.

The proud father at 13

My Though Picnic revolves around parent, child, responsibility and consequences.

The news looked interesting enough, a 13-year old boy in the UK had just become a father, the picture that appeared in the papers had father looking not a day over 9 and mother who is 15 looking like his really big sister and daughter born after the bird and the bees moved off the trees into some serious reality.

Apparently, the girl fell pregnant after having sex with her boyfriend – but the pictures also showed how girls who mature earlier than boys made this look like a family photo of siblings rather than parents and child.

An ancestry almost vile

The grandparents of the new born baby who have no discernable income apart from that of the lowly paid paternal grandfather makes the story all the more saddening and visiting an indictment on what our society has become.

None of the grandparents are in a normal family setting, all divorced and separated; something was definitely missing in the early education of the new parents.

First of all is the matter of consequence – sex between kids barely adolescent can produce, wait for it – A PREGNANCY. Then the matter of responsibility, what do these kids know of fending for themselves before ending up with a child?

Then being from broken homes with jobless separated parents on welfare, this piece of news generates more odium than should be accorded the little bundle of joy that is the result of a complete breakdown of responsibility.

Responsibility and consequence

It is very much like a few broken bottles or plates in the shops visited by the parents with their child only that now in the case of a teenage pregnancy and baby the parents are not being held accountable to the point of exacting costs and penalties.

There is no telling that if I were to engage in a business transaction that needed financing the source of finance would enquire of my ability to maintain payments through all sorts verification and authentication.

With the news of the single mother of six children living in a 3-bedroom apartment with her parents now having octuplets through in-vitro fertilisation treatment the question of affordability following responsibility cannot be overlooked.

Affording your children

People should just not have children beyond their ability to offer a good environment for upbringing without relying on charity or welfare. For many, the birth of a child might be a divine gift but the fact is God did not engage in the act of copulation and it required the human-being to adopt a suitable kind of contraception.

There is a case for society creating a means-testing approach to having children just as people are not allowed to drink, drive or vote until they reach a certain age.

Where those societal checks cannot be implemented and enforced then there should be a case of age-related contraceptive neutering – not so much for removing the organs but making the potency of the usage of those organs ineffective until an age of responsibility has been reached.

Time-limited impotence vaccine

Perish the thought that this kind of sexual-organ docility can be introduced through an infant vaccine which wears off as the person approaches 18.

Beyond this, the matter of the 15 year old mother gives cause for concern where her mother allowed her boyfriends to spend the night with her at home – so much so that the 13 year old boy is now asking for a DNA test as proof of paternity because the girl had apparently been offering pleasures to many a man.

At which point I could have fainted with incredulity but this is no time for moralising the matter there is a lot at stack for them, for society and the media-feeding frenzy that now has the grandparents salivating with the thought of making money of the back of this seeming societal tragedy.

No abortion? Then pay up

My biggest wagging finger would however go to the good-intentioned organisations of religious atrocity whose dogmatic adherence to the cult of life abhorring abortion never goes beyond lip service.

Until those organisations really wade into the matter of their principled positions of non-abortion by offering viable and usable care and support through counselling, parental guidance and monetary commitment their noise is piffle and they are hypocrites of the highest order.

No good at all

There is nothing of societal good in having children who cannot fend for themselves having children of their own where even their parents are not effective and beneficial contributors in the society where they belong.

It all lends a lie to the whole moral debate on these matters which can be summarised as follows – parents should provide good sex education to their kids; kids should not be experimenting with sex; if they are then they should have easy access to contraception; kids having kids is just not on and where there is no clear evidence as to how the child would have a life of comfort better than that of those who brought it into the world – adoption is an option whilst abortion should not be ruled out.

Basically, this is serious business, no boy should be proud of being a father at 13, no girl of 15 should be proud of having slept around that the owner of the pregnancy is in dispute, no parent should be seen to be encouraging these kinds of liaisons and no new-born child should be assaulted with the irresponsibility that pervades this sorry tale.

The innocent party to this tale are the child and the octuplets – if only for all that is good in this world they be extricated from the madness into which they have been born which calls for a cold hard look and what is becoming rabid news material but a sad reflection on our sense of responsibility.

Note:

Thought Picnics are a series of random thoughts where thinking the unthinkable becomes part of the conversation to excite debate.

Techies have kids too

Without a bang!

One cannot say that Microsoft TechEd IT Forum in Barcelona ended with a bang, the last session stretched to 16:30, everyone collected their bags and many had checked out of their hotels in the morning and made their way to the airport for their flights back home.

There was no social after-party and it did not appear any had been arranged impromptu; I can understand that many companies having lost the physical presence of their techies for a week but kept them on leash through their Blackberrys, phones and ubiquitous laptops would not countenance the idea of a free weekend in the beautiful city of Barcelona, especially if they are paying.

Many were missing their young families already and that is if they did not have duties stacked up for them to do the moment they land back at home.

There were some that brought their families but they never had them for company except after the sessions which ended late every day.

Techies have kids too

One sight that impressed and amused me was a session called Internet Safety for Kids delivered by Laura Chappell, usually, when a session is full, the spillover is a monitor outside the door with probably 3 people observing the session, I even attending one like that.

This session had a large spillover, with people sitting on the floor outside, I would suppose this means a larger forum and place needs to be set up for such a seminar, next time. More importantly, if no one has ever noticed, techies, geeks, and propeller-heads are flesh and blood, like you and me, they breathe, they feel and they are human-beings affected by everyday things.

Wait for it! Techies have kids, nieces or nephews and they are just as concerned about technological advancements at work as they are about the safety of children when they roam the Wild-West of the Internet.

Besides, many are engaged in other activities as de-facto consultants at home, to neighbours, to schools and other community services that require learned people pro-bono to ensure their systems are safe and the users are even safer.

Internet Safety for Kids is where you can find information, material and detail about this presentation.

Server Core Command Prompt

I have always said I cannot be a UNIX geek because I do not have long enough hair to grow a pony-tail if any at all – Windows Server 2008 is taking us back to the days of the command prompt with a lightweight but extensible base installation called Server Core. [A new URL for the Server Core link was posted 02/04/2019 as I was informed of a broken link by Naomi Vojt of CompariTech. Thank you.]

Yes, you get a command prompt, you can use a Graphical User Interface if you elect to install a fuller version of Windows Server 2008, but this was geeky and we all need to dust off our command-line skills as a demonstration of edlin showed how long we had been in this line of work.

Anyway, it means respect has arrived at the door of Windows experts and now Linux town-criers who think the world revolves around their geekery might suddenly find themselves grudgingly admitting Microsoft buffs to the fold of nerds.

Advent of the management techie

If anything, all that I learnt at this forum was everything we do from this time on requires serious planning; point-and-click does not deliver solutions and technical people need to take on a management perspective of business needs and goals, and then tailor solutions to meet them.

Well, that has never been far from my mind and perspective, but there are many technical people who need to review how they see ones and zeroes and what makes a business gain competitive advantage through IT solutions.

Preparing for Microsoft TechEd IT Forum 2008 already – over and out!

I remember this tummy ache

I hate this feeling

I hate feeling ill, I can’t stand the pain of the symptoms, and I can’t stand the itch after medication, but they are things I have experienced time and again.

Now, I must say, despite a condition that some might term terminal I have been in really good health for years, and long may that continue – I have only had to visit hospital once some 3 years ago and that was the emergency room when acute tonsillitis was about to seal off my airways – the doctor was of the mind of keeping in hospital.

I was, however, prescribed some strong antibiotics, a rarity in the Netherlands, and the thing cleared up in days, but I found that I lost 5 kilograms in 4 days – I wish I had kept that weight off.

One other visit involved venesection (blood-letting), well, that is what I would call it; by the time the fifth vial was being filled, I was about to pass out; they had to run a battery of tests, and thankfully, I left feeling not too bad after the results were revealed.

It’s that tummy again

So, this morning, this pain that I have known since I was a kid came back, a severe kind of tummy ache that no one has properly diagnosed or treated. I groan, I grab, I have the runs, and I sometimes get sick from an empty stomach – it is such a rotten feeling.

I first had this when I was about 7 years old; my mother was beside herself in not knowing what to do after the doctors just said it would subside; it did subside, but not till after 12 hours of what was essentially a labour, to which I could not receive the respite of an epidural.

I have had probably 6 different attacks like this, and so this morning, I remembered as I felt it all before and had to call in sick. All I could do was lie on my belly with a soft pillow underneath, and then visit the toilet or sick bowl as required, whilst fielding calls from work because I am off to Stockholm tomorrow.

Shielding the child from the truth

One thing I have realised from these strange ailments is that, as a young child, I was always shielded from the details or diagnosis that the doctor had made. For instance, I have not been able to determine from my parents why two biopsies were taken from my sides when I was 6 - the Internet helps now.

For instance, I was more or less eavesdropping when I learnt that my short-sightedness/astigmatism was a probable situation picked up at birth when a lot of light was shone in my eyes; kids sometimes have questions but we are never present to participate in situations and circumstances that concern us, I probably would have asked if it could be corrected because I was rotten at tennis; I could not track the ball for distance and speed - I found out it could have been corrected when I was a kid when I had the opportunity to ask the question myself some 20 years on - imagine my pique.

There is this prevalent thinking, especially within our Yoruba culture, where children are shielded from events in the home when, in fact, we can sense when things are not right, but have no one to ask about it. Unresolved issues damage people.

The memory of kids

We are kids, we cannot make these decisions, they think, well, we may not have that opportunity to make decisions, ask questions or get answers, but I know we have memories to remember when we were treated as insignificant when we should have been the most significant.

I would not even go into the area where the questions are loaded in such a way as to get the desired answers.

However, the greatest damage is done when, in some cases, a child has lost a parent, and they are not allowed to grieve, and if they do, they are usually not there to do that customary ashes-to-ashes thing.

The pain is the same for adults and kids

Even as a child, I thought that it was cruel to the extreme to exclude a child from such a solemn but very sad ceremony, especially when I witnessed how distraught an adult was when she was not able to make it to the burial of a mentor in time before he was buried.

Like I said to my uncle years ago – We, the kids, saw everything, heard everything, and knew everything, even if you, the parents, thought we didn’t.

Never has it been more important to talk to the kids and listen to what they have to say. In many cases, they have difficult questions, and though parents might be afraid of odd questions, I know I have never wanted to ask if I would die from whatever I was suffering from at that time.

I feel a lot better now, but what an ordeal the day was. I never want to feel this way again, I know that much.

Irksome airport landings

Baggage handling

Despite all the automation and technology involved in baggage handling at airports, the end of the chain still requires the man-handling of luggage to and from the cargo hold of planes.

Sometimes I have looked from inside the plane how bags get thrown, dumped or dropped, even with the occasional panicky official who has just noticed some baggage is about to leave on the wrong plane.

There was one instance, a suitcase was dropped a good 2 metres from the belt to the ground, I could say I felt ever bit of that drop and the possible consequences, as 7 years ago when the mishandling of my luggage by a no-frills airline had my laptop in pieces. I have not done no-frills since that episode.

The herd embarks

What really gets to me is the herd mentality of boarding and disembarking from a plane, the way people rush to get on considering we all have pre-assigned seats, people with seats in the aisles what to be on first and then discomfited by passengers with window seats, as if getting on early means you get to the destination faster.

Keep seat belts fastened ignored

Then on landing, as the aircraft taxies to a gate, the seat belt fastened lights are still on and some cretin gets up to open the overhead lockers to get his stuff, at which time other members of the cretin club get up to do the same whilst the plane is yet to come to a complete standstill.

At one time the cabin crew had to bark the order for all to sit down and fasten their seat belts. One wonders how getting up first to get your stuff is going to help you get out of the airport first when a majority of luggage is checked in, though I would not be surprised if some had also checked in their brains and with their manners, consideration and smartness.

Then just as the plane comes to a halt, lights still warning to keep seat belts fastened, they still get up and open the lockers grab their stuff and the wait standing for possibly 5 to 10 minutes before they are able to disembark and there is no way they would get their stuff from baggage reclaim any earlier than those who have been patient to get off the plane gracefully.

Mobiles off planes

It looks like impatience and stupidity vying for prominence in their heads.

Beyond that, there is that other herd stampede that occurs the moment we arrive, all mobile phones go off and everyone is calling arranging meets, dinner, coffees and so on, all these can wait till they are out in the arrival lounge but the fact that too many people are complete addicts to information and slaves of electronic communication; it is a blessing that a flight still has the sanctity of a mobile phone free zone even though the science of not using mobile phones on planes is suspect.

Methinks mobile phones should be checked in and not allowed in hand luggage though there are other security consequences for that, the rule to keep them switched off completely is good enough for me, it should be extended to say they should never be switched on in a plane.

In fact, the plane should be a Faraday Cage of sorts which is let down only in emergencies.

Kids at play

The final peeve is at baggage reclaim, what has been checked in is probably quite heavy luggage, but then you find that kids are allowed to run around the baggage belt and stand in the way of bigger people who really know their business about standing there.

In some cases, there is a complete lapse in discipline; the kids get on the belt, in one case the kid was pulling off stuff twice his size and the rotten parents proudly looked on at the initiative of their devil kid.

In exasperation, just before the kid gets mangled in the conveyor belt mechanism, one helps giving a look that could kill the parents only that the result of their deaths might leave one the guardian of an orphaned devil kid - one cannot live with that.

Once out of the airport, the relief that one has been separated from these crazy people is the joy of being on holiday or having returned to home sweet home.