Thought Picnic: Don't mistake a troubled child for a bad one

Not a conversation

By happenstance, I was recently privy to a conversation and that is in the broadest terms between an uncle (Julius) and his nephew (Fabier) on the nephew’s birthday. There was probably a case of me eavesdropping, but it provided the opportunity for some reflection.

The first part of the conversation which we agreed in the end, was not a conversation covered the general issues of the vociferous against the tongue-tied. Julius in what looked like a conversation asked seemingly leading questions and Fabier in cantankerous mode answered in striking monosyllables in either the negative or affirmative.

A stifled freedom to talk

Now, I have experienced that with my niece times before where my labour of attempting to get her to string a 5-word sentence together at the minimum was literally ineffective. The fact is, these nieces and nephews are neither that shy or tongue-tied, we just have not developed the setting for a free-flowing interaction and communication that comes with the freedom of our younger relations to express themselves without fear or inhibition.

I find the need to work on this relationship building activity the more because there are critical elements of the childhood development experience that we might miss which could have lasting consequences on the life and outlook of the child.

I say this because, the questions veered into areas of Fabier’s school, how he was enjoying classes if he was making friends and whether he was settling in fine, all which Fabier suggested in his monosyllabic answers was alright.

Fabier is a bad boy

Fabier passed his phone back to his mother (Mary), and there Mary regaled to Julius her brother how Fabier was really not fitting in at school, his personal hygiene levels had declined to the point of concern and excoriation, the report gave Julius the leverage to demand a change in attitude from Fabier or else Fabier would lose the promised presents and possibly some goodwill of his uncle.

The long and short of the second exchange where Fabier literally said nothing and Julius said everything was Fabier had been, a really bad boy.

The telling off of Fabier would have been pleasing to Mary, but I do not think in my heart of hearts that it helped Fabier one bit.

I was Fabier again

That second conversation between Julius and Fabier was a replay of a similar conversation I had with many elderly relations of mine 40 years ago when I was sent to a secondary boarding school half a country away from my parents in the hope of my parents that I would be toughened up and will learn more of our culture, language, and traditions.

My first term was hellish, I was consistently bed-wetting, I took no baths seeing that we had to fetch water from a forbidden grotto in the forest just before dawn, my night was disturbed by apparitions and ghosts that had me reciting Psalm 23 hundreds of times in the night. My life was a nightmare and it was a nightmare to my fellow schoolmates.

I know that of all the real help I needed, I got nothing, there were mental, psychological and emotional issues at play that received no professional help, I was supposed to be like others, stoic, responsible, able and applied to the duty to which I was called, to excel at school.

Not one solution worked

The solutions proffered included animist rituals, spiritualist entreaties, amulets, and shamanist cuts into which concoctions of varying potency were applied, none of which addressed a fundamental issue.

A child who had suffered emotional trauma some months before who had already for the first time spend 5 months away from the structured environment of home where again the matter of child sexual abuse by the servants never got addressed, was now flung to the winds for fend for himself and you expect him to perform to expectation?

A child does not bed wet just as an act of rebellious vandalism, there are fundamental psychological issues at play, using shame, disgrace, deprivation of comforts or corporal punishment, as weapons of dissuasion might appear to work in the immediate term, but it also internalises unresolved issues.

Can we try something else?

In most cases, what a child needs is understanding leading to encouragement to express themselves freely of their fears and their hopes, not the full weight of adult imposition exacting punishment and price to force them to do our bidding.

Children are in and of themselves free and independent moral agents, they are no mules. They are can be positively moulded with affirmation and approbation over criticism, comparison and condemnation.

Whilst in the face of the labours of parenthood, parents might not seem to have time to attend to the emotional needs of a child, those are probably the most critical needs of a child above anything else and it rarely gets addressed.

In the quest to make our children fear and respect us, we have lots an essential channel of communication that sometime in the adulthood of that child would be an unrelenting indictment of the kind of parenthood they endured.

Some parents wonder why their children are estranged and a lot of it points to the things they considered insignificant, in mistaking a troubled child for a bad one.

Are you the playful adult?

It goes without saying that a child needs at least one playful adult in their relationships, one whom they can trust, in whom they can confide, with whom they can find the freedom to be themselves and know that they are not only being listened to, they are being understood, encouraged, given advice and helped along in the most difficult times.

40 years ago, I was not a bad boy, I was a troubled child who needed more help than anyone was able or ready to appreciate or understand, and today too, Fabier is NOT a bad boy, yet, he has been cast as a recalcitrant and irresponsible boy, we as uncles, aunts, parents and guardians repeating the mistakes of generations past where the child was only to be seen but never heard.

Stop the generational abuse

I cried rivers of tears for Fabier as that ‘conversation’ developed, he was not going to get the present promised him if he did not change and his mother was going to report the progress on his conduct for further action to be taken.

Let’s stop the generational abuse pretending to child rearing and upbringing already and humble ourselves to stoop to the eye level of the child, offer a hug, offer comfort, offer assurance, offer to understand, and offer a listening ear, the time for standing over and talking down to the 'miscreant' is over.

We had tough parents, it does not excuse us being tougher obdurate parents, guardians, uncles, aunts or older relations too.

Give the child the chance to glow and blossom, this will only come with giving them full personhood and respect for their individuality, views, and circumstances.

Postscript: I asked the permission of Julius to write this blog, we had a discussion on this matter and he agreed that there were valid issues to discuss.

Opinion: Education still remains the safeguard of democracy

The worst form of government

Observing things in our world today and how democracy has yielded interesting dividends and results, you begin to wonder whether choice and consequence are properly informed deliberations of the people who exercise the privilege to choose who presides over their affairs.

Winston S. Churchill did say, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” This would suggest there is no better means of choosing a government except through democracy.

The safeguard of democracy

Yet, a quote I came upon this morning through the post of a tweet which had the picture of a London Underground notice board with an inscription encapsulated in one thought what I have been trying to say for months.

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt was a contemporary of Winston S. Churchill and in the quotes above they seemed to grasp both the inadequacies and the consequences of democratic choice.

The absence of immediate feedback

Unfortunately, when a voter enters the privacy and sanctity of the ballot box to place a tick or a cross against the name of a person, a party or a plebiscite option, there is no immediate feedback as to the consequence of that choice. The kind of feedback you will get from sticking your finger in a live electric socket would by terms be the necessary democratic component for those who have not bothered to safeguard their democratic choice through education.

The knowledge that sticking one’s finger in a live electric socket would cause an electric shock leading to possible death through electrocution can be one gained from personal experience, the experience of others or facts about what electricity can do. That becomes the applied wisdom that prevents us doing harm to ourselves and what compels us to inform others of the impending harm to others who might not be aware of the dangers of playing with electricity.

The new anti-intellectualism

Yet, in the recent rancorous #Brexit debate of 2016, we had the then Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, of all people say that, “I think people in this country, have had enough of experts.” In a nutshell, Mr. Gove had defined the strain of anti-intellectualism that feeds the populist mantra of politicians who were once confined to the fringes who have now taken the spoils of democracy and won at the polls.

With some of the recent democratic results, it is amazing how many have eschewed education, logic, truth and facts in making their choices. We have adopted the better of the worst form of government and made choices that appear to have not been done wisely, or where we have fully convinced ourselves that we are wise, it does not appear to be wisdom based on fact, truth or evidence.

The rhetoric has won us over and like someone hypnotised or mesmerised, we have confidently and collectively stuck our fingers in a live electric socket, the consequence of which would be lasting.

The dangers we face

We must, in the end, respect the majority decision of the electorate, but we must not ignore that in some cases where life and livelihood depend on these choices, the wisdom of fools in the setting of a rampaging mob on the move, has won the day.

It goes without saying that democracy is the worst form of government and it will get no better with anti-intellectualism, misinformation, propaganda, rhetoric and outright lies captivation our ability to reason with the reasonable and exercise all the virtues of reasonableness in the voting booth.

Thought Picnic: Challenging disabling traditions

Cutting loose

Tradition is a disabler, that makes deference remove the need for reference, and projects the need for respect over the necessity for retrospect.

The truth is lost in the sophistry of saving face such that the irritable elements of our culture entrenches entitlement without demanding responsibility.

Yet, there is no school of tradition or a college of culture, we are supposed to glean all the intricacies of norms, mores and comportment by osmosis, from observation or just the fact that we have forebears that held beliefs that we never were educated to imbibe, but must conform to.

Taboos exist that have no basis in fact, science or truth, apart from a list of don’ts, musts and commands. No matter how well-educated we are, we are never to challenge or question these age-old mysteries or we risk the wrath of some vague, superstitious and terrible outcome, the dread of which keeps us in line.

Excusing things

Caught between these conflicting demands of subservience and independence, we are rarely near where we can emancipate ourselves from the mental slavery and bondage of practising the worst of these subcultures over the beneficial parts.

From where the elder caught lying is given the bye and excuse that they can never lie to where certain reprehensible deeds are never discussed where the discussion in these times would definitely lead to a better resolution of issues.

We are constantly emotionally blackmailed by those who repeatedly find ways to enfeeble bold expression with required gratitude for what essentially is both their duty and responsibility. An aversion to these debilitating subcultures sets you up for being an outcast.

Self-preservation is key

The question then becomes; would we always subsume education and enlightenment to keep the cultural peace and barely get along under the false pretence that all is well?

It is without any doubt that many of these unresolved conflicts in relationships that tax the soul to the point of occasioning mental illness are the sources of stress, hypertension and worse.

Disengagement is a self-preservation ploy, little understood, but critical to personal wellbeing. The way we rationalise our actions and reactions are selfish modes of keeping ahead of the maelstrom of encumbering and damaging societal requirements.

Thought Picnic: Alone and thoughtful of the week passing

Collecting my thoughts

Alone at home with the opportunity to collect my thoughts at the end of a terrible week of sorrowful news, my therapy begins here.

Entrenched in our bunkers of grief at the passing of a sister survived by aging parents and much older siblings everyone is ensconced somewhere on the spectrum of the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief.

I cannot speak in any clarity of the reaction of others, but on receiving the news on Tuesday, I was quite shocked but not surprised. I understood to some extent the graveness of the diagnosis having had some doctor friends of mine independently assess the situation and offer a general prognosis.

In miracles of medicine

In view of that, I was already preparing myself for an eventuality against the hopes and anticipations of others who’s only fading desire was for a miracle. I do believe in miracles, miracles of human ingenuity that has come through amazing advances in knowledge and technology.

Human physiology, however, reacts in different ways to thought processing and medicine, the outcomes then determine by reason of speed and progress whether something miraculous has happened or not.

Respite and relapse are not miracles, remission might look miraculous, but we do have to look elsewhere for the underpinning elements of our unresearched assumptions of the miraculous. I have read of miracles, but I have seen no evidence of any from a conclusively scientific point of view.

Believing in human ingenuity

When I faced the prospect of a terminal prognosis from cancer some 7 years ago, I know when I stopped hoping for a miracle and went for the understanding and knowledge of medicine. They knew what the ailment was, knew how to treat it, but had a simple caveat, it all depended on how I could withstand the treatment, failing which, I would be dead in 5 weeks.

I survived and there is no doubt that medicine played a major part in that, but my ability to withstand the onslaught of chemotherapy was strengthened by my Christian faith. The end of the matter was that it took a considerably lesser time for the cancer lesions to heal and my doctors and nurses termed that miraculous. I accept that with much gratitude and thankfulness.

Failings of Nigerian healthcare systems

We had no such choices in the medical institutions in Nigeria, the sometime foremost teaching hospital could not conclusively determine the ailment and as they charged inordinate sums of money never did have the means or equipment to start any of the ameliorating treatments necessary whilst we sought a better medical opinion of the real situation.

On knowing what the situation was, there were different forces at play, from the desperate and imposing to the rational and pragmatic, within that dynamic more confusion took hold over the need to coalesce and communicate. Browbeaten by a system that demanded trust without question, there were splits in decision-making and consequently, division leading to rancour.

On choices, outcomes, and reactions

The principal in the matter rarely had a say in whatever outcomes were proposed even though she had in no uncertain terms clearly indicated what her choices were. I probably was too understanding about what she was adamant of and accepting of that viewpoint that she was no more fighting and so I did not press an alternative or find the need to persuade otherwise.

Beneath the whole thing, I was very angry and very sad, angry that so much could have been better managed long before it became critical, angrier that the more primitive of passions ruled over the rational mind in the many syncretic rituals that were supposed to have put this whole matter at bay decades ago.

I was apoplectic with rage at the absence of the support for the discipline necessary to help the infirm. There is no doubt that I was both cross and angry with the matriarch, her influence over many issues made it literally impossible to pursue a rational line of thinking and ideas. I was sad, that the end was nigh.

For her honour and memory

Yet, in the aftermath of all this, I am supposed to let bygones be bygones and seek some sort of resolution towards reconciliation. It is going to be difficult, yet, we must hope that something good would come out of this, in honour of the dearly departed and hopefully as a sign of respect and tribute to her short but eventful life.

It is still very raw, and whilst I am well past denial, I am still deep in anger and feeling somewhat depressed, I cannot yet see the light at the end of the tunnel called acceptance. The dead never need worry about these things anymore, the living, however, have a duty to ensure that the dead are not forgotten in the swirl of our petty differences.

Thought Picnic: A dreamy page of a family saga

On watchful note

There is a picture seared in our minds of domination, terror, and servitude, demonstrated in their control and discipline of others that filled us with fear and trembling.

Those images came into my slumber that ran like a film cast into my childhood ready to replay with a horror that had exemplified what we had become in relation to how we were reared.

An offence there, and error here and they as prosecutor, judge and jury had passed judgement to carry out a nondescript and arbitrary sentence with the whetted appetite of an executioner in his prime.

From the recesses

In the other room, the altercation had begun with some I thought were mine, a pummelling with the rod, to inflict and to humiliate, consuming us with a feeling that our turn would soon come.

It did come to the first three of us, as we were stirred from slumber by the typical monologue of the patriarchy as he like a director of a filmset began to sketch out his thoughts and his intentions, a louvered contraption was constructed before our eyes before suddenly two rods were extracted, the rods that looked wickedly brutal beyond the ones that were once not spared in their quest not to spoil the child.

We were offered choices, hands, backs or any other place, and we were to expect the very minimum of 10 each. Was I going to allow this unjust collective punishment to happen?

My eyes saved

Ten each, so we were to moderate our squeals of pain so that she who was already dealing with the others will not think she was being outplayed in the sadomasochistic stakes that they had perfected in a double-act on me many years before where all he said when he ceded control to her was, “Mind his eyes.” That was how I remembered their depth of love, in the care of my eyes, but maybe in another story, the needed care for my eyes was never given.

My mind in flux, about to plead innocence and extricate myself from the terror to be unleashed on an undecided part of my anatomy, the third laid out her hand and received a violent lash, the piercing sound of agony jolted me back into the present.

Not tonight

There was not going to be a struggle when he headbutted me that I fell backwards, I calmly told him, “Not tonight, you can go to your room now.” I took his accoutrements of torture off him and he went away.

That was where it ended and where it should end. Sadly, our meetings are still of monologues and entitlements, the inability to impose upon as before has seethed into grudges engendering estrangement. Amid our grief, we have ensconced ourselves in our bunkers whilst everyone wonders if we’ve gone bonkers. The unspoken truth is no one does dysfunction the way we do it, without class, without care, without concern and almost without consequence.

Let’s flip another page in this saga called family.

Oluwafeyikewa - Our Little Mummy

I am numb in ways I cannot express,
Like a part of me has gone under duress,
A part that had affinity and extremity,
Now swirling the midst of eternity.

Feyike: 04-Nov-1982 – 18-Oct-2016

Nigeria: The aftermath of "She Belongs In My Kitchen"

Politics takes in the family

Politics is a very engaging business for both the individual and their immediate family. It is almost impossible to divorce the immediate family from the effects and consequences of an individual entering politics.

The politician will almost definitely have a public life, it is usually unlikely except in a scandal for anyone to see into the home life and how the dynamic in that setting dictates, controls or affects how a politician operates.

However, we have gotten used to seeing the politician’s spouse espouse causes dear to their hearts on the one hand and sometimes to soften the hard politician’s stance to the wider world.

In many places, politicians do not seek public office without the consent and support of spouse and family, it is hopefully in recognition of the reality that seeking office does cause some sort of upheaval in their close-knit setup. Some have on the advice of their families withdrawn from politics to cater to their immediate family and renew bonds.

A politician’s wife with views

In Nigeria, we have had our share of the politician’s spouse, some uppity, some intrusive, some menacing and an atrocious assault on our democratic values, arrogating to themselves power to the status of their spouses and abusing their position peddling influence with reckless abandon, yet, this does not apply to all spouses, many who go by the moniker of ‘first lady’, to decline to licence for titles less commendable.

It is in view of this that one can understand when Aisha Buhari the spouse of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria gave an interview to the BBC. She expressed concern about how the political maelstrom around her husband manned by people they neither knew nor could trust was making her husband’s political agenda ineffective.

To which end, she suggested that if things continued in this manner, she will not support if her husband chooses to contest, a re-election quest. [Aisha Buhari – BBC]

On a global stage

In the Nigerian society, these are strong views, yet, in my first comment about this, I suggested it appeared pillow talk was no more effective to bringing an obdurate man to understand concerns the family had, that the media might well be acquainted with that frustration.

Yesterday, as the news media took its soundbites from Aisha Buhari’s forcefully independent opinions Muhammadu Buhari was on a state visit to Germany. He could not have been oblivious of his spouse’s interview and I would have expected that his media team and advisers would have intimated that the world press in Germany might well broach the subject.

If Muhammadu Buhari were visiting Germany for a purpose, it would have been incumbent on them not to let any other issue overshadow that purpose and be on the trajectory to a successful state visit with the world press concentrating on that. They fell at the first hurdle.

The joke in the other room

With Muhammadu Buhari standing beside the foremost female politician in the world, Angela Merkel, he was asked about his wife’s views in that BBC interview. Given a global stage, President Buhari mustered all the patriarchy and chauvinism he could at the expense of wit, tact, diplomacy or even common-sense and let rip an anachronistic embarrassment of verbiage.

“I don't know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.” He said, amongst other things about his political struggles, his losses, his victory and his opponents. Angela Merkel, if we could have read her mind might have been thinking in German, “Warum habe ich stimme diesen Chauvinistenschwein zu treffen?” [Muhammadu Buhari – BBC]

A very sad analysis

For me, there are many angles from which to view Muhammadu Buhari’s comments, but I see a wider consequence of expressing such views on a global stage and it led me to ask a few questions on Twitter, because I already knew that the main takeaway from this Nigeria-Germany summit would be, “She belongs to my kitchen.”

When a leader of a nation says a spouse of 27 years belongs in the kitchen, what do you expect the girls of that generation to aspire to?

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) October 14, 2016

Let's get it straight, if a spouse of 27 years cannot express independent views without being sent back to the kitchen, what gives?

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) October 14, 2016

What does President Buhari have an entourage of advisers for if none of the lot anticipated he would be asked about his wife's views?

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) October 14, 2016

I know there are men who would excuse the inexcusable belittlement of Aisha Buhari on the world stage, I will not.

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) October 14, 2016

Just imagine if Bill Clinton suggested Hillary Clinton belonged in the kitchen, just because she had the audacity to have an opinion.

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) October 14, 2016

The undercurrent of "she belongs to my kitchen" is probably a religiously heartfelt desire to have a woman in purdah in 2016 Nigeria.

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) October 14, 2016

The widest implication and consequence of Muhammadu Buhari’s comment can only be encapsulated in the next tweet.

I hate to think of the consequences of Buhari's 'she belongs in my kitchen' view on an unfortunate girl-child needing to go to school.

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) October 14, 2016

The deeper ramifications

Nigeria has many girl-child disadvantages and challenges, we still have almost 200 Chibok Girls abducted by Boko Haram in captivity for over 2 years, girls are getting abducted, religiously converted and pressed into matrimony by paedophiles and there is no criminality imputed. [Premium Times]

The problem here is this septuagenarian in a changing world failed to lead and chose to follow patrimony and by his pronouncement that some have dismissed as a jocular retort, some men will decide there is no need to invest in their girls if the leader of the 7^th most populous nation in the world believes the woman belongs in the kitchen, the living room, and the other room.

The attempt at a joke here was the use of ‘the other room’ instead of ‘bedroom’, but the ramifications are deeper than that and that is why there is no excuse that can excuse what Muhammadu Buhari said in Germany.

Our culture expects the elderly to be smart, wise, wily and tactful, let us not let fealty to the man obscure the grave errors of the man.

Let’s do better

Now, I am not advocating that there should be no gender roles in the home, but a home life is only part of the total makeup of both the man and the woman. A lot is lost in the wealth of nations when only the patriarchy can decide who has opinions and whether they can be expressed so independently in public.

We must emancipate ourselves beyond this and give equal opportunity to a fulfilled life of achievement to everyone regardless of status, gender, beliefs, culture, traditions and unfortunate anachronistic views expressed by visionless leaders.