Mortgaging our children’s
future
By Tai Olaniyi
Saturday, September 29, 2007
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•Little
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Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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"In youth we run into difficulties, in old age , difficulties
run into us ". This statement by John Billings keeps
recurring like a decimal as I thank God for still letting
one live another day despite the difficulties and harrowing
experiences that parents and their wards have to grapple with
in Nigeria today.
To deny that things are daily going wrong in almost every
sphere of our personal, private and collective lives in the
Nigerian society would amount to self deceit.
I remember our childhood days, where we were not only children
of biological parents, but children to all relations whether
nuclear or extended, as well as a product of our immediate
community.
The home front was peaceful and harmonious just as the process
of building us for future challenges was more predicated on
cultural traditions, norms, customs, ethics and values of
living in an ideal society. As we were later privileged to
go to schools for formal education and realizing that such
schools would further expose us to many other young ones from
different backgrounds, we somehow lived in poverty because
of low indices of what the "Oyinbo pepper" has described
as yardsticks for measuring the standard for ideal life in
the society.
We were all always enriched by the wisdom inherent in native
intelligence, taught to us by our parents and which till date
assists us in personal mastership and meeting the challenges
of the enlarged society.
The Yoruba has a philosophy about dignity of labor, self reliance,
non dependence on parental achievements and the need to strive
for fulfillment while living an unblemished and straight forward
life.
There is a yoruba song which attempts to describe vanity attendant
in mere acquisition of material wealth to the detriment of
culturing children to make the future of parents fruitful.
To one’s dismay, many of us parents today may not be
too sure we can smile into the future and harvest ripe fruit
if tomorrow, the trumpets sound from above.
Rather than embark on ploughing and harvesting eternal fruits
of life, we feed fat on ill-gotten wealth and make the Nigerian
society an unenabling one for all citizens including generations
yet unborn.
Products from homes, our children, whether living in stinking
affluence or bondage of excruciating poverty are a menace
to the society.
Whether or not they are privileged by parental affluence to
travel abroad for golden fleece or are marooned in the shores
of Nigeria to fend and cater for themselves, reports about
our children due to their restiveness and recklessness.
The moment our cultural methods of catering for the young
and the old in the Nigerian society have been desecrated by
the ravaging capitalism of the Western countries and overriding
individualism of the American system, every aspiration of
a parent for a glowing future seems shattered.
For those who live in affluence, sheltered in castles and
fortresses and cruising in the latest of cars, the fear of
insecurity and non assurance to the continuity of such abundance
make relevant the wisdom of King Solomon when he concluded
earthly enjoyments as ‘vanity upon vanity.’
As parents, especially in Africa as a whole and Nigeria in
particular, those past fabrics of communal life are now eroded
by the growing penchant for ‘me and my family’
syndrome. Yet, neither the nuclear or extended family styles
of living are yielding positive life experiences.
When exposed to decent life styles as we say they are in Western
Europe or America, we simply learn how to enjoy the comforts
of such places to the advantages of only few and the disadvantage
of our cultural aesthetics. We no longer know what to cherish
as dreams for the future. Our children are daily deserting
us in droves. They no longer cherish what we value, just as
they simply do not believe that we have anything of substance
to offer.
The so called elite parents are neither cultural nor modern
in outlook. Like a rudderless vessel we navigate without focus
and most times bemoan the kind of children we are leaving
behind. How many of our family names would bring honor to
us as parents when tomorrow we transit to the life beyond?
Are our children convinced that more noble values are cherished
by their parents, more than gold and houses of exile they
build to cage their parents in, as thanks?
Time is no longer on the side of many Nigerian parents. We
are all daily aging, yet, we have numerous problems because
we have made our society what it is for our children to inherit.
If it is true that "There is nothing that strengthens
a nation like reading of a nation’s own history, whether
that history is recorded in books or embodied in customs,
institutions and monuments", then it is a truism that
we strive as parents today to inculcate to our children, native
intelligence and African values lest we regret at old age
when nature would take its toll on our health and wealth.
It is not customary that the African parents are taken to
old people’s home, but with the life of isolation we
daily imbibe from abroad and today’s un –welfarist
attitudes in our socio-economic and political life, it becomes
pertinent to advise all to value our cultural aesthetics in
order to be sure of a glowing future and a better tomorrow.
– Tai Olaniyi
taiyelolu_2004@ yahoo.com
PMB 12537 Garki 900001
Abuja
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