“Where’s your school fees-slip?”
“Where’s the shopping-list for the weekend? Mpozi nga you people don’t want to eat some kuku”.
“How much money do you need for your pocket money now?”
“Are you okay up stairs, kweli?”
“You didn’t even graduate…..shut up already! Graduate first and then, you can join us in these meetings”.
“I’m now dictating. You are going to date this guy….because I’ve said so. End of story”.
 barclays-zim-bond-notes
Photo credit: minbane.wordpress.com

Do these quoted statements remind you of something?
Like our parenting ways, in this day and age?
The lack of feeling that comes with these statements?
The exaggerated ambition that comes with making these statements without actually taking a second to consider their impact on the people that they are made to….
How they are repeated and bellowed to us
kenya_village_family
Photo credit: cupofjo.com

If you ask me, I believe they hurt quite a lot
If you ask me, they show that the human they are directed to, isn’t considered or even prioritized, even for a second.
If you ask me, it’s fools that make these statements
If you ask me, these statements are made out of ignorance
If you ask me, these statements carry an attachment to one’s skin colour
If you ask me, these statements are made to prove a point but a very dangerous one
If you ask me, these statements are made to make some people, gathered around, happy
If you ask me, these statements root from what we learned when we were growing up and decided not to change from it, adamantly, even with all this pile of knowledge we carry on our heads
A-fool-and-his-money-are-soon-parted
Photo credit: grammar.zone

Turning the tables now, if I were to ask you, what are these statements to you?

Take a second;
And think how much an hour you spend with me, talking and chatting, can do to the future?
And imagine a world where parents and children were inseparable besties?
And picture a world where just a friendly warning from you, about something I was about to do, actually makes me change my mind, at the last minute… it happens, right?
And draw out a dream world, for all children to grow up knowing that a family is the safest institution, there is, in the whole world and that you can feel free to express yourself without having to worry about being ridiculed or beaten sorely or isolated as the black sheep?
 Father-and-teen-son-talking
Photo credit: trythisathomeok.blogspot.com

Can you place me above your work?
Can you call me every day just to find out how am doing?
Can you make an effort to just hold me, in your arms, every day?
Can you make me a priority TODAY?