Fathers and Children are rarely paired together, at home, in school or in the community. June couples Father’s Day with the Day of the African Child.
If fathers and (their) children are twosome, then why are we raising prodigal sons?
After the 1995 Beijing Declaration, the boy child was effectively upstaged.
If not, then why did Memusi Sankok (15 years) shoot himself with his father’s pistol in May 2022?
To what end did David Kimani (23 years) butcher his brother and stone his mother to death, in April 2022.
Was Lawrence Warunge (22 years) really intentional, in gruesomely murdering his parents, two siblings and a farmhand, in January 2021?
Eliminating Harmful Practices Affecting Children: Progress on Policy & Practice since 2013
Theme, Day of the african child, 2022
In these macabre acts of violence, suspicions are rife on domestic quarrels, mental illness, substance or drug abuse and negative influence of dark comedy-spy thrillers. But nobody is talking about their fathers.
When Dad is absent, boys begin to sink into themselves. They begin to drift (Lionel Dahmer, quoted in Raising A Modern-Day Knight by Robert Lewis)
Murders perpetrated by young men aged 15 – 23 years.
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Sadly, social media moved on. Even before tears dried from the eyes of their beloved. In the same way, who remembers Brian Njeru, the 24 year-old son of a former Cabinet Minister, who ten years ago hanged himself at their Runda home.
Disgusting tales of withdrawn boys, quietly nibbling away their families.
What is driving Generation Z (Gen Z) to unabated AGGRESSION?
Gen Z are the young people born between 1999 and 2015. They are not dreaming to become Doctors, Engineers, Pilots or Lawyers. Theirs is an aspiration to become YouTubers or Socialites. All the perceived softness and glamor of ‘life on the screen‘.
I have been privileged to teach and mentor a few Gen Z. But I can’t put my finger on where the clamor for views, likes, comments and followers on social media comes from.
They have an insatiable appetite for ‘making it’, fame and glory
The older (Gen X and Millenials) is aging. As the new order (Gen Z and Postmodern) is sprouting. Theirs is a different worldview. Like a cow fighting to steer away from the community cattle-dip, Gen Z are resistant to predetermined norms.
They want and will create their new normal. Lovers of themselves and pleasure.
It’s a selfie world. They intentionally crop out half of their faces, to make photography more interesting. No longer excited to shave (size #1), but attracted to afro, dreadlocks, mohawk, braided and cornrow hairstyles. Life is all about them, fun and how far they can conquer uncharted paths.
If home, church, school or community isn’t fun, count them out.
A pastor had never-ending squirms with his form three son. The boy plaited his hair and studded earrings. The heart-wrenching arguments were silenced one time in a matatu. The young lad took the back seat. Busy scrolling through his phone. His face wasn’t fully visible to the matatu conductor. The tout shouted, “Hapo nyuma siste!” That was the end of the beginning. He cut all the braids and has never looked back.
In times past, teens asked many questions. Now they have become the question.
The pressure is real, to be the cool and trendy guy on IG and snapchat
For Gen X (1965 – 1980) and Millennials (1981 – 1996), IG stands for Instagram (pun intended). While your generations belonged to the world of street slang, Gen Z resides in a truncated and ‘extended’ world, where short and long forms reign!
Reading text messages from Gen Z, you don’t need eyeglasses. Just some unpublished dictionary! Who knew that Sheng would evolve to SHEmbeteNG? Where you don’t just love someone, you LOmbotoVE‘ them!
Children speak mother tongue. Is Shembeteng father tongue?
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Adding the words ‘mbete‘ and ‘mboto‘ has evolved or eroded their language. Their short and long forms mutate faster than their WhatsApp status or profile photo!
If Earth is hard, then Parenting teens is harder!
Teens aren’t useless, rather they are used less. Parenting them is hard work because it is heart-work. We can skip queues in banks, malls, elections, but can’t skip the processes of raising children (and teens), in the way they should go.
Add the dynamic of single parenting and the die is cast. Kenya’s President recently posed that single parenting is an evolving threat to traditional values and the family. His assertion is backed up by the Annual Review of Psychology (2000), which states, “When children are raised by a single father or mother, they grow up with social and psychological inhibitions that affect their world views.”
Single-parent households in Kenya rose from 25% in 2009 t0 38% currently
H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta
Most recently, in her book and album launch, Akothee, the socialite lioness staged herself as the President of Single Mothers. Bearing five kids with five different men is her pride.
Are boys more negatively impacted by single parenting than girls?
In Kenya, students torched high schools before COVID. During the five COVID waves, cases of teenage pregnancies spiked. In the post-COVID era, their aggression has escalated. Memusi, David and Lawrence, bear this badge of horror.
Teenage boys taking their lives and other people’s lives in the most brutal ways. Just because they don’t want that school or they can’t have their way. Very strange!
Apparently, school isn’t what it used to be.
One evening a father asked his fourth grade son, “How was school today?” He said, “Good, but the teacher stayed on for two hours.” Before he could engage him further, his sixth grade brother interjected, “That was a double lesson!”
Before transitioning to upper primary, the fourth grader had never encountered a double lesson. His short attention span didn’t leave him much excitement with double lessons.
Gen Z are not fans of 1- or 2-hour movies, lectures or sermons. Conversely, they are repeatedly stimulated by 20-30 seconds Facebook reels, WhatsApp short videos and TikTok stuff. So the next time you are speaking to teenagers, make your point and exit in 30 seconds 🤣.
Punishment in schools has shifted from caning to other evolving forms.
In some schools wrongdoers are asked to fill out indiscipline slips. As their offenses increase they are subjected to external professional counseling. Other schools are experimenting with merit/de-merit cards. A form of accumulating reward or pain points.
All these thanks to the government banning the cane in 2001. In a campaign dubbed ‘Spare The Child’ the Human Rights Watch contended that teachers should impose non-physical disciplinary measures as an alternative to beatings.
What measures should a Teacher employ if s/he has a class of 90 students? Or a Deputy Principal of a school with a population stretching to 1,800 students? How creative can one be, considering teachers were all spanked in their growing up years?
Does the rod of correction drove out foolishness bound up in the hearts of children?
Is piling a students’ file with indiscipline slips or accumulating merit/de-merit points better than caning them? The other day, I accompanied a high school parent to return his suspended son, Otis back to school. His school file was falling apart at the seams with indiscipline slips and apology letters.
Bearing records of sleeping, slightest cough, shouting or coming late for preps.
Accumulation of these slips earned him suspension and six counseling sessions.
Early in life, Otis loved everything electronics. His mother knew he was cut out for an IT career. High school life sucked up his enthusiasm. Flipping his trajectory from a promising son to an introverted and know-nothing about me, teenager.
By choice or pressure, he joined an ill-fated boys gang in form three. Before the group could unleash its full terror, all its members were expelled. He was suspended.
Not too long after, he was caught in another mischief that landed him in the Deputy Principal’s office. According to the religiously kept indiscipline slips, he had either walked in late or was shouting in class. These may have been trivial discipline issues for a first-timer. Not so with Otis. He was a marked boy.
His moves were traced like the initial cases of COVID-19.
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His parents successfully negotiated his re-admission into the school. But that would be his last chance. Life can be traumatizing.
The Deputy Principal said, “Caning was banned in schools. We were left with no option but to indulge the students with indiscipline slips, written confessions, suspensions and professional counseling.” Education policy advocates for positive reinforcement, guidance and counseling, alternative punishments and setting rules and expectations.
In the developed West, preventive and corrective disciplining have been perfected. But in the developing East, the vibes go out the window in the face of ungrateful teenager.
Some years back, I accompanied a friend of my to take back his teenage son, Otis, back to school. After a two week suspension.
Otis couldn’t be caned. Rather, in front of his father and I, he was dressed down for 30 minutes of eternity. Verbally abused by the Deputy Principal for failing to maintain his sterling KCPE performance and flippant antisocial behavior in school.
He was being punished by shaming. A kikuyu saying goes like this, ‘A child is punished while facing home, not away.’
Indiscipline is expensive. Costing time and money to the student, teacher and parent. Should we reinstate the cane or should we keep the records of wrong? How effective are these correctional measures in Kenya’s courts, police stations, remand and prisons?
Are there success stories of reformed criminals?
All we see and hear are botched stories of wrong convictions and prison sentences served in error. Same to teenagers. Once a learner makes an entry into the indiscipline slips, they are ‘tagged’ like a cow. Easily spotted when doing teen stuff like shouting or walking lazily.
Njoro’s case is another. He too was declining in academic performance to the exasperation of his parents. They profusely lectured him and drank themselves silly, at every available opportunity. Their goose was cooked when his mother sighted some raunchy exchanges on his WhatsApp messages.
Sexting. Not with a girl, but with another boy. Calling each other boo and bae!
Being homosexual wasn’t negotiable. Not in his Njoro’s father’s household.
A religious man, in his own rites. He physically beat up the young man. Broke his hand and took him back to school in a plaster. Njoro survived several blasts of insults from his father.
Calling him, useless fella who will amount to nothing in life.
Abused and cursed into nothingness, by his own father.
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Are these discipline measures effective or are we pushing teens into aggression?
It wouldn’t be surprising if Njoro, Otis and their peers let out rage on themselves, their parents or teachers? They are growing hard with despair and raw with self-pity.
Perhaps we should highlight different stories on social media. Stories of successful and innovative teenagers doing great things, for themselves, their parents and communities.
Teenagers who won’t scavenge for nudes on the internet.
But like Noah’s sons, they will cover the nakedness of their drunken fathers. Like Samuel they will not only hear God speaking, but will promptly act on his voice. Like Joseph they will turn down a flirtatious and wicked woman. Even when she offers sex in the privacy of her tantalizing bedroom.
Or, like Jesus they will pursue a purpose driven life.
At age 12 Jesus said, “I must be about my Father’s business‘. Not his business.
In raising responsible and disciplined children, where did we go wrong as a society?
Are the digital gadgets (phones, PlayStations, smart TVs etc) to blame for the future we don’t want? Is the advent of technology and internet the gift-enemy within? From the Trojan War story came the saying, ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’
An act of charity that masked a hidden destructive and hostile agenda. Blame it on obsessive compulsive disorder, technology addiction, peer pressure or whatever else the gods have thrown at us. The rug has been pulled from under our feet.
A father’s presence can’t be substituted with presents.
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We lack confidence in our teens. It’s time for a different approach.
Are we prescribing social solutions to a spiritual problem?
This June, a couple of boys-men mental health forums will be hosted.
We are the fearful generation. Raised by the stick. Now producing an angry generation. Broken by words. We must step back from our fear and take a new course of action.
Fathers have the power. Not Guinness 😉. They can empower, overpower or disempower their teenage children. However, most times they overpower them. Wrongly, using power for its own sake.
To teens who err, their teachers and fathers find it much easier to bellow, threaten, invoke harsh penalties, demand acts of restitution. These work. Sort of. But at a heavy premium.
Let me ask naively, “In correcting teen-children, what would love look like?”
Are we becoming overbearing taskmasters? At home, why do teens look stretched or pulled tight? What if we unlearned everything we inherited? And seek to know what makes teen-children tick. Ignoring every noise around us.
What if we told them all the things we love and admire in them? All the ways we believe they are destined for greatness. Wouldn’t their eyes swell in wonder and their bodies limber in relief? Knowing our inner desire that they will surpass us in every way!
Because of our heavy-handedness, teens have perfected a mask of impassiveness. Concealing violent seething. Negating everything we are desperate to achieve.
Arguably, we might be staring at a Spiritual problem.
Darwin demoted man to the status of an animal driven on by ‘his collective ancestral impulses‘. Marx said man was propelled by economic necessity, his stomach. Freud denied man a mind by insisting that he was motivated, not by reason, but by ‘hidden unconscious instincts’, his libido.
Is it ancestral impulses, stomach or libido what is driving teenage boys to the madness we are currently witnessing? By denying man a mind and reducing him to an urge-powered beast, we are backing against the wrong wall.
A host of problems exists today because of the Darwin-Marx-Freud conventional wisdom. Problems are no longer traced to their real source, the spiritual dimension of man.
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What then shall we say? Have fathers and sons irreparably lost connection? What is the malady that has thronged us into the abyss of gender chaos, confusion and a disjointed boy-child.
Perhaps, it is the discontent between fathers and their heavenly Father.
The prodigal son left home and squandered his father’s wealth. That wasn’t the biggest problem. His greatest undoing was being disconnected from his father. Left to his own devices.
Why not make this a Happy Father’s Day. Let us heal the wounds of absent, passive, abusive, and trophy dads (Intentional Dad by Simon Mbevi). How about throwing a lifeline, to the boy in your neighborhood who is sunk into himself, lost and miserable?
This is a rallying call to courageous (biological and choice) fathers to step out. Comfort the fourth grader that he can survive another double lesson. Actively engage in his schooling and navigating life. Help the school determine if indiscipline slips or merit/de-merit cards are effective in what they are trying to achieve.
This will push us to becoming the Five-star General Dads. Present, Provider, Protector, Priest, and Prophet. Consciously and collectively reverting the pandemic of prodigal sons.
Joseph Ngaara is inspired by people’s life experiences. These are true stories. Names and details have been tweaked to protect privacy. Do you have an intriguing life story and need to share your triumph or tragedy? Email: j.mungai@hotmail.co.uk
Great piece! You pose some challenging questions that individually and collectively as a society we must respond to.
Great piece. Good work
Such a good read.
Keep writing.
God bless you for the wonderful insights.
Thank you Joseph. We can’t wish our way through parenthood. We need to be intentional about how we raise our men.
Thought provoking but unfortunately true. I like the thought of always asking what love would look like as we mentor, teach, correct and discipline!
What an insight brother Joseph. May God help the Fathers in this dispensation to model their sons, nephews and young bros in a Godly way. We just MUST do it, in person. On this matter, we DONT delegate.
Such a rich but sad reality. In this era where father’s are busy accumulating wealth and having a good time with the ‘boys’ at the expense of the family. I pray that God intervenes because we are loosing a whole generation.
I love the unique insights put across by Joseph. As a parent of a teen, I am eager to learn more about parenting teens in order to save their lives and not leave them as prodigals? May God save those who have strayed already.
A good/relevant piece it is!
May God help this G-Z group.
Thank you Joseph for that information.
Such a nice article. Couldn’t help but share it. This is sobering. Keep writing. God prosper your ministry.
I suppose you meant to say…..Perhaps, it is the disconnect between fathers and their heavenly Father. (Not discontent).
The Heavenly Father is a King… an Autocrat not a Democrat. Men aren’t naturally contented with such an arrangement 😉