Being a parent has now become a very unrewarding job.

Being a parent has now become a very unrewarding job.
By C A Luanda Magere
You have sold family land, cattle, your entire harvest…you have taken huge loans, and paid fees for your child(ren). They leave for their schools and colleges, your entire inheritance and hard work placed as a stake on their future. When they go out there and meet these spoilt kids from alcoholic and broken families (you are sure you have done your best to raise God fearing kids, unlike “those others”), you accept they will take a beer here, a cigarrette there, heck, even seduce the odd girl from the wrong tribe! You are resigned to all that. But you pray daily that they will spend their nights in their official hostels and ultimately bring back that degree. It is not too much to ask, is it?

Every evening you pray for them. By their names. You know their environment is satanic. You know the college is just Sodom and Gomorrah, but you trust your child knows how much your family fights poverty and that he/she remains the beacon of hope in that fight. All your land and cattle have gone towards this education, but you know one day he/she will make it right. His/her younger siblings can spend some time at home for lack of fees, but you must do everything for the eldest one who is at university because he/she is so close to the finish line. You don’t want to ask God for too much. This one will educate the younger ones, let them wait.

Then one morning while you tend to the sukuma wiki in the remaining tenth of an acre behind your delapidated house, someone runs in sobbing, apparently your beacon of hope has died in an accident. But it doesn’t make sense, because the said accident seems to be 500kms from where he/she is supposed to be. You dismiss the news and return to your sukuma wiki farm. Your baby is ok. Your beacon of hope will not die now when you are so close. But the police call and confirm the bad news.

There used to be a time when you would hear an accident happened at a place with a strange name like Ngai Ndethya, and you would do a mental calculation and decide none of your close relatives could be there. Now that accident in the middle of nowhere could include your child, or all of your children, because they were heading to an all-yellow party in a godforsaken corner of the republic. Organised on Whatsapp. One of your children probably invited your other children. You will bury your entire family. Because they were chasing fun. 600 kms from their school or college dwelling.

When the body of your beacon of hope arrives home, the last family cow will be slaughtered. The land and cattle will have gone with him/her. You will continue repaying the loans. Life will seem so unfair. Serikali will not ingilia kati. It will happen to another parent. And another. And another. An entire generation being buried alongside entire family resources. Poverty multiplied. Childless couples multiplied. And for what?

Tonight, millions of parents will go to bed hoping their children will remain in their school/college compounds and just read. Study for that degree. The fun will wait. But no. Millions of these children will leave their colleges tonight and head to drug fuelled liasons in corners of the country. Alcohol binges. Sex orgies. Some won’t return. Some will return but they become cabbages by the day. You will hear of a young man arrested in Lamu trying to join Alshabab.

A young woman murdered by a sponsor in a Malindi villa. Three young people killed in an accident in Salgaa. A young man shot in a love triangle in Busia. You can’t ignore the news anymore. It could just be the child you told goodnight 12 hours ago, and who you assume is in their room. Your baby. Your beacon of hope. Named after your mother. Who reminds you of the strong woman your mother was. Raising 12 children with meagre resources.
Parenting is a thankless job. And the devil is a liar.

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