Raise Them Right.

I saw this ↑↑ on my friend's whatsapp story . 

So, the saying goes " Train up your child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it". Oh yeah, that can be found in the Bible in Proverbs 22:6.

But here, I am talking about the way of the world, the world we are in now,  Century where no child should be deem superior to another.

The century where the husband or the wife can be the breadwinner/homemaker.

 Most children brought up in my parents time were made to believe that boys should not be domesticated. How dare you make a boy wash plates, or sweep not to talk of the sacrilegious act known as cooking. In those days, the Nigerian parenting style is the authoritarian way...our way or no other way. Girls must learn how to take care of their family, hence the "training".

That era ended up churning out men who see house chores as punishment, degrading and beneath them. Men who believed that bringing  money is the only contribution they have to offer to make their family happy. Men that could not change nappies or wash toilets. Men that would wait for their wives to return from work and face the kitchen because it is her duty, simply put, lazy and entitled fellows.

Some years back, I was part of the team to recommend a staff to take up the customer service and admin role in an office, list was penciled down to 2 guys and a lady. The boss actually said it with so much confidence that "we can't choose a man, customer service role for women.

What is amazing is how women, in the last couple of  years have been complaining about their partners not being helpful around the house and yet same women are training their sons same way. The cycle will never end. It is the same way rich parents now pamper their kids to a fault to avoid them suffering as they(parents) did. They end up raising brats the rest of the world has to deal with in the form of colleagues, partners, friends and lovers. Heal the world and rid the world of entitled species.

This post is not  much about parenting styles as it about how in this day and age some Africans still place the boy child above the girl child. In some tribes, till a woman has a boy she is seen as childless. Because the girls will one day go away and marry there won't be anyone to "carry" on the name of the family.

You know the world that no longer exists?

• The world where women are constrained to function in certain career parts.
• The world where a woman is told not to buy a car or live well because she is not yet married and her life of opulence will chase men away.
• The world where the upkeep of a house/home is left only to men.
• The world where house chores, market runs, are left to to the womenfolk.
• The world where women must be seen and not heard. 

Teach your children to be confident.

Teach your children especially the girls that there are no glass ceilings.

Train your children to be kind.

Teach them to be a friend to the lonely.

Teach them to think about other people.

Teach them accountability for their actions, so they don't grow up to be adults that think nothing they do is wrong.

Shalom.