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Dichotomy that often characterises the expectations of parents and those of their children poses the question about whether or not parents should give their dreams to children

David Mungoshi : Shelling the Nuts

Last week I commiserated with disappointed parents whose offspring does not turn out to be a chip off the old block and I made reference to the lyrics of Elijah Madzikatire’s elegiac song which is a wailing crescendo of absolute pain and sorrow. And when I think of the trials and tribulations that many parents go through for the sake of their children I begin to appreciate the words of blues singer and pianist champion Jack Dupree in his piece called “Reminiscing” where he reflects sombrely: To think of the things that we go through for nothing in the world. A perfect critique of the human condition, and of how so very often we expend a lot of energy on things that don’t really matter. So, when I saw a mother in town last week with daughter and son in tow, I could not help wondering what dreams she had for her children and what will happen to those dreams in the end. I also began to think about whether or not parents should give their dreams to children.

Albert Hammond of the “It never rains in Southern California” hit song did another song that became more or less an anthem for wayward youth. “Free electric band” is, without doubt, one of the most graphic songs about parents and their children. It is practically a celebration of prodigal children. Defiantly, and with unmistakable traces of bravado and wild abandon Albert Hammond sings:

My future in the system was talked about and planned,

But I gave it up for music and the free electric band . . .

Tellingly, the song laments:

Well, they used to sit and speculate upon their son’s career,

A lawyer or a doctor or a civil engineer . . .

Not so very long ago when I was teaching communication skills in an introduction to law course at one of our universities I experienced first-hand the dichotomy that often characterises the expectations of parents and those of their children. When a certain lot of law students from a then new university was told that their programme had not been up to scratch and that their qualification would not be recognised, a decision was made to have them all start afresh at the country’s oldest university. Thus, whether one was a beginner or in final year, they all had to start anew. Quite a few of these students came to me to say they were opting out and taking up other courses on offer. One young lady speaking with obvious relief said, “I didn’t really want to be a lawyer. It was my parents’ idea. Now I can do something that I really want to do.”

A couple that I was acquainted with once had the shock of their life when their boy after attaining beautiful grades all round at ‘O’ Level decided, much to their displeasure, to take up Commercials at ‘A’ Level. They wanted him to take up sciences, but the young man would have none of it. He told them in no uncertain terms that if they revered the sciences that much they should have taken them.

The incident just described, and others like it, is an apt illustration of the veracity of the words of Kahlil Gibran’s prophet who when asked to speak to a gathering about children says:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you, but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Parents, need I say more? In the words of Mao Zedong, “let a hundred flowers blossom”. Let the children have their say, for tomorrow the world will belong to them alone in their house of tomorrow which we can never be a part of. Of course that does not mean abdicating parental responsibility and guidance. There are things we still can do.

In this article and the next two I talk about school and education. It seems to me that most children can hardly wait to finish school.

They are in such a hurry to grow up, and I find that a little tragic. I think this happens because people do not quite understand what school is, really. The thing is, the school phase is a thick slice of life, and not a rehearsal for it. There are many lessons we can learn from this phase if we keep our minds open.

Dumi Maraire used to do a song called “The School Bell” with primary school classes at a mission school out in the bush in Chikomba District where he taught music to all the school children and all the teacher trainees before he flew to Seattle. It was a happy sing-along song some of whose words went something like this:

Laughing gaily

On our way to school

There are many lessons in school today

How far true is this today? Do the children laugh gaily on their way to school and are there still many lessons in school today? What sort of memories will today’s children carry from school and will they want to? To illustrate what I mean let me share a few of my memories of school.

Sometime during the first week of the first term of his first year in school, my friend’s teacher posed what my friend (popularly known as Chaka) thought was a rather simple mathematical problem: 1+1. Chaka could not, in all honesty, understand how an adult could ask such a question.

“But, Mistress,” he wondered out loud, “You can’t seriously be telling me that you don’t know that 1+1 is 2!”

Lady teachers were known as ‘AnaMistress’ in those days.

Every Grade 1 parent is likely to have a few juicy titbits after the first day of school and these become part of our repertoire of memorable episodes in each family.

It used to be common for fifteen-year olds to be starting school with seven-year olds. These big boys became our overseers. But we, the tiny ones, had our moments too, in class, during lessons. In one English lesson the teacher summoned a big boy called Obert to the front. Pointing her stick at the table the teacher said, “Obert, this is a table” and told him to repeat the sentence after her. Said Obert, in the deep and breaking voice of one entering puberty, “This is a katafula!” No matter how hard the teacher tried, the answer always came out the same: This is a katafula. Obert became Katafula. Priceless!

On another occasion, a visiting magician did a few tricks at our school one afternoon. He was a tall, lean fellow who sang a song in Xhosa as he played his accordion. As he did so a chameleon came out of his pocket and started crawling up his back until it was standing on his shoulder. And we sat there scared and mesmerised.

After the trick with the chameleon the magician called a boy forward. The boy’s name was Diliza. He made Diliza sit atop a basket and asked him to cackle like a hen.

“Iti, ‘gekeke’,” (“Say, ‘gekeke’”) the magician said in Xhosa. And Diliza said ‘gekeke’. After a repeat of the cackling several times, the magician showed us a ‘newly-laid’ egg in the basket. Diliza became Gekeke, the boy who had laid an egg.

Although children are often at the receiving end of situations such as I have just described, they are not always the little angels we take them to be. They can be downright unpleasant on occasion and yet so profound and mysterious on others. When I was marking the composition of a Form One boy many years ago, this is what stared me in the face:

Hope to concern John somehow, since I know some of the things he’s involved in. This boy could easily have become a poet. On a different occasion and in another composition he wrote:

The priest be wearing robes (sic) and those who have sinned against God will weep or cry. What a wonderful thing!

At the last nama awards, a sixteen-year old girl, Samantha Chihuri, won an award for her debut novel and is well on the way to being her own person. Gibran might be right after all. Our children may not be our children! Not in the sense of owning them.

David Mungoshi is the author of ‘The Fading Sun’, the 2010 award winner for Outstanding Fiction. The book is now an ‘A’ Level set book.