Saving our children from house arrest

October 28, 2014 by Azuka Onwuka

Thank God I did not grow up in this type of caged and dull life that my children are growing up in. When I compare my childhood with that of my children, I am certain that they are not having half as much fun as I had as a child. Why do I say this?

Anytime we travel to our hometown to spend some time, our children just don’t want to come back to Lagos. The reason is simple. Unlike in Lagos where they live a caged life, they live a free life in Nnewi. They also have many children to play with.

Today’s children from the middle class and upper class (who live in Nigerian cities) live a life that is the same as being under house arrest. Children live in homes from which they cannot step out of. If they live in a flat, they are not allowed out of their apartment to play with other children. If it is a single family house, they are allowed to play within the compound, but they are not allowed to step out of the compound. To get to school, which may be on the same street, they are driven in a car or a school bus. When they close from school, they are driven back.

But when does the school even close? That’s around 2.30pm. And that includes toddlers who are in the kindergarten. But it does not end there. After school, lessons start. That will last till 4 or 5pm. The child then returns home fagged out. The implication is that most children stay in school longer than some adults, especially adults who work in government offices and close by 4pm.

Because the schools most of our children attend are privately owned, they operate on plots of land that are about 120 feet by 60 feet (about 668 square metres). The school may be a three-storey building. There is no space for the children to play during break, let alone a field for football as well as march past, field and track sporting events, a volleyball court or even a table tennis board.

When the children return from school, they have homework to do. When they are done, they may be allowed to watch TV or play some video games or phone games before bedtime. By 5 or 6am, they wake up again and prepare for school.

What type of food do these children eat? They take all kinds of cereals in the morning. In addition to the lunch packs they take to school, they take snacks everyday as well as carbonated drinks. To show them more love, parents regularly buy them ice cream, popcorn, meat pie, hamburger, shawarma, chocolate, candy, pizza, and the like.

If the children have to attend any event in the church, the parents drive them. If daddy or mummy needs to buy a recharge card across the street, they send the house help but not their children. At 15, many children have never crossed a road on their own. When they get admission into a boarding school, parents drive them to the school. If they don’t send the children to universities overseas, when they gain admission to a university in Nigeria, the parents drive them to the university, if it is in Lagos or the South-West. If it is outside the South-West, a flight is taken.

Now, compare that to my childhood. My primary school and secondary school had fields for different sports. Sports was not optional. In secondary school, marathon or cross country held every Monday for all boarders. During sports, the hostels were locked so everyone would participate. There were two sports prefects and a football captain who were recognised as prefects of the school. There were competitions called inter-house games as well as inter-house match (football). In the same vein, there were inter-school sports and inter-school match (football). And the grass in all the fields in school was cut by us, either as our duty or as punishment.

As a child, once I came back from school and did my house chores, I had the freedom to go out to play. Football could be played anywhere (field, someone’s compound or on the street) and with anything (football, bad orange, bad tennis ball, a ball of cloth, etc).

For the sake of swimming, we went to the stream regularly to fetch water, even if the tap water in the home ran. And we could swim from morning to evening. We went to fetch firewood or fodder for the goats or sheep. We went to search for wild fruits. We played under the udara tree for hours, waiting for the sweet fruit to fall, as it was a taboo to pluck the fruit. We climbed trees to pluck fruits or to play. I doubt if my nine-year-old son can climb any tree.

We tilled the soil to plant crops. And for me, it was fun. We tended the crops and harvested them. And our meals were mainly from fresh crops and fruits and vegetables.

When I took my common entrance examination, it was in a secondary school far from home, and I went to the school myself with other classmates. As a 15-year-old Class 4 student of Okongwu Memorial Grammar School, Nnewi, I received a letter from the West African Examinations Council that something was missing in my GCE form. I got my exeat card signed by the school, and for the first time in my life, I travelled to Enugu (and alone) to WAEC office, changing buses about five times. When I got to WAEC office, I was given my form to append my signature to a page. I travelled back again to my school. Also, when my UME result came out, I travelled to Nsukka for the first time to check the result and do my registration.

Because of the type of food we ate and the amount of walking, working, playing, and sports we did, it was rare to see an obese child. Today, seeing an obese child is easier than seeing a slim child. Today, it is not unusual to see eight-year-old girls menstruating. With the health challenges and sudden death facing our generation and those before us, one wonders what will be the fate of our children when they become adults in the next 20 to 40 years from now.

There is no gainsaying that my children know more things than I knew at their age, because of the access they have to books, cable TV and video games. They are more tech-savvy than I was at their age. They show me features on my phone or video player that I never knew existed. But I was stronger and fitter than they at their age. I was more street-wise and more daring. I was more independent-minded. I confronted bullies and tough situations.

No doubt, things have changed. Rural areas have become towns, and towns have become cities. Crimes of kidnapping and ritual killing are high. Nobody can be trusted anymore. But do we really have an excuse for turning our children into unhealthy, obese, clumsy, dependent, jelly-like people, ill-equipped to survive in a hard world?

It is not late to change the negative lifestyles we have forced upon our children in the name of showing them love and protecting them.

Follow me on Twitter @BrandAzuka


http://www.punchng.com/opinion/saving-our-children-from-house-arrest/

Madam thr r government schools u csn take ur children to ..... Or military schools wich i prefer... Ur kids will turn frm ajebota to pako children...

Cutehector4u:
Madam thr r government schools u csn take ur children to ..... Or military schools wich i prefer... Ur kids will turn frm ajebota to pako children...

(madam)

talktimi:
(madam)

my apologies...Sir.

Cutehector4u:
my apologies...Sir.

no wahala though I believe the solution lies beyond sending our kids to pako school

Only this evening, I considered some salient points in your write-up. I got back from work only to be handed an advert from a school just two blocks down the street.

This school used to be a crèche but has now been upgraded to a full-fledged school with hardly enough space for five adults to maneuver and no playground. I tossed the school bill and advert into the bin. Funny.


That is the kind of life some people live in urban centres.