When I get older I will be stronger they’ll call me freedom just like the WAVING FLAG now wave your flag wave flag …– waving flag song 2009
AGE AND RESPONSIBILITY By Funmi Richards
I am turning a year older very soon, it’s a big one that turns me legal in many ramifications, even though I still very much look like a child, which is what makes a lot of people address me as one, which is also why I most times try to act smart, world savvy, more efficient than people of my assumed age, which sometimes makes me seem odd, particular or simply different, or sometimes outstanding.As I turn the big number, I wonder about some things; definitely wonder where my life is headed, what aspirations I have or should have, what expectations the world should have of me, what expectations I should have of myself, what I can give to the society and what I can make of the society, where I am headed in society; like the boy in the poem, Boy On A Swing, who wondered when he would be able to wear long trousers like the white men in South Africa’s Apartheid era, I sometimes wonder when I will be grown up enough to wear society’s long pair of trousers, and when I do, if it will be fitting or loose on me...?The older we get, at least based on my assertion of Nigerians, we find that where we thought things will get better and easier, making us want to grow old faster so we could enjoy the freedom or whatever we thought the older ones were enjoying, we find it shocking that the opposite is true because with every new age comes more responsibility and more restrictions; where in nursery school you had your parents/relatives do your assignment, you get to primary school/grade school - secondary school and its hardly any one’s concern if you turn in your assignments, so far as it does not affect your term grades (i.e., for those whose parents are not teachers or parents who have extra time) or when you were five or six, someone had to wash plates with you, then you turn 8, 9, 10, and your parents have visitors over for Sallah or Christmas... After the visit they leave a pile of used plates in the sink only for you... then, you're wondering, what did i do wrong? (trust me: you did nothing but grow up).The weight of responsibility sometimes comes too early: when you have younger ones, or when you have working class parents; late: sometimes when you're the last born and you get a shocking addition to your family, or if you are sent to boarding house or university and you have to fend for yourself; or it could come at the 'right time', when it comes as a gradual process. Yet it must come, and when it does, even when it’s at the right time, it does not always mean we are ready for it, but more often than not, that does not matter because, whether we are ready or not, we have to dance to the tune or cry foul, any of which could affect or effect a change in the way society sees you, which begs the question if there is freedom as one ascends in age. Then, what gives society the right to frown at the (in)actions of individuals?
Restrictions as maturity comes – when as a child you say something everyone, even you, considers silly, everyone is obligated to laugh. But grow a little and say it again, and if your mum is Nigerian, you might not walk away unscathed. The irony is as is said in Nigerian parlance what you are looking for in Sokoto, you have in your shokoto - where a child is looking for freedom in coming of age s/he has freedom in his/her naivete which s/he has so much in his/her childhood – where they can make the grownups laugh at the silliest things (a truth that not many people know).If I had a wand; a working one I mean, I’ll probably make myself forever young to still time and protect that innocence that has wielded no restrictions, but as the white man says, If wishes were horses even beggars will ride. So my best bet is to act according to, or above my age, to avail myself and avoid unsavoury moments which might lead to even more unsavoury situations.Above and Beyond, I do appreciate getting older, because that in itself has its own fun moments like when I get to boss nieces and nephews around – do this, don’t do this, and when I get to be someone’s ticket to memory – I could tell you your childhood stories (in my own way of course). Just kidding tho', but seriously I do appreciate what I have/am become/ing, because I know I am better than I was some years back, and hopefully it’s a bridge - not the Onitsha bridge that was promised and not built oh, but one that is already in progress, to where I am going to be in the years to come.
NB: It is true that with age comes responsibility and many times the onus rests on society as to how and when the responsibility is given, but when we take a deep breath and take it a step at a time, we do not tire easily!