I have seen young kids boycotting classes and walking out of school in protest to go home. Social delinquency can be inspired by the environment, a fad that can spread faster than a wildfire.
I loved school more than home and I was full of joy and excitement whenever it was time to go back to school for a new term. It was time for class and fun in the fields. At home, mama kept us busy with loads of work. If not on the farm tilling, we would be running some mundane errands for her, which we silently hated.
We would trek long distances, with loads on our head to mill grains or to sell maize. Even as grown-ups (we considered ourselves so), we would fetch firewood or fill drums with water for home use.
After dinner, before bedtime, we ensured all the cows were in the kraal (the calves were sprinters, jumping up and about like antelopes), dogs fed, utensils washed. It wasn't fun.
At night, they said we had to sleep with our eyes open, ears alert, just in case the Maasai or Kuria boys came to claim our cattle as their own. It was a common habit and boys were the night guards. We slept on mats made of reeds at home, no mattress at all, unless you ferried your school mattress home during the holidays, which was unlikely.
In school, the feeling of sleeping on a bed, a double decker bed, was all thrills. And in school, we watched cinemas. We had a whole evening for entertainment. Weekends were occupied too, with sports or club activities, bringing in girls who left us their addresses. Yes it was those days of pen pals and we found ourselves busy writing to the girls as soon as they boarded their vehicles back to their schools.
And if they ever replied back, the whole dorm and the entire class knew or had a glimpse of the letter. A photo from a girl excited the entire school.
Our kids may be getting a lot back home, from calling themselves netizens, being on the internet 24-7. They don't long for the letters we patiently waited for in the assembly. They want to be home, near their phones, to send and receive texts on WhatsApp, they want to be celebs on TikTok, Instagram, etc.
Life rotates around the phone and without the gadgets they are in prison. The Internet and the phone have revolutionised their thinking, made the world very narrow, a glamorous life of fantasy. At home, they no longer slave on the farms, nor do they walk long distances carrying loads on their head.
At the tap of the phone, a motorbike will show up to pick them and take them places. They would not dare go home if, on arrival, they would be welcomed by a fork jembe or a wheelbarrow to ferry heavy loads from the farm.
I am urging all parents to engage the kids more at home, reducing the fun time. Let them do chores, slave on the farms more. Let them not preach 'their rights' above your measured and reasonable decisions. Your action will mould and shape them, to reason and be useful members of the community.
Finally to the young ones; the schools you are torching now are your inheritance, your future. Take care of them, if you don't want to see your own kids learning under trees or in dilapidated structures. What you are destroying today is 'your tomorrow', the future of your children.
