• It is touching to see parents have easygoing and open relationship with their kids
It was my birthday and a visit to Cape Town by one of my dearest friends from Nairobi was truly the icing on the cake.
As I have said here before, I tend not to make a big deal of my birthday unless my age that year ends in a five or a zero. So, for instance, if I am 30 or 35 (I wish I was still so young), I will celebrate the day and make a big deal of it.
This year was neither a five nor a zero, and so the occasion was muted. On top of everything else, the date fell on a working day, on which I had already made appointments that I could not easily break off.
Ordinarily, I like to do very little on my birthday, and the older and grumpier I get, the fewer the people I tend to want around. After all, it is my birthday and I should be in a position to choose who I want to be in my space.
Not being the world’s greatest gift giver, I hardly ever expect gifts myself, and so when I get a birthday present, over the years, I have learned to act as though I am genuinely surprised and happy.
Speaking of birthday gifts, I overheard my neighbour, who is in his early 20s, and his mother, who is about my age, discussing the gift that she had combined purses with his girlfriend and the girlfriend’s mother to get him.
In a show of just how much parenting has changed since my day as a 20-year-old (and momentarily hesitating to order a beer when I went out to a pub with my dad the first time, even though I knew he knew that I knew he knew I drank), the gift that everyone had chipped in to buy was a bong, to replace his previous one, which apparently broke.
For those readers not versed in the language of drug paraphernalia, a bong is a water pipe for smoking marijuana. It works like a shisha pipe but is generally rather less elaborate.
As I have previously pointed out here, South Africans have some very progressive laws around the personal use of marijuana, and my neighbours tend to enjoy smoking a joint as a family most evenings, so the gift of a bong wasn't so crazy.
But I must say it made me stop and think a little about whether any of my agemates who are parents in Kenya would have such an easygoing and open relationship with their children. Also, if I had children of my own, what would the relationship be like?
I remember as a teenager, it was a big deal in the circles I hung out in if you not only had a girlfriend but also brought her home to meet your parents, or if she took you round to meet her parents.
So when I was 16 and in the UK, where my agemates were having their significant others not just round for tea but for sleepovers under the same roof as their parents or guardians, I can remember being amazed at just how progressive parenting was there, compared to where I had come from.
All this brings me round to a wonderful short movie I watched the other day on Netflix, 'Morning After'.
The film was from Kenya and is probably the best short film I have seen from a Kenyan filmmaker since Nathan Collett’s 'The Kibera Kid' (2006) and Wanuri Kahiu’s very excellent 'Pumzi' (2009). If you have not watched these two, find them and see for yourself.
I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it yet, but through suspense and humour and with not one preachy line, it captures the essence of being a young adult and negotiating your way through life.
I would suggest that parents watch it with their children and would love to be a fly on the wall at whatever conversations ensue.