AS THE ENVIRONMENT CHANGES SO DO PEOPLE, INCLUDING TEENAGERS

Written by: Shalom Folashade

As we live every minute of every day we discover that our immediate environment changes. And just as the environment changes so do people change. Gone are the days when young girls and ladies, were truly young girls and ladies who accepted and acted their ages especially in the 90’s - as much as I can remember – when girls even though many looked matured body wise, they, at least a very large number, were very matured intellectually. Sadly, the same cannot be said about this present generation of young girls, as nowadays more than 80% of them cannot just wait to grow up. Do we blame it on technology, society or parents? You tell me.

Imagine seeing a girl in secondary school who is barely eighteen trying to act twenty-one, I mean it amazes me how young girls are willing to go any length just to mature fast. They believe there are certain processes they need to go through to get to the stage of maturity on time. You would be surprised to hear that a lot of them make concerted effort have sexual intercourse at a very early stage just to feel more like a woman, they date older men and of course some even go as far as running away from home because they feel they can now make decisions on their own.

Don’t get me wrong I am not against young girls fixing 22 inches length weave or dressing to impress, I mean these things are all part of growing up as a teenager and wanting to explore because they become conscious of their environment and want to do right by everybody, but teenagers need to understand that there is more to life than all they see, they don’t realize that the world out there is not easy and that life does not give a free pass to anyone no matter how many connections you might have, life in one word I would say is “messy.”

Gone are those days when young girls dreamed to have a stable family, always had life goals that they would go to any length to make sure they achieved, and that is because there were a lot of illiterate parents that struggled to send their daughters to school, I mean these days we go to expensive schools, even in this economy some families are not affected by the meltdown and so there is no value placed on parents’ effort. Young girls of this century just want to live in the moment.   

And as funny as this may sound some parents are so unaware that they do not know what is going on in the lives of their teenage children, so many young girls and guys dress shabbily, they now do drugs, they even raise their voices at their parents and counter their decisions. I mean why won’t such a child feel like he/she can make decisions for themselves. We feel comfortable blaming so many children now for the way they are but we forget that these children have parents that have refused to pay attention to them. We are the architects of our misfortune and so when these teenagers grow older they begin to have life time regrets.

Wishing they did things differently which is the right way. 

Let us place more focus on what is ahead of us, yesterday is gone and tomorrow will come after all and so we can’t escape what tomorrow holds for us because whatever we meet in the future is as a result of the decisions we make now.

SCHOOL SESSIONS:THE WAY THINGS WERE AND HOW THEY ARE NOW

The other day, I was on my way home from work which was a late evening, just before nightfall. I looked to the car on my left and saw about three kids at the backseat struggling to fight off sleep while the man who obviously was a paid driver given his clothes, struggled with traffic as he kept trying to maneuver from one lane to the other in a bid to get ahead the rest of us.

My concern wasn’t about the driver but was rather 100% geared towards the poor kids who definitely would have left home in the early hours of the morning courtesy of parents who also may have rushed off to work as well.

I don’t know how many of you remember or encountered the days of morning and afternoon school sessions? The days where parents, especially mothers would PROPERLY get children ready for school with very good homemade meals as breakfast and not the junk which many feed kids in a hurry these days.

Back in the day, some of us went to school in the mornings, got back home before the next group would be on their way for the afternoon/evening sessions.

Then most of us who attended the morning sessions were much younger than those who went in the afternoon and everything was fine until things started changing gradually. And trust, lunch would also be waiting for you as all of these would have been prepared in the morning by dearest ‘mummy’ before she left for work. We were well taken care of and properly raised ‘homed’ kids.

In the parts where I grew up, you get home from school, rest a bit, do homework, wash your uniform and then at 4pm when the sun is not so harsh anymore, you are already at the lesson centre and of course your brain would be willing to assimilate most -I say most, not all- of the things you are taught. By 6pm, lessons have closed, then you may or may not hang around to have a little chat with friends for a while but before 7pm, it is expected that you are already home. And of course, most parents would be home from work by the time you got home and thereafter family life is observed. Then we had more intelligent children who didn’t have to spend so much time on social media learning all sorts including the ‘make and mar’, yet most of us turned out great in life.

Sadly, today the reverse is the case. Children stay in school from morning till night, some of them still require extra extra coaching before many of them can pass simple exams without any ‘hanky panky’ yet they spend all day at school; doing what? You may be tempted to ask.

It is in this same era that it has become a norm for parents to not only have to pay for children to get jobs but would pay for children to be moved from one level of class at school to the other until he/she gets the degree/certificate and some of such parents sometimes boast about how much they spend in doing these even when it is very glaring to all that the child is a ‘nut head’.

So the begging question now is what went wrong? How did we get here? What do you think happened?

I guess it all started with the evening lessons and when some teachers realized that they could make better pay by setting up extra mural classes. I also suppose things started going wrong when ‘real’ teachers were no longer interested in teaching given the poor package called ‘salary’ and welfare from both the government and private schools thereby leaving the very humble profession for those whose main objective is ‘money making.

We had teachers whose main intentions were to groom future leaders and well-mannered children. They taught us not just academically but morally and it was left to you to adhere or not to adhere.

There was respect both at school and at home. You would walk on the streets and be greeted by children of unknown faces just because they acknowledged that you were older just by merely looking at you, so would pay their respects even if they didn’t know you from ‘Adam’.

Today, we find so many private crèches’, primary, secondary schools and even universities with many a times outrageous fees where all they teach is confusing (British nor American) phonetics and put in the heads of the children the mentality that their lives/futures are insured just because they attend such schools.

Private schools spring up in different corners everyday yet we are having more educated “illiterates” who even when they get into leadership positions become more corrupt and insensitive to the plight of the masses than those who they earlier complained about before they themselves assumed power thereby proving once again that ‘you can’t give what you don’t have’ as the leaders are truly from amongst the same crop of masses but unfortunately become ‘mini gods’ once they assume office.

It has also become a case of many petrol stations in the country yet we are threatened with fuel scarcity on a daily basis and even more a case of many churches and mosques in any available space across the country, yet immorality is thriving and getting on the increase on a daily basis. That is a topic for another day.

How did we get here?

Many people would say or attribute it to westernization, social media, family values that have gone sour and more. The list is endless hence could go on and on for a long time.

But then again, have you played your role as a child, parent, individual, family, teacher, proprietress, proprietor, organization or government? Be honest.

I have to stop here for now while you ponder on what has been said so far. Will continue the piece on a later date as a sequel to this and so it’s ‘bye’ for now.

2016: A YEAR OF 'OVER-HYPED' GRADUATION CEREMONIES!

Before now, you simply would hear that a child has moved from crèche to kindergarten, to primary, secondary and then the university.

Apart from very low key graduation ceremonies in the schools even though some other schools rarely had, the one graduation that used to come with loads of celebrating or what a few others have termed ‘noise making’, was that of a child going to university as most people see it as a huge milestone in the growing child.

And so it’s with total amazement and awe that since the month of July, nearly every school has had one party in the name of graduation ceremonies to the other. The social media has been agog with pictures of graduants from every angle. Even the play school, crèches, kindergartens, nursery and many other names they are now called were not left out including those in primary schools.

I heard there was a new introduction to the ceremonies this year in a couple of the schools. News had it that three women had a huge fight over who would emerge the ‘best mum graduant’ or was it ‘best graduant mum’. Spare my rambling, I can’t remember but it sounded in a way as such. Anyhow you understand what I mean.

As absurd as it sounds, the fight was said to have started weeks before the day of graduation on who would emerge the graduating mum of the year. I was told it was a way to generate more money by the school as the nominees were given some sort of ‘coercive’ option to give a free will donations or token which of course we all know will not be a token in the real sense of the word as women, trust them would always try to outdo one another thereby helping the school rake in some extra ‘cool’ cash on their part. 

Unlike the years before, this time around, many parents were made to pay so much for the graduation ceremonies by the schools of their wards even though parents were still made to cook and entertain invited guests irrespective of graduating class and of course serious looking graduation gowns were won by all graduands with loads of pictures which almost broke the internet from ‘hyper-picture-posting’ were taken.

Just when I thought the razzmatazz on graduation was over with July gone, a close friend walks up to me only to inform me that he was having a graduation ceremony  and when I asked “from where” he replied “from the school of theology, my wife and I”. I wasn’t shocked but just rolled my eyes with an expression of “yeah right, here we go again with July activities playing out in August as well”. My friend just laughed and walked away.

Interestingly, after the ceremonies, I realized from the pictures on facebook that he wasn’t the only friend who graduated on that day from the school of theology as I saw a few other couples, friends of mine who also graduated on the same day.

In all of these hype, the non-academics refused being left out as my attention took another turn when I saw on social media a trending picture of a young man, a supposed ‘car washer’ striking a pose for the camera even as he held what looked like his certificate and of course he had on a complete graduation regalia. The venue was the car wash center and of course the young man was graduating. Shikena.

Before you ask what business a car washer had with wearing such regalia. Let me stop with a ‘Sssshh’ and also with the question of ‘what if the guy was gaining what many people call “freedom” from his boss and decided to have what academics graduands had, is that not a typical form of ‘changing levels’ or graduation? So why then was his picture singled out and made to trend as though it was absurd? laughs.

Simply put, if the picture was real and not some persons trying to gain attention via funny posts on social media, one would be tempted to put a take that there is nothing wrong in the young man and his attempt at celebrating being among those moving ahead in life. Life they say is what we make it.

Nevertheless, I still need to mention here that the idea of graduation has really being over-hyped this year thereby taking most of the shine off the very important graduation ceremonies due to the proliferation of ceremonies held all through the month of July and into August making families, irrespective of the ‘tough’ times, spend unnecessarily given the huge bills parents had to pay for their wards all in the name of graduation.

I strongly affirm that as parents, we need to have a rethink on how far and at what levels these hyped celebrations should get based on the classes of our wards.

Let’s save ourselves some unnecessary ‘wahala’.

I know a few people would still say things such as "it's their money let them spend" or "what has class got to do with it" and many more. It is expected to here such lines anyway.

My thoughts though!