By Debbie Olujobi

The letter published last week has been circulating for months on the Internet and while it is indeed, a brilliant read, its value is in the indictment of the new generation Nigerian parents. I had received it over 10 times in chain e-mails and I am just as curious to know its author.

I apologise to all those who asked to be linked with him or her, I don’t know either. A part of me was hoping the author would get in touch, but so far no luck. I had taken the decision to publish it because the message was so powerful it needed a bigger platform than a chain of e-mails that may not be taken as seriously as the message in it deserves. I applauded the letter and agree with all of its points but must shamefacedly confess that I am guilty of almost all charges brought.

It is the dream of all parents to give their children a better life than they had and while nothing is wrong with that lofty ideal, we have gone a step further and are perhaps inadvertently setting up our children for a worse life. One of the traits I came to seriously dislike in the rich-kids of my days is now the norm for the new generation of children and it cuts across us all. Growing up in an emotional turbulent environment that was far from rich made me appreciative of most things and I had been appalled at the “grab it” nature of the kids of affluent parents.

Most of them had in my view the worst manners and it came from their sense of entitlement to anything they desired. They didn’t have any sense of value and they treated other people’s property with outright carelessness and disrespect. Looking back now, I understand why a lot better.

They were never denied anything, they never had to wait for toys or were they punished for carelessness!! Their wishes were always met so what was the big deal about breaking the poor kid’s prized possession? Everything was available and in abundance so they felt that was a normal way of life. Their parents were the Santa Clauses that made all things available and they didn’t know any other reality.

Now, most people will turn up their noses at the children I described but before you get on a high horse, take a close look at your child and you will find remarkable similarities. I am told that my house is run like a military barracks and I don’t believe in fast food and sugary drinks but I will be a fraud if I claimed my children to be free from the entitlement syndrome.

I will confess that reading the article informed my decision to relocate the children’s seats and class of travel on the next family vacation but the underlying reason for most of the excesses in parenting is actually nothing to do with the children. They are being moulded into an entitled generation by parents who are reliving their childhoods and over compensating for not being as readily available.

I remember a conversation with a niece and it had do with lavatories and toilets. She wanted to know what a pit latrine was and she was not only appalled, she was disgusted by my accounts of how we used to use kerosine to disguise the smell of human waste because we had no water to flush.

Growing up in a large family with meagre resources was a fight for survival and I came away from that conversation with a new understanding that this generation of children had no understanding or concept of struggling or hardship. While mulling it over, I remember that even while my siblings and I had to do without many things, my parents never apologised for what they couldn’t provide, so they never felt the pressure to over indulge or over compensate. Just like us, our parents employed nannies and they were not always there but they were parents, who were parents; not parents trying to be friends with their kids.

The reality of life in this century is the constant struggle to make ends meet. Parents are getting hit from all angles. Education is the biggest drain on resources and it is followed closely by accommodation, transportation not to talk of clothes and food. In the struggle to make a decent living, most parents work from dawn till dusk, they spend a larger percentage of their evenings stuck in traffic and by the time they get home, they are so tired, it’s easier to say yes to the kids than reason or even debate what they can have or can’t have.

The bottom line is this; if care is not taken, we would deny our children the survival kit to survive a tough world. I don’t think we need to live out our childhood fantasies through our children or use expensive life styles to flaunt our newly-acquired opulence to the world.

I don’t have the answers and not all children are spoilt but I must remind those of us parents who are guilty of reliving their childhoods and overcompensating or overindulging their children to stop. The best thing we can do for our children is to prepare them for hardship because life is hard! We can’t live it for them, we can get them jobs but we can’t do it for them and it starts now. No child is too little or too old to be reined in.

The reality is that we won’t be here all their lives and what would become of them if we don’t help them be strong to face their own struggles?

We faced and are facing ours, let them face theirs!!!!!