I took my eldest son for a haircut, on the insistence of his housemaster, near his school last Sunday. As we approached the barber’s shop, I saw youths clustered around the two shops on either side of the barber’s shop. Initially, I thought they were watching a soccer match, but then I remembered the European football seasons were over. As I moved closer, I said to myself, “I hope it is not what I think.” Yes, it was; both shops are betting shops, the young men came to wager.

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You would have noticed that I have never written on romance in this column. Well, that is because you cannot give what you do not have, or so I was made to believe. At my 40th birthday party long ago, I told my hosts (they actually organized it for me) that “my wife has been wonderful and most supportive, but she complains that I am not romantic.” They roared into laughter, while a friend jokingly commented that “how can she say you are not romantic, yet she is pregnant.” But you know even rape can result in pregnancy, yet rape is not romantic. I know that for a fact. In other words, sex can be romantic, but not all sex is romantic.

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After their 10 wedding anniversary, John and Rose’s seemingly rosy marriage was falling apart. John was tired of living a lie. He was determined to make the marriage truly happy or pack it up. He decided to start from where all sensible couples should: communication. They did not travel abroad or go to some exotic hotel or resort to do it; that is for people who have the means and time. They did it right there in bed where they have earlier had a grueling intimate moment (some call it grudge sex).

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Ruth is in a rude shock. She is bemoaning the fortune that came to them and “tore” her and her husband apart. Ruth, her husband, Gerald and four children, two boys and two girls, “were living happily in a three-bedroom flat where we cramped ourselves. Male visitors stayed in the boys’ room while female guests stayed with my daughters.”

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Tomorrow, the world celebrates the World Family Day, a day set aside by the United Nations to draw attention to the importance of the family. The day was also declared in response to changing social and economic structures which have affected and still affect the structure and stability of families in Africa and other parts of the world. After God, the family comes next. It is good to have a successful career, hang out with the guys/girls, but nothing comes near the family. Great wealth without great children to manage it after your retirement/demise often becomes a term activity.

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We live in a free world, but virtually everybody is in one form of prison or the other. We are prisoners of nature and nurture. Nature refers to all of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are, while nurture refers to all the environmental factors that influence who we are. Nature is inherited from our parents, while nurture is environmental.

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We live at a time and in a country where time-honoured clichés and sayings are being partly or totally debunked. For example, “the patient dog eats the fattest bone,” but many a time in Nigeria the patient dog meets an empty plate. At a seminar in a foremost hotel in Abuja, lunch was a buffet and participants were going table by table. My table was among the last and when I saw some people from my table shunting, I was disappointed, but by the time we got there, I understood why.

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It is another season of Mother’s Day. Some have celebrated Mother’s Day; others are celebrating tomorrow and some others in the weeks to come. I say Happy Mother’s Day to all Mothers.

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