Bob builder ‘I can fix it’ 

Most often the disconnect I’ve witnessed between parents and kids is often due to a gap of understanding. While kids will try to express themselves, parents receive every negative feedback as a question on their parenting style and overall self. 

I’m not a parent myself currently however I’ve observed that parents often see their kids as extensions of themselves, little passion projects to help you realize those dreams you never thought possible. A more improved version of them and with the right tweaks they can be everything they dreamt off. Meanwhile kids don’t share this disillusion, they grow and live their own lives in the world as autonomous humans not extensions of anyone. 

Kids aren’t meant to be perfect .. 

More often than none when kids trip up as they always would, the frustration of parents is often how that mistake reflects on them as parents. 

You’ll hear, “Look what you’ve done. People would question what kind of parents you have.” or more commonly “They’ll say I didn’t train you well.” While these aren’t harmful, mean words they all center back to the parent completely ignoring the child because God forbid a kid makes any mistake on their first try in the world. 

A lot of people I’ve met in my early adult years have no strong ambition in line with the course they’re studying. Who picked it out? You guessed right their parents. 

In Nigeria, it is not uncommon that certain career choices are preferred to others because of career opportunities available within the nation. “Be a doctor or a lawyer”, you’re told. The advice of course given in good faith. 

But at the same time it also makes parents look good among their peers to brag that their daughter is a lawyer. And we know Nigerian parents love nothing more than to talk about their kids success. Is this a bad thing? Of course not. 

But can everyone be a doctor or a lawyer? Also no. Can every child toe the line of a ‘prestigious’ career?  Impossible. 

Yet parents try their best to push this. My child can never fall behind in society’s standing. Even though there are other options, we must all fetch from the same stream because some have tasted its waters and given testament that it’s indeed sweet. 

Your parents want you to succeed and of course you want that too, just that your method is different. You want to succeed your own way better that than surviving the day attending lectures in a course you have no passion for feeling like you’re wasting the years. 

“It’s just 4 years. Study this and then later you can do whatever you want.” Your parents try to cajole you as they would rather see you secure a safe future than a happy one. So you relent as a good child is always an obedient slave. You take the course and as the 4 years go by the silent resentment stirs. 

Who knows if you would have succeeded in that alternative career path? But the longing for ‘what if’s’ sets in. 

You’ve pleased them, a perfect little project but in the end you’ve scarified yourself.