The childhood my son will never have

by JOYCE KIMANI kimani@ke.nationmedia.com

Posted  Wednesday, April 24   2013 at  01:00

IN SUMMARY

• I firmly switched off the TV and ordered him to go out and play. I was surprised when two minutes later, he came in with a huge smile, claiming that there was no one to play with outside and promptly sat where I had ejected him from.

after watching my three-year-old son curled up on the seat watching cartoons day after day since he closed school, I decided I had had enough.

I firmly switched off the TV and ordered him to go out and play. I was surprised when two minutes later, he came in with a huge smile, claiming that there was no one to play with outside and promptly sat where I had ejected him from.

Thinking he was being cheeky, I went outside, only to encounter an empty street. There was no single child outside. It did not make sense because school had been closed for more than two weeks. 
Growing up, holidays were about the only thing I looked forward to because I was given the licence to explore my world.

I recall how every morning when I woke up, my eyes would be painfully glued together because I had spent the better part of the previous day playing with soil. Hardly would I have finished my breakfast before my friends came to get me so that we could play.

We never ran out of games to play. Chamama or playing house was my favourite since I always got to play mother. This gave me an opportunity to spank the other children. Believe it or not, we cooked real food.

This is how I learnt to make ugali. We would also fry grass and anything else that was green and looked like a vegetable. And yes, we ate this “food” even though we would suffer terrible stomachache afterwards, not to mention the tapeworms that called our tummies home.

Sometimes the mischief went out of hand and we would dig into garbage bins looking for anything nasty we could smear on people’s windows. I still remember the cursing and screaming that would follow us as we ran away after the misdeed.

I was surprised when a friend recently told me that she never got into mischief when she was young. Well, with a sling, I was the David of my generation. I never missed any window I aimed at.

Did I mention that one day instead of going for Sunday school, my siblings and I decided to go play in an abandoned quarry? Since we could not afford snacks, we packed the previous night’s ugali and salted water. It truly was a day to remember, minus the bland lunch.

One round

How many children today know how to ride bikes? I recall how we would plead with a playmate who had one for round moja. However, instead of taking the one round, we would take off with the bike for a whole day

Once, without our parent’s knowledge, we walked all the way to Lake Nakuru National Park, a couple of kilometres from our homes. The park was fenced with electric wire to keep the animals in and, oblivious of the danger it posed, we would touch it and get a kick out of the “vibrations” we would get.

This story made my mother almost die of shock when we told her about it a few years ago.

A lot has changed since our days. Children no longer play, all they do is watch television. I am worried that at this rate, the only exciting memory of childhood my child will have when he turns 20 is which cartoon impressed him the most.

But I want my children to have meaningful stories to narrate to each other when they grow old. I want my son to enjoy being a child, to enjoy the beautiful and interesting outdoors. So, for the next few weeks, TV and PlayStations are no-go zones.

I want him to learn how to be a child, not a machine controlled by a remote control.