Like the mystical satisfaction I get from nibbling at tiger nuts, I relish my childhood and all the fun things I did especially on a day like this. The memories keep nagging at me, making me sigh and wishing for a moment I’d never get back. I had lost childhood in a phishing scheme and no, I don’t mean in a bad way, I mean in a way that says – this has impacted my life more than I can ever imagine.
From the parades to the salutations, from the debates to the speeches and the medals my group won for being the best, parading group, to the laughter and networking with pupils from other schools, everything is worth writing about.
I vividly remember one of those days, as my team and I had expected to be announced the best parading team, we were so eager and were blowing our trumpet. We had told one of the teams that made it to the top three that they are not and will never be a match, only for us to come third and they were announced as first. Being the trumpet blower, I covered my face in shame and couldn’t wait to go home and cry to mommy. Yes, mummy clearly understood.
Another event that still lingers in my memories is during a debate competition, my co-debater was out to defend her point and out of the blues, she forgot all she crammed. Cramming is very bad – I had to learn.
The Children’s Day in Nigeria was created in 1962 as encouraged by the United Nations Children’s Efforts. It is marked on the 27th day of May each year in Nigeria and the typical practice is to select children from each school to participate in a match-past parade to salute the state leader in the stadium in competition with other schools.
The schools are selected for either first, second or third places respectively based on their performance and thus given prizes or medals in exchange for doing well. However, as good as this practice was, it is so biased because it deprives others –those who are not able to meet with gate fees –the opportunity to meet, have fun and network with other kids.
Practically, after I crossed the bridge of childhood, I expected to see a change in how the Children’s day is being celebrated. I thought it was time to do away with the parades and salutations as everything was now becoming a cliché; and to be part of the evolving world, we need to switch things up a little bit.
According to the CIA Fact Book, 42 percent of Nigeria’s 138 million inhabitants are children, about 11,396,823 are being exposed to child labor, there is a very high infant mortality rate of 93.93 per 1000 births, 70 percent of these kids live below the poverty line and some of these children are also bare to kidnapping, street trading, lack of qualitative education, malnutrition and a host of other disease.
Naturally, for any society to develop, there has to be a connection between its present and its future; children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see, they serve as a bridge or an alteration through which this is compassed.
According to Jawaharlal Nehru, the first PM of Independent India, “Grownups have a strange way of putting themselves in compartments and groups. They build barriers… of religion, caste, colour, party, nation, province, language, and customs and of rich and poor. Fortunately, children do not know much about these barriers, which separate. They play and work with each other and it is only when they grow up that they begin to learn about these barriers from their elders.”
With this at the back of my mind, I believe we have a lot to learn from children and that includes staying together and leading by example. When we lead by example, these kids will learn to not have barriers between themselves and by so doing, we will have a lesser hate-filled world.
I believe it’s time to fully integrate kids into the society. I believe it’s time we teach kids how to be kind and nice and how to be happy. I believe it’s high time we teach our kids how to be responsible. I believe it’s time for our leaders to stop giving us speeches and start acting on how to promote international togetherness and awareness among children. I believe it’s time to end child-slavery and provide the children with adequate welfare and access to education.
Many schools and other educational institutions should make a special effort to inform children of their rights according to the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Teachers ought to inspire their pupils to think about the differences between themselves and others and how to live together as one.
Words To Parents
As tough as parenting may be, it can also be fun and more fun. However, in spite of all of the evidence that parenthood can be hard on the being, you can also experience times of fulfillment that are hard to beat.
Sometimes the joy is in the little moments of parenting – like the way your toddler says “Dada, mama” or how she hums the poems she is taught in school – that makes the difference, and paying attention to these can have a big impact and this link to one of the highest levels of happiness.
However, what do you know about your child’s mental health? Are you all about her grades in school that you forget to pay attention to their being? How many hours in a day do you spend with your child? How often do you play with him/her? All you all about your work and the stress of parenthood?
Please take this seriously, but not too seriously because once mental illness develops, it becomes a regular part of your child’s behavior and is more difficult to treat. When you are all about your children’s grade, you expose them to a level of competition and competitive cultures is a label and can be hard to satisfy. Go beyond the norm and create an ‘Us’ time for just you and your children.
Engage them in fun activities, new set of challenges, restrict screen-time and teach them management because the early days of pain and diaper changing, gives way to sleepovers and tea parties, to college applications, to graduations, and, finally, to a time you will have an empty house all to yourself.
As we all try to spend this day with our children and those yet to come, I think that love should also be extended to those without parents, to those on the streets with barely or no food to eat.
As we celebrate as one, we pray and hope that the stereotype we give things would go away and that our government will be committed to making life better for us and that love, peace, kindness and happiness will abound.
Happy Children’s Day!
