Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Chapter 53
I was wondering about choosing suitable schools for my children now that I had a success formula that I wanted them to adopt at the earliest stage possible. The first question I was considering was whether boarding school or day school is preferable.
I am a protective parent and could never have imagined taking any of my children to boarding school. The choice of which school to take my niece to was my husband’s. I chose which school to take my nephew to. My niece ended up in boarding school while my nephew ended up in day school.
NO WAY, was I ever going to boarding school. I completely refused to go to boarding school. I was in day school throughout my primary school days. After my primary school national exams I passed so well I was accepted in one of the best national girls secondary schools in the country, which was a boarding school. I refused to go. My reasons for refusing were very sound to me. I could not possibly shower with cold water! Eat githeri with weevils! Sleep on a thin mattress! Share a dorm room with so many other girls! Have my junk food rationed! Be separated from the comforts I had at home! NO WAY! I rated my life at a 3 out of 10 because I had the luxury of making such a choice. At that time I had no idea how desperately parents of other children were dying for their children to go to that school. I did not even think about the cost implication of choosing a private day school as opposed to a public boarding school. Not to mention that God had taken a little more time designing for me a brain intelligent enough to get me the grades I was aiming for. My dad did not mind me going to day school since anyway, I had proved that being at home did not hinder my ability to excel in my studies. So day school it was.
Now I have been wondering whether my fear of boarding school is well founded or based on shallow thinking. In making decisions relating to my children’s future, the important starting point is to establish what it is I want to achieve with them.
EVERYONE would love to be the mother or father of President so and so, or Doctor so and so, or Lawyer so and so, or Engineer so and so etc. We all want our children to excel in life and leave us grinning from cheek to cheek with pride when they come home to visit with their beautiful families dressed up in designer clothes, just back from a holiday in the Bahamas, driving a Range Rover sports from their mansion in the surburbs and speaking intelligent stuff that keeps our mouths gaping at how advanced our little boy or little girl is in the world.
I have to accept that it is not enough to set rules at home when my children will spend most of their lives at school. If the schools they are in do not enforce similar rules to those I have set at home, no doubt there will be a problem. So the choice of schools for my children is very important if am ever going to be grinning with pride at how they turn out.
As I was pondering on the question of schools for my children, I asked myself a question that left me shocked when I realized the answer. I asked, “Njeri, if now is the time you are discovering that your life should be guided by your passions, what was your life guided by in the last more than 3 decades that you have been alive?” At first, I could not answer the question. I thought and thought and thought for about 4 days until I found the answer. You will be surprised by the answer.
Prior to finding Jesus this year, the choices I was making in my life were motivated by my need to please my dad! Imagine that! All my life, I have always wanted so much to show my dad that I appreciate everything he did for me and that I can be the little girl he always wanted me to be. My dad died more than a decade ago. Could it be that I have never accepted his death?!
My dad never ever told me that he wanted me to please him. In fact he made it very clear that my life was my own and all he was doing was helping me get a good head start by giving me a good education. So how in the world did I, as a child, and even as a grown up, develop such an attachment to my dad that I was basing my life’s choices on what would please him even long after his death? It is not that I consulted him on anything or that I always did what I thought would please him but before I decided to do anything, I would consider what my dad would think and make my decision based on whether I could convince him that what I was doing was right for me.
This line of thought put a long pause on the thought about my children’s schools and brought up a huge concern for how I was communicating with my children. I realized that there is a gap in the way we teach our children about their futures. It seems to me that the gap arises when we refuse to address issues with our children that we know all too well they are thinking about. I think that the reason I became so attached to pleasing my dad was because I feared that if I did not please him, he would leave me like he left my mother and then only God knows where I would have ended up! Imagine that! And imagine how long it has taken me to realize this. This need to please my dad was not a conscious one. It was in my sub-conscience. Obviously the education gap I was thinking about needed very serious consideration since its effect on me and probably on everyone I know is far reaching.
I have realized (and this probably applies to all women in the world) that what I want most in life is to be the perfect daughter in my father’s eyes. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the perfect daughter in your father’s eyes. The problem arises when you relate that need to your earthly father who is mortal and faulted instead of relating it to your God who is immortal, invincible and perfect.
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Chapter 53
I was wondering about choosing suitable schools for my children now that I had a success formula that I wanted them to adopt at the earliest stage possible. The first question I was considering was whether boarding school or day school is preferable.
I am a protective parent and could never have imagined taking any of my children to boarding school. The choice of which school to take my niece to was my husband’s. I chose which school to take my nephew to. My niece ended up in boarding school while my nephew ended up in day school.
NO WAY, was I ever going to boarding school. I completely refused to go to boarding school. I was in day school throughout my primary school days. After my primary school national exams I passed so well I was accepted in one of the best national girls secondary schools in the country, which was a boarding school. I refused to go. My reasons for refusing were very sound to me. I could not possibly shower with cold water! Eat githeri with weevils! Sleep on a thin mattress! Share a dorm room with so many other girls! Have my junk food rationed! Be separated from the comforts I had at home! NO WAY! I rated my life at a 3 out of 10 because I had the luxury of making such a choice. At that time I had no idea how desperately parents of other children were dying for their children to go to that school. I did not even think about the cost implication of choosing a private day school as opposed to a public boarding school. Not to mention that God had taken a little more time designing for me a brain intelligent enough to get me the grades I was aiming for. My dad did not mind me going to day school since anyway, I had proved that being at home did not hinder my ability to excel in my studies. So day school it was.
Now I have been wondering whether my fear of boarding school is well founded or based on shallow thinking. In making decisions relating to my children’s future, the important starting point is to establish what it is I want to achieve with them.
EVERYONE would love to be the mother or father of President so and so, or Doctor so and so, or Lawyer so and so, or Engineer so and so etc. We all want our children to excel in life and leave us grinning from cheek to cheek with pride when they come home to visit with their beautiful families dressed up in designer clothes, just back from a holiday in the Bahamas, driving a Range Rover sports from their mansion in the surburbs and speaking intelligent stuff that keeps our mouths gaping at how advanced our little boy or little girl is in the world.
I have to accept that it is not enough to set rules at home when my children will spend most of their lives at school. If the schools they are in do not enforce similar rules to those I have set at home, no doubt there will be a problem. So the choice of schools for my children is very important if am ever going to be grinning with pride at how they turn out.
As I was pondering on the question of schools for my children, I asked myself a question that left me shocked when I realized the answer. I asked, “Njeri, if now is the time you are discovering that your life should be guided by your passions, what was your life guided by in the last more than 3 decades that you have been alive?” At first, I could not answer the question. I thought and thought and thought for about 4 days until I found the answer. You will be surprised by the answer.
Prior to finding Jesus this year, the choices I was making in my life were motivated by my need to please my dad! Imagine that! All my life, I have always wanted so much to show my dad that I appreciate everything he did for me and that I can be the little girl he always wanted me to be. My dad died more than a decade ago. Could it be that I have never accepted his death?!
My dad never ever told me that he wanted me to please him. In fact he made it very clear that my life was my own and all he was doing was helping me get a good head start by giving me a good education. So how in the world did I, as a child, and even as a grown up, develop such an attachment to my dad that I was basing my life’s choices on what would please him even long after his death? It is not that I consulted him on anything or that I always did what I thought would please him but before I decided to do anything, I would consider what my dad would think and make my decision based on whether I could convince him that what I was doing was right for me.
This line of thought put a long pause on the thought about my children’s schools and brought up a huge concern for how I was communicating with my children. I realized that there is a gap in the way we teach our children about their futures. It seems to me that the gap arises when we refuse to address issues with our children that we know all too well they are thinking about. I think that the reason I became so attached to pleasing my dad was because I feared that if I did not please him, he would leave me like he left my mother and then only God knows where I would have ended up! Imagine that! And imagine how long it has taken me to realize this. This need to please my dad was not a conscious one. It was in my sub-conscience. Obviously the education gap I was thinking about needed very serious consideration since its effect on me and probably on everyone I know is far reaching.
I have realized (and this probably applies to all women in the world) that what I want most in life is to be the perfect daughter in my father’s eyes. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the perfect daughter in your father’s eyes. The problem arises when you relate that need to your earthly father who is mortal and faulted instead of relating it to your God who is immortal, invincible and perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment