Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Chapter 59
Boarding or day school? Well, if life is about pleasing God by pursuing your passions and learning to let go of the things of this world, including your loved ones, in preparation for the journey back home, boarding school seems to be the best choice for my children not only for their sake but for mine as well!
The sooner my children can learn to walk this journey of life by themselves, the better for them. Keeping them next to me, will not help them build the independence they need to develop the ability to respond sensibly to life’s challenges i.e. RESPONSIBILITY! They have to live the life they were born to live if they are going to make it to the Land of Knowledge and Understanding. That will not happen if I am constantly around them reminding them of my rules. I need to give them the space to learn how those rules will help them in their lives. Many times when I come home and find my nephew doing what he should not be doing, he looks at me like: “Say it!” And am sure that as I say, “Have you showered? Have you eaten? Have you done your homework?”, he repeats it in his head with me as he walks off to go do what he is supposed to do.
If I had been in boarding school and away from my dad, I might not have had the attachment to him that I developed. The attachment denied me the chance to break away and learn to live my life as my own. As a parent, I can only try to do my best to set a good example for my children and earn their respect but I should not allow them to think of me as super human or superior to them such that they develop a need to be like me. This does not mean that those of my peers who went to boarding school are better at dealing with life’s problems than I am but if I compare myself to my husband, his boarding school experience gave him a sense of independence that took me a much longer time to develop. In fact, if I had never met him I think I would still be quite far behind.
The attachment to their parents or guardians that children develop can be a dangerous thing where the parent or guardian has his/her own unresolved issues like the unforgiving characteristic that I copied from my dad. All of us as children have that need to be the perfect daughter or son in our father’s eyes. What if my dad was absent or he was an alcoholic, or a criminal, or a molester, or a wife beater! What would have happened to my need to be the perfect daughter in his eyes?
I would probably have resented him to the point of hating him and wanting to disown him. That hate or resentment for him would reflect back on me because I would hate that I am part of him. I would then imagine the perfect daddy and substitute him for my real daddy. My life’s purpose would then be to try as much as possible to be the perfect child in my imaginary perfect father’s eyes while at the same time try as much as possible NOT to ever be like my real dad. Out of the frustration of not really knowing this imaginary dad of mine, I would probably end up in many broken relationships searching for him.
Or, if he is a protective parent and I live with him and see him everyday, I would copy him because I don’t know any better.
If children are brought up to compare themselves with their parents, they more often than not end up making it their life’s purpose to prove a point to their parents like I did. With the constant reminders of where my dad had come from and how hard he had worked, I made it my life’s purpose to prove to him that I did have some of his blood flowing in my veins!
There can be no RESPONSIBILITY without INDEPENDENCE. In other words, the ability to respond sensibly to life’s challenges can only be cultivated in an environment where the individual is compelled to depend on himself/herself. Only then can those challenges impart the valuable lessons that they carry with them. I don’t think that my protectiveness will allow me to raise my children with the independence they so badly need. Being at home is not challenging for them at all. They don’t have to depend on themselves for anything and they know it!
It is not that our mothers are of no consequence in our lives. Mothers are the ones who give us life and raise us. They prepare us for the battle while our fathers direct us on the strategy for the battle ahead. Pursuing your life’s purpose on an empty stomach without having taken a shower will not be possible. As children, we look to our mothers to teach us the basics without which we can never realize our life’s purpose. When we feel that the ground we are treading on is shaky, we go back to our mothers for comfort and for the assurance that we are worthy. If our mother is not being the person she is meant to be in our lives, we lose our balance.
The inability of parents to respond sensibly to life’s challenges severely affects the development of children by sending the children on wild goose chases which make them attach themselves to the things of this world forgetting that death, ……… is only a heart beat away and life is all about dying a happy death with no regrets.
Irresponsibility is the inability to respond sensibly to life’s challenges, and is the real epidemic that is plaguing the world today. HIV is a byproduct of the attitude of irresponsibility that the world has adopted in its search for economic development. The world as we know it today is a world of Cains i.e. those who leave their brothers for dead. We are not our brothers’ keepers.
If this is the world I will be sending my children out to when they reach the age of majority, I must make every effort to live the life I was born to live and hopefully keep the timing of my death till after my children have developed the responsibility and independence necessary to direct them towards their life’s purposes. Since death is only a heart beat away, the sooner they develop these qualities, the better for them as well as for me.
Having this in mind, as soon as my children begin to develop an attitude of indifference to my rules, something that is inevitable in an environment of dependence, it is my duty to send them to a suitable boarding school.
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Chapter 59
Boarding or day school? Well, if life is about pleasing God by pursuing your passions and learning to let go of the things of this world, including your loved ones, in preparation for the journey back home, boarding school seems to be the best choice for my children not only for their sake but for mine as well!
The sooner my children can learn to walk this journey of life by themselves, the better for them. Keeping them next to me, will not help them build the independence they need to develop the ability to respond sensibly to life’s challenges i.e. RESPONSIBILITY! They have to live the life they were born to live if they are going to make it to the Land of Knowledge and Understanding. That will not happen if I am constantly around them reminding them of my rules. I need to give them the space to learn how those rules will help them in their lives. Many times when I come home and find my nephew doing what he should not be doing, he looks at me like: “Say it!” And am sure that as I say, “Have you showered? Have you eaten? Have you done your homework?”, he repeats it in his head with me as he walks off to go do what he is supposed to do.
If I had been in boarding school and away from my dad, I might not have had the attachment to him that I developed. The attachment denied me the chance to break away and learn to live my life as my own. As a parent, I can only try to do my best to set a good example for my children and earn their respect but I should not allow them to think of me as super human or superior to them such that they develop a need to be like me. This does not mean that those of my peers who went to boarding school are better at dealing with life’s problems than I am but if I compare myself to my husband, his boarding school experience gave him a sense of independence that took me a much longer time to develop. In fact, if I had never met him I think I would still be quite far behind.
The attachment to their parents or guardians that children develop can be a dangerous thing where the parent or guardian has his/her own unresolved issues like the unforgiving characteristic that I copied from my dad. All of us as children have that need to be the perfect daughter or son in our father’s eyes. What if my dad was absent or he was an alcoholic, or a criminal, or a molester, or a wife beater! What would have happened to my need to be the perfect daughter in his eyes?
I would probably have resented him to the point of hating him and wanting to disown him. That hate or resentment for him would reflect back on me because I would hate that I am part of him. I would then imagine the perfect daddy and substitute him for my real daddy. My life’s purpose would then be to try as much as possible to be the perfect child in my imaginary perfect father’s eyes while at the same time try as much as possible NOT to ever be like my real dad. Out of the frustration of not really knowing this imaginary dad of mine, I would probably end up in many broken relationships searching for him.
Or, if he is a protective parent and I live with him and see him everyday, I would copy him because I don’t know any better.
If children are brought up to compare themselves with their parents, they more often than not end up making it their life’s purpose to prove a point to their parents like I did. With the constant reminders of where my dad had come from and how hard he had worked, I made it my life’s purpose to prove to him that I did have some of his blood flowing in my veins!
There can be no RESPONSIBILITY without INDEPENDENCE. In other words, the ability to respond sensibly to life’s challenges can only be cultivated in an environment where the individual is compelled to depend on himself/herself. Only then can those challenges impart the valuable lessons that they carry with them. I don’t think that my protectiveness will allow me to raise my children with the independence they so badly need. Being at home is not challenging for them at all. They don’t have to depend on themselves for anything and they know it!
It is not that our mothers are of no consequence in our lives. Mothers are the ones who give us life and raise us. They prepare us for the battle while our fathers direct us on the strategy for the battle ahead. Pursuing your life’s purpose on an empty stomach without having taken a shower will not be possible. As children, we look to our mothers to teach us the basics without which we can never realize our life’s purpose. When we feel that the ground we are treading on is shaky, we go back to our mothers for comfort and for the assurance that we are worthy. If our mother is not being the person she is meant to be in our lives, we lose our balance.
The inability of parents to respond sensibly to life’s challenges severely affects the development of children by sending the children on wild goose chases which make them attach themselves to the things of this world forgetting that death, ……… is only a heart beat away and life is all about dying a happy death with no regrets.
Irresponsibility is the inability to respond sensibly to life’s challenges, and is the real epidemic that is plaguing the world today. HIV is a byproduct of the attitude of irresponsibility that the world has adopted in its search for economic development. The world as we know it today is a world of Cains i.e. those who leave their brothers for dead. We are not our brothers’ keepers.
If this is the world I will be sending my children out to when they reach the age of majority, I must make every effort to live the life I was born to live and hopefully keep the timing of my death till after my children have developed the responsibility and independence necessary to direct them towards their life’s purposes. Since death is only a heart beat away, the sooner they develop these qualities, the better for them as well as for me.
Having this in mind, as soon as my children begin to develop an attitude of indifference to my rules, something that is inevitable in an environment of dependence, it is my duty to send them to a suitable boarding school.
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