If you are above 40 years old and grew up outside the big cities, chances are that you grew up in an environment that was totally different from what your children are growing up in. For example, in comparison to the caged and dull life that your children experience today, you had great fun and liberty.
Any time we travel to our hometown to spend some time, our children just don’t want to come back to Lagos. The reason is simple. Unlike in Lagos where they live a caged life, they live a free life in our hometown. They also have many children to play with.
Today’s children from the middle class and upper class (who live in Nigerian cities) live a life that is the same as being under house arrest. Children live in homes from which they cannot step out. If they live in an apartment, they are not allowed to step out of it to play with other children. If it is a single-family house, they can play within the compound but are not allowed to step out of it. To get to school, which may be on the same street, the children are driven in a car or a school bus. When they close from school, they are driven back home.
But when does the school even close? That’s around 2.30 pm. And that includes toddlers who are in the kindergarten. But it does not end there. After school, lessons start. That will last till 4 or 5 pm. The child then returns home fagged out. The implication is that most children stay in school longer than some adults, especially adults who work in government offices and close by 4 pm.
Because most Nigerian schools today are privately owned, they operate on plots of land that are about 120 feet by 60 feet (about 668 square metres). The school may be a three-storey building. There is no space for the children to play during the break, not to mention a field for football as well as march-past, track and field events, a volleyball court or even a table tennis board.
When the children return from school, they have homework to do. When they are done, they may be allowed to watch TV or play some video games or phone games before bedtime. By 5 or 6 am, they wake up again and prepare for school.
What type of food do these children eat? They take all kinds of cereals in the morning. In addition to the lunch packs they take to school, they take snacks every day as well as carbonated drinks. To show them more love, parents regularly buy them ice cream, popcorn, meat pie, hamburger, shawarma, chocolate, candy, pizza, and the like.
If the children have to attend any event in the church, the parents drive them. If Daddy or Mummy needs to buy a recharge card across the street, they send the house help but not their children. At 15, many children have never crossed a road on their own. When they get admission into a boarding school, parents drive them to the school. If they don’t send the children to universities overseas, when they gain admission to a university in Nigeria, the parents drive them to the university, if it is within the state. If it is outside the state or zone, a flight is taken.
Now compare that to my childhood. My primary school and secondary school had fields for different sports. Participation in sports was not optional. In secondary school, a marathon or cross country held every Monday for all boarders. During sports, the hostels were locked so everyone would participate. There were two sports prefects and a football captain who were recognized as prefects of the school. There were competitions called inter-house games as well as an inter-house match (specifically for football). In the same vein, there were inter-school sports and inter-school match (football). And the grass in all the fields in school was cut by us, either as our duty or as punishment.
As a child, once I came back from school and did my house chores, I had the freedom to go out to play. Football could be played anywhere―in a field, someone’s compound or on the street—and with anything; football, bad orange, bad tennis ball, a ball of cloth, etc.
For the sake of swimming, we went to the stream regularly to fetch water, even if the tap water in the home ran. And we could swim from morning to evening. We went to fetch firewood or fodder for the goats or sheep. We went to search for wild fruits. We played under the udara tree for hours, waiting for the sweet fruit to fall, as it was taboo to pluck the fruit. We climbed trees to pluck fruits or to play. I doubt if my nine-year-old boy living in a city today can climb any tree.
We tilled the soil to plant crops. And for me, it was fun. We tended the crops and harvested them. And our meals were mainly from fresh crops and fruits and vegetables.
When I took my common entrance examination, it was in a secondary school far from home, and I went to the school myself with other classmates. As a 15-year-old Class 4 student of Okongwu Memorial Grammar School, Nnewi, I received a letter from the West African Examinations Council that something was missing in my GCE form. I got my exeat card signed by the school, and for the first time in my life, I travelled to Enugu—and alone― to WAEC office, changing buses about five times. When I got to WAEC office, I was given my form to append my signature to a page. I travelled back again to my school. Also when my University Matriculation Examination result came out—which is now the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, I travelled to Nsukka for the first time to check the result and do my registration.
Because of the type of food we ate and the amount of walking, working, playing, and sports we did, it was rare to see an obese child. Today, seeing an obese child is easier than seeing a slim child. Today, it is not unusual to see eight-year-old girls menstruating. With the health challenges and sudden death facing our generation and those before us, one wonders what will be the fate of our children when they become adults in the next 20 to 40 years from now.
There is no gainsaying that my children know more things than I knew at their age, because of the access they have to books, cable TV and video games. They are more tech-savvy than I was at their age. They show me features on my phone or video player that I never knew existed. But I was stronger and fitter than they at their age. I was more street-wise and more daring. I was more independent-minded. I confronted bullies and tough situations.
No doubt, things have changed. Rural areas have become towns, and towns have become cities. Crimes of kidnapping and ritual killing are high. Nobody can be trusted anymore. But do we really have an excuse for turning our children into unhealthy, obese, clumsy, dependent, jelly-like people, ill-equipped to survive in a hard and unpredictable world?
It is not too late to change the negative lifestyles we have forced upon our children in the name of showing them love and protecting them.
