With all my sense of empathy, I think I should first say thank you to the kind parents who raised me. I was a very stubborn child with few brutal traits, despite being raised in a practical church way. I grew up exhibiting a couple of traits that my mother in particular would not resist chastising me about at the slightest notice of any of these behaviours she found unacceptable. She kept hammering on the fact that I must be ‘useful’. Maybe this was based on the premise that she went through a lot conceiving me, but I could sense the urge from a woman who wants to raise a better man.
Honestly, I don’t know what I’d have become if my parents hadn’t paid close attention to the flames of toxicity that socialization was infiltrating me with.
This is the umpteenth time I am lamenting the kind of men raised in this generation. The recent case of the trios who bullied and murdered Sylvester Oromoni Jr. at Dowen College in Lagos has made it more clear that our parents need to do better. An average Nigerian parent is very defensive about their child. This toxic attitude always unfolds in two ways. One is that the parent can be fully aware of and support these anti-social behavior’s. In some other cases, they don’t have an idea, but they will blindly defend them when they are reported because they believe they raised a good child.
In Sylvester’s murder case, the report says that these suspects’ parents came with a convoy to pick up their wards immediately after the matter escalated. Another source alleges that these kids have been flown out of Nigeria. It is that bad.
For this issue, these young criminals had likely been exhibiting these toxic traits, and their parents had been motivating them to do more, or they just got to know about this hidden attribute. So, I would speak from both perspectives.
More often than not, I have seen parents fight dirty with themselves when their kids get into fights with themselves. Apparently, one of them would be wrong, but both will definitely fight for the ‘rights’ of their wards.
An average Nigerian parent has encouraged their kids, directly or indirectly, to exhibit these anti-social behaviours. I have seen parents encourage their son to beat his female sibling, even older ones, because he is the’man’ and he has ‘9 ribs’.
Many parents are foolishly raising beasts instead of men. They have made their sons believe that their pride and strength lie in their masculinity and this, in turn, have increased social vices, including domestic violence, rape, etc.
Many people find it funny when I say that I won’t get my son toy guns, toy horses, or cars alone. I’ll get him dolls too. I will let him know it’s okay to cry too. I’m not raising a mediocre man; I’m raising a man who will understand both masculinity and femininity without prejudice. I’m going to raise a ‘human’, not necessarily a’male’ or a ‘female’.
Beyond Nollywood, many well-to-do parents have also raised their kids to see the middle class or ‘poor people’ as their enemies. They paint them as people who covet their money and their lives. This thought has also significantly contributed to the number of beasts among humans.
From the other perspective, parents really need to let their kids own up to their mistakes without attempting to sweep them under the rug. It’s another way that encourages them to do more evil and grow deeper in it.
Many parents blatantly protect their kids because they trust them or can’t afford to be seen as failed parents. More often than not, this attitude has helped many young people, especially males, find it more comfortable perpetrating evil.
Conclusively, juvenile delinquency is an issue that demands urgent attention. The numbers of cultists, harlots, drug addicts, and hooligans in secondary schools across the nation are drastically increasing. A feasible method must be adopted to curb these excesses.
PS: Happy Posthumous Birthday to Sylvester Oromoni! May your killers never find peace.
