Growing up as a child

Life can be a thorn of roses, especially when growing up in the house of a stringent and disciplinarian father. It is worse when he is a conservative and a perfectionist. I can’t remember any time when I felt totally secure without harbouring the fear for punishment even on the minor errors committed.
The disciplinarian was always on our neck. Growing up as a child, I was reserved. Strains of the same reserved nature still trail me today in my twenties. As a reserved child, father never really understood whether I was happy of or not, whether I had something I needed or not. So, even though I needed anything, I could not pass my request directly to him. I merely swallowed my wishes and let the agony burn in me in silence. The same attributes also characterised my younger brothers.
But, mother would always endeavour to listen to us. She was a vital intercession between us the kids and dad. However, there are times when out of our inborn fear for dad, we would even dread to see face to face. We would always hide away whenever he was around.
Though reserved and shy we were, father always expected the best out of us. For instance, being himself a teacher, he expected us to be top performers in class. It is for this reason that he always lectured us on how bright he was at school.
“I was always top of my class,” he would say
He expected us to participate in numerous co-curricula activities like dance, drama, the choir and sports. He personally played football in high school and college and was highly respected. But for having made it to a teacher training college, he could possibly have joined one of the established football clubs in the country.
However, that was too much expectation out of us. For failing to instil confidence in us from an early age, we could not do anything that could easily make him a proud father from the outset. The fact that confidence lacked in us, it was too hard for us to be outgoing or to venture into extra-curricula activities for that matter.
Nevertheless, his conservative nature gave him hope. He still had the idea that our outgoingness and confidence would ‘naturally’ come out at the right time, since he never ‘lacked’ such attributes.
As fate would have it, we never used to perform excellently in class. We were ever criticised on such poor academic showing. Whenever we endeavoured to do our best, he would not offer us a tap on the back. He would rather say on a serious note, “You could have done better than that.” Poor we.
The major problem with an over disciplinarian cum conservative father is that he will always look at your views as insignificant to him. He never easily accommodated our views since he always portrayed himself as the sole claimer of knowledge. The best he can do is to turn you into an automaton. He has a time frame for every stage of life you’ll pass through. His duty is to ensure the remote keeps working as you grow into the various stages of life he would wish you to undergo.
But, as we grew older, we tended to resist such autocracy though, mildly. When we began to have our way in many situations, he would regard that as defiance of authority. It would be worth it if we asked for permission to every little or petty issue we would wish to partake of.
Initially, he regarded the choice of our future career as his preserve. We were ‘remote controlled automatons’ so how could we define our future career without his involvement? Advice could serve better, but not coercion. He regarded the latter with prior importance since we would easily comply to every one of his dictate courtesy of the fear he instilled in us.
As a teacher and as a conservative, he believed we could make good teachers just like him. He therefore tried hard to push us in his way of belief and perception of things.
“As a teacher, you will always be marketable,” he always informed us.
What would happen if we told him we wouldn’t wish to take on the noble profession? In most cases, someone usually aspires to do something in the way of ones role model. But, was he our role model? He never instilled the confidence and spirit of noble teachers in us.
In growing up as a child, I came to realise, many years later that one of the best gifts a parent can instil in their offspring is confidence. But, right from a tender age, this was lacking in us. We perceived almost everything in stringent colours. If you become bold enough and tell your senior about a mistake they have made or are about to commit, you are scoffed. Often times, you are punished. How can confidence grow in such a tender heart and mind?
But at least, he managed to see to it that my elder brother ended up in a teacher training college. He would have wished his eldest son to go to the very teacher’s college he went to in the early eighties. Such a control of course came to pass when my elder brother was far into the voting age. Would he swallow the dictates and controls any more?
One of the worst shocks seized dad when his eldest son swooped churches without his consent. Dad was mad at him. But my brother would not withdraw his decision.
“He should know that I am a grown up,” that’s what my brother would tell me. After many years of exercising no independent decision on his own, it was high time he defied authority and acted on his own.
Father has come to realise that things have changed and he needs to act more liberally.
I might not be alone in this fate of growing up as a child. I remember one of my friends telling me that he never has anything important to tell his father. The two can’t easily hold a talk with each other. In fact, he professes, “I only talk to my father when we are quarrelling.” To him, it is not absurd. He grew up knowing that as a man, he was supposed to be tough.
Steve on the other hand was born a left handed guy. However, his late father, being a disciplinarian and conservative as he was, made sure that Steve used his ‘right’ hand instead.
“It was hard,” Steve confesses. The father even instructed the teachers at school to make sure Steve used his ‘right’ hand to write. At home, whenever Steve would pick food with his left hand, his father would bang that hand. Eventually, though painfully, Steve adjusted. He now writes with his ‘right’ hand though the left one is stronger. He can throw a stone far when he uses his left hand, but he is not good at writing with it.
23 year Isaac Abilu however has a different experience. The affection between him and his father is evident. He is ever communicating with him on almost a daily basis. In their communication, such kind words like ‘dear son’, ‘dear dad’ are not elusive. He attributes this to gender in the family structure. He has five sisters. He is the only boy and that is why his father banks so much affection on him.
I don’t exactly understand whether my childhood was hidden somewhere in the face of affection. In growing up under the roof of a conservative and disciplinarian guardian, I understand he wanted to curve us into better citizens of the world.
This would only happen in the face of stringent laws and observation of such laws to the letter. Perhaps, the reserved status which grew inside became demystified when I ventured into writing at the age of fifteen. It was at that age that I strongly felt I wanted to say something, which couldn’t come out exactly as I wanted.
Partial relief exuded into my selfhood when I took pen and paper and began to communicate my alien thoughts in a tangible form. Here, it seems, is where my life rotates.
Dad might have been right when he said we could make better teachers. Chinua Achebe once said that a writer is a teacher who needs to re-educate his people. Perhaps, he was wrong since it is not a matter of chalk and blackboard.
In growing up as a child, it hasn’t been an easy experience though. I wonder how things would be if I was close to my father from the outset.

Joshua Masinde.