Kudos to the dads intentionally raising their children
Watching a movie on a huge screen under the stars is a memory that is likely to remain with you forever.
This week’s cover story inspired my column today. In a nutshell, the feature is talking about the comeback of night cinemas, where Nairobians looking for laidback fun are paying to watch movies outdoors, at night.
Reading the story opened a floodgate of cherished childhood memories where my dad would periodically take us to watch movies at the Fox Drive-In, Bellevue, which has since shut down. My dad owned a small, blue Datsun pickup, which he had reinforced with metal bars to allow draping of a tarpaulin, which came in handy during the rainy season.
On the days that he took us to watch a movie, (the Drive-in would screen two or three movies starting from 7.30pm to around midnight if I remember correctly) he would cover the back of his pickup with the specially made tarpaulin, and then we would place a mattress or two on the bed of the pickup and throw in blankets, after which the journey to the Drive-in would begin.
Watching a movie on a huge screen lying on a makeshift bed under the stars is a memory that is likely to remain with you forever, and many, many years later, I still remember those nights, which were made even more special by the fact that my dad would buy us snacks and soda from the shop located in the facility to munch on as we watched the movies.
Interestingly, he would doze off in the driver’s seat and start snoring almost immediately the first movie began, and we would have to shake him awake when the screening ended, hours later, so that he could drive us back home.
I never thought about it then, but when I was old enough to reflect on it, it occurred to me that on those outings, he must have always been so tired, and could have easily chosen to sleep off the week’s fatigue in his warm bed at home, instead of driving us, his children, across the city to watch a movie that he knew he wouldn’t get to watch.
Looking back, that was an early lesson in intentional parenting, where my father deliberately set aside time for activities that we enjoyed, sacrificing his own comfort to make our lives enjoyable. Those outings also demonstrated to us that there was time for everything, including learning the hard lessons. It wasn’t just fun and games all the time.
I don’t recall whether I’ve written about this here, but I learned how to read at a very young age, thanks to my father’s no nonsense approach to education – I remember him locking my elder brother and I in a cold bathroom with only a paraffin lamp to keep us company, until we were able to read a letter we had brought from school. Our home in a shagz somewhere in Kiambu County wasn’t connected to electricity then, and we knew that when the paraffin was depleted, we would be engulfed in darkness, and which child isn’t afraid of darkness and the many monsters it brings with it?
That day, my brother and I learned how to read by force, and from then henceforth, we ensured that we could read every word in the communication letters we brought home from school before handing them to Mr Njung’e... This is another example, at least in my perspective, of intentional parenting – the gentleman not only had a goal in mind for us, he had also figured out a way that he would help us achieve it, even though today’s parent would probably frown on his method, even go as far as calling it child abuse. Today’s parents withhold gadget time to instill discipline and compel their children to follow instructions. During our time, with no gadgets to leverage, our battle-hardened parents employed ‘brutal’ methods to panel beat us, and look at us now! We turned out just fine, didn’t we?
Anyway, kudos to the dads in the house who are not only present in their children’s lives, but are also intentionally raising them.
cnjunge@ke.nationmedia.com