WHY WORK TOO HARD TO RETAURN TO A BROKEN HOME?

Last week I was reading the Standard Newspaper and one article that came to my attention was that on campus love, which stressed on the lavish lifestyles young girls are living courtesy of wealthy married men who promise them the world in exchange of fun. You can have a look at the article here

My concern was not the fact that young girls are choosing to get ‘sponsors’ as this is a trending topic today, but at what point does a young girl enter an agreement with a married man who will use her to the maximum just to live life in the fast lane. Is it that our parents have failed in giving us guidance? Is it peer pressure? Is it the fact that our parents lack time for us?

Gone are the days when our parents would spend quality time with us to ensure they play their part in shaping our morals. Our today parents are busy paper-chasing, their careers coming before anything else with the excuse of, the economy is bad therefore, they need to work extra hard to provide for their family. Question is, do you work so hard and spend 95% of your days at work at the expense of your family? Yes, when you work you do it for your family, but, what is the importance of your hard earned money if you come back home to a child who is slowly going mad because of abusing drugs? To a child who can sleep with your fellow married friends without guilt running through their minds?

Look at this situation, Janet (not her real name) joins Campus and her busy parents opt to have her live in the hostels for her own convenience. There she makes new friends from different social classes of course with different characters. Janet is then introduced to the night life by her room-mates, the life around heavy drinking and smoking, at first she is reluctant and opts to go home during the weekend to spend time with her parents. On going home, her mother is off for a house warming party which lasts a whole day while her father travels outside the city for work, this means she will not spend quality time with either of them.

Two semesters down the line, Janet is convinced and opts for the night life in high end clubs where she meets a good looking married man who promises her the world. This means she replaces classes with dates outside the city sometimes outside the country. The man showers her with material things leaving her excited. He makes it clear to her that he is married and only wants fun with her, having tasted the good life she agrees with that and their relationship kicks off.

Months pass without her seeing her parents, thanks to technology, she still manages to communicate with them via phone. Just a phone call, she informs her parents that she will be moving from the hostel to a one bedroom apartment near the school as she finds hostel-life challenging with the dirty communal bathrooms and small squeezed rooms. Her parents sympathize with her and give her a go ahead by sending her money to transport her properties and paying for the house rent. Little do they know, the reason for her move is to avoid restrictions from her ‘casual relationship’ with her sponsor.

Weeks pass and Janet’s parents know her less as they are busy at work, they believe by calling to check up on her and taking care of her basic needs is what parenting is all about.

She becomes well traveled with the latest expensive clothes, shoes, handbags and jewellery in her wardrobe, her relationship becomes sweeter for her. Her lover has children and obviously does not expect her to conceive, so her body is stuffed with morning-after and emergency pills. She comfortably takes them since she too is not ready to have a baby in campus exposing herself to diseases. Two years down the line, her lover’s calls, visits and gifts reduce before it finally comes to end.

No more expensive trips and clothes for Janet, but because she is used to this kind lifestyle, she looks for another man who is willing to give it to her in exchange of fun. This becomes a habit which she finds normal.

Finally she graduates and returns home, her parents start sensing that something is wrong with her behavior as she comes home late, at times storms in her father’s office to demand money for buying her drugs; this causes him embarrassment as he is a very respectable man.

Janet’s mother becomes worried about what has become of her daughter, she cries every single night and talks to her to change but all her cries and pleas fall on deaf ears. Janet’s abuse of drugs increases to the extent of her being admitted in hospital. The hard earned money her parents were working for is the same money they used to pay for her hospital and rehabilitation bills. Her parents returned to a broken daughter.

I strongly believe our parents today are more present physically than they are mentally and spiritually in our lives. They need to walk with us through our transition journey into adulthood. With that we can be better people in the society as we need guidance as your children and future parents.