Parenting gone horribly wrong

Its official! Modern-day parents have it tight raising children. Back in the day, children would play outside, never knew where babies come from and only referred to sex as ‘fiki-fiki’! That is not the case with modern-day children – these kids know everything!

The other day I was battling different techniques on how best to sit my son down to tell him all about the birds and the bees. He is in his puberty and the school counsellor reckons lest I talk to him about sex, he will not stop imitating ‘the act’ on the plastic school chairs! Poor thing – those chairs are hard man!

As I talk to him about sex, I realised I was the one needing tutoring. To hell with the story about parents buying children, or my repeated attempts to tell the boy that Aunt Helena and I are merely good friends – he had it all figured out.

This is the situation facing many modern parents; we have no clue on how best to raise a child. Should we allow him more hours in front of the telly, or rather let him play on his PlayStation? Which is safer than the other? It’s a terrible conundrum!

But what puzzles me even more is the manner in which some of us try to desperately win the affection of our toddlers. What I saw during a recent visit to one of my friend’s place has left me with endless nightmares! I never knew it is that hard to get a toddler to do something.

My friend’s wife was sitting with little Junior on her lap and was feeding him some form of baby food, or so I gathered. Junior took in a few spoonful before he decided he was not going to take in any more. The mother, realising that Junior has just launched World War 3, opted to plead with the young boy for his mercy.

I stared in disbelief as the mother promised the little man everything from more toys to bringing the moon down for him! The scene playing itself out in front of my eyes reminded me of one of those movies where survivors of a plane crash stumble upon a remote village kingdom, ruled by an evil cannibal who bays for the blood of strangers.

The dance my friend was forced to do in front of Junior to get him to eat is a true replica of one of those dances done by these strangers to get accepted into the clan! I tell you, that man would have passed any day for Kevin Costner role in ‘Dances with Wolves’.

At one point, Junior gave in and allowed his mother to feed him a few more spoons. But the victory over the little man was short-lived – Junior realised that I was not singing along to the made-up tune composed by the parents in the heat of the moment to make the boy eat.

“Daddy, Uncle Charlie is not singing…,” the boy said before deliberately spitting in his food and folding his arms over his chest.

I was dumbstruck! What? I needed to sing too? Hell no, let the little bastard starve! Suddenly the picture of all those Idol’s Wooden Mic winners comes to the fore! I could hear one of the judges saying “…Charlie, we have two kind of people – the shower singers and the stage singers. You rate lower than the shower singers….” or “Charlie, if your wife hears you sing, it will be the last thing she hears from you, for she will pack and leave at the earliest available opportunity.”

“Dave, come on man. You do not seriously want me to sing. Can’t you just beat the kid up; threaten him with the police or something like that? I mean, that’s what ordinary people do,” I protested.

Dave and his wife both looked at me, jaws dropped and eyes widened in disbelief. A long story short, I ended up doing Katrina and the Waves’ ‘Walking on the sunshine’, using my expensive Parker pen for a mic! Eish, step aside Justine Bieber – Charlie is on a roll!

As the song ended, I could see Junior doing the moonwalk to the song. We had the house’s roof on fire for sure. At least I lived to fight another day.

Until then…

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