Delight Chilegide Olumati

In the educational sectors where headteachers and principals have learned to attach responsibility and good opportunities to suits and ties, a threaded hair with no bone-straight, children are missing the people who have dedicated their lives to the belief in a better future—them.

Nowhere is it written that unless the “new age children” wear their mothers, they won’t be able to nurture the world after them.

Our community leaders are making a mockery of change, and we are forced to take their words and say less than silence—so we don’t come off as rude or teach the world after us, the one standing by the window watching, what it means to be “rude.”

Parents are preaching change at home. These same parents are in places where they can effect these changes. Parents see the change. Parents force the embrace of this change. Parents are seen suffocating. Parents stop the change. Parents ask Change to change. Change stares at Parents, confused. Change chooses silence. Change shifts places. Change is out on the road seeking Parents’ approval. Change starts a thread to no longer go through Parents. Parents accuse Change of stubbornness. Parents tell Change: “This is the very reason why you’re not wanted.” Change leaves. Parents preach change at home. Parents are placed in positions where they can welcome change. You see the pattern, don’t you?

The new world is becoming a product of this pattern, and their guardians are choosing what’s best for them more than what’s best for their world. The new world is forced to limit their thoughts because of their environment.

A better way to see this is walking into a naked school, all dressed—wearing trousers big enough to cover the roof—and being accused of indecent dressing because their headteacher attends a religious community that forbids trousers.

This choice of one person is cooking a big, spiced meal for children whose throats itch from the ignorance and limitations they’ve been fed. This choice is forcing the hands of patience—but it’s forcing them slowly, so slowly that by the time it pushes patience off the cliff, its mates have already healed.

There’s a protest in the eyes of children who have been deprived of learning the very essence of life—children who can’t discern between poetry and technology, who understand mathematics, but not how to use their words calculatively.

There’s a protest against Change. And if Change is the air you breathe, there’s a war that needs to be won. There’s a generation that needs to be taught. There’s a mother that needs to learn: other mothers raised remarkable children—without ever opening their unwritten handbook.