Reflections on fatherhood: The place of mothers' and fathers' friends in children's life
Many children are closer to their mothers’ friends than their fathers’ friends.
After finishing her exams, Wanjiru had scores of success cards sent to her by relatives and friends. At one point she was arranging them next to me and I was tempted to skim them through them of curiosity.
I noted that besides us parents and close aunts and cousins, the other cards were from the friends of her mother.
This was not overly surprising, knowing friends of the family and how we relate.
But it was a poignant reminder of the silent realignments in family relations, and especially the unfolding matriarchy.
Where were the friends of the father and how come none was available to send her success cards? It is because none of them has any special personal connections to the children. And in the same measure, it occurred to me that I have hardly ever sent a success card to my friends’ children.
Matriarchy is the state of women-led families, well developed in some animals like elephants.
My community is historically patriarchal, but this is receding perhaps faster than it is imagined.
In my childhood, my father’s friends would visit in the evenings. Once in a while, there would be some muratina brewed at home which they would enjoy.
Those days, we all shared one room, which was also the kitchen and the dining room. Yet those moments at the fireside with mzee and his friends were the best learning and bonding moments of my life.
Most of what I know about the history of Kenya, and especially the liberation movement, I got from my father and his friends. They would discuss life under colonialism, detention, and the onset of independence.
When they got too inebriated, they would sing folk songs and share lots of idioms and jokes. It was a class on history, oral literature, and parental values.
Then, it was common for men to visit their neighbours to do what was popularly called “shortening the evening.”
The last 40 years have seen a fundamental overhaul of the old family order. Today, men have exited the sanctum of the family because their social locus has moved away from their homes. Our meeting point is in the clubs and it is almost taboo to visit friends in their homes except on special occasions.
This looks like a good way to insulate the family from social “evils” in the clubs including alcoholism. But not always so. Men are at their most creative when they are chitchatting and debating issues in the clubs, talking business, politics, football, and other drunken crap.
A lot of the things they talk about in the bars would benefit children as explained from my childhood experience. Those tipsy moments are also prime times to mentor children and pass over community wisdom and even entertain.
If my father’s social engagement with friends was all confined to the bar, so much of him would have eluded us.
As men bond with friends, strangers, and business associates in the clubs, they leave a gap in their families which is being filled by the wives and their friends; perhaps this is why many children are closer to their mothers’ friends than their fathers’ friends.
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