This school called parenting is endless

I’ve gone back to “school”. In fact, I’ll probably be in school all my parenting days. I have to be schooled, in almost everything, to keep up with my daughter, who’s got a vast array of knowledge at her fingertips.

Not so long ago, our Pudd’ng was glued to her usual cartoon channel, when her she let out a loud, “N-o-o-o”.

“What’s the matter?” we asked.

“It’s … who left New Direction,” the little music freak moaned.

The dotted lines are due to my obliviousness. For the life me, I can’t recall the said artiste’s name. I thought New Direction was the fresh handle the boy band I grew up on, New Edition, had taken up to reload their groovy game. That’s when I asked Mr Know It-All. Google.

Who else? I wanted to know what the fuss was all about.

Part of my job is to watch and know what and who Pudd’ng is feeding on. Whenever I let her use the computer, I keep constant tabs on her. It is not intruding: it is parenting. 

TURNING POINT

As Aretha Franklin sings in 'Ever Changing Times', “I see the clock upon the wall/But it don’t bother me at all/These are ever changing times”.

Date: May, 2014. Venue: London’s O2 Arena. Do: a no-holds barred sexually-charged concert. The performer urges her audience to make out with members of the same sex, adding that she hoped they had popped pills. Who: former child star. Dolly Parton’s goddaughter. Aka Hannah Montana, aka Miley Cyrus.

Imagine your kid was in that audience. Two words. Turning point.

Aha. These are ever-changing times. Me? I’m bothered, Aretha. Very much so.

The gender dysphoria story of Audrey Mbugua, formerly known as Andrew, which was in every news bulletin sometime back, made me tiptoe around my daughter’s questions. 

“Dah-dee?” Pudd’ng inquired, “How is it that he was born a boy and now he’s a girl?”

I did the best I could. I explained to Pudd’ng that it was a disorder. But I could see big red question marks on top of her head. 

The coming out of parents

It’s time for parents to come out of their taboo closets. If not, they’ll be “outted” by their kids’ questions. When the Gay and Lesbians Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) was recently in the news, I cheated the murder board because my daughter was lost in cartoon world.

“We were told by teacher to be watching news,” Pudd’ng keeps saying when, during primetime news, I surf channels. Leave baby girl with the remote control at nine pm sharp, on the news channel, and you’ll find her glued to a cartoon channel. Duh. Double standards.

With such voluble kids, parents like Joe Soap must, sooner, come out of their taboo closets and tell their kids what’s really up. Otherwise, these kids will get sex/sexuality education from other sources. Like their peers. Who, we all know, are not reliable.

MINEFIELDS GALORE

Enter Bruce Jenner; the oft-flummoxed patriarch in the reality show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians.  

Pudd’ng was confused about Bruce’s widely publicised coming out.

“It’s called gender identity disorder,” I tried explaining to her, best as I could, using words she could internalise. Keeping it succinct.

Still I could see, like, I suspect, Bruce’s kids, that Pudd’ng didn’t get it. That’s the other thing with parenting. You must keep up with changing times. You do it so you won’t play catch up with your kids.

Sex and sexuality are minefields to many parents. It is not something we want to talk about. Unless … But our kids are not growing up in a vacuum. In school, they interact with kids who may walk them through this minefield. Which may cause them to lose virginity, heads, values or the way. 

I attended a boarding high school. I remember a year when there were cases of homosexuality. There were even Down Low liaisons being floated around. With a secret unresolved rape situation hovering over my psyche, it was easy to get confused by the hubbub. 

My parents lectured me on sex and sexuality … with deafening silence. Most of us walked the self-discovery path with directions we gleaned through the grapevine. Speaking – to God, counsellor, parent … hell, even the demon – can change one’s trajectory.

Pudd’ng tells dad every littlest incident that happens in school. She knows dad’s ears are unplugged. I hope our glasnost government won’t collapse as she grows into her own woman. Why, I watch news. Wide-eyed. These are ever-changing times. Don’t know about you, boet, but I’m one bothered brotha.