Do you deserve your kid? A child means an individual who has not attained age of eighteen years. Children can be defined in many terms, however, a simple natural definition of a kid is the end product of unprotected sex between a fertile male and fertile female human being.
Whenever a fertile adult humans of opposite sex conjugate, assuming the pregnancy is carried to term and no breech birth, a kid will be born after around 38 weeks since the day of copulation. Someone will claim that they prayed before having their kid, others will say they had to pass through a traditional doctor to get theirs.
The billion-dollar question remains, do you just pray or seek gods’ intervention then sit back and wait for the miracle without committing to have unprotected sex then a kid just appears out of blues?
Not all children are necessarily planned for in prior. Among many teenagers and illiterate poor couples, there is a couple number of surprise pregnancies out of negligence, ignorance and consequences of choosing the wrong day to drink from the sacred well.
There are unlucky females who encounter unfortunate events like getting raped.
Scientifically, whenever a viable spermatozoon meets a ready ovum, their fusion results into fertilization, under favorable conditions. Without having means or knowhow to stop the conception or even terminate the unwanted pregnancy, the victims carry the pregnancy to term and the end result is a kid carrying half of their DNA.
What the Supreme Law of the Land Dictates About Your Child
No matter how you get your child, Article 53 of Kenyan Constitution 2010 guarantees that;
1)Every Kenyan child has a right to;
Name and nationality from birth;
To free and compulsory basic education;
To basic nutrition, shelter and health care;
To be protected from abuse, neglect, harmful cultural practices, all forms of violence, inhuman treatment and punishment, and hazardous and exploitative labor;
To parental care and protection, which includes equal responsibility of the mother and father to provide for the child, whether they are married to each other or not;
Not to be detained, except as a measure of last resort and when detained to be held
for the shortest and appropriate period of time; and
separate from adults and in conditions that take to account of the child’s sex and age.
2) A child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child.
As the parent, are you able to offer this to the human beings you purport to be your children?
How Folks End Up Having Many Children
Not long ago, people used to have child for very ridiculous reasons. To begin with, kids were seen as a source of wealth. In this backward chauvinistic patriarchal society men would boost themselves about how many kids they had, in order to shine at local gatherings.
The more kids you had, the wealthier you were perceived in this shithole society. If having many kids is a source of wealth, it is not to the parents but to politicians who view them as votes whenever they are needed to employ them during electioneering years.
Having many daughters would by extension make the parent rich if, and only if, the daughters were married of to a rich man and he is generous enough to pay the bride price in time.
Conversely, when a man decides not get married to his baby mama, obviously a someone’s daughter, the society is always eager to judge the woman even when she is struggling to raise the kids. Some derogatory adjectives as demeaning as mũkoma nzî (that who sleeps with anyone) are used to refer to such women. Both men and women unite in shaming the woman who steps up to hustle with the aim of bettering her kids’ lives.
The silliest reason why Africans have kids is when they view them as free source of labor. In rural areas, most children who come from not so well-off backgrounds are overworked by their parents for the most useless reason such as that they gave birth to them, suckled them and fed them. Really?
Did your child petition or apply to be born of you? Even if we were to flip the coin, if the kid gave birth to you, it would have been their responsibility to care of you. Just to borrow a leaf from all other mammals under this planet, it is always a responsibility of the adult to take care and nurture the young ones until they can stand out of their parents’ shadow.
In remote villages of Tseikuru, many kids are deployed in vast Ndengu and Nzooko farms during preparation, cultivation and harvesting of these labor-intensive projects. Roles to do with fetching water, fetching firewood, herding, making and baking clay bricks are largely done by kids under little supervision of their parents.
If you come across any Kenyan parents who lacks a retirement plan, they would be solely banking on their children to bail them out once their working energy is exhausted.
It would be more reasonable if the kid inherits their parent’s wealth and use it as a stepping stone to build their offspring’s future rather than using their energy as parents’ retirement benefit scheme.
It should be noted that, such kids are most likely struggling to get themselves out of own shit before thinking about their own offspring’s welfare. If this vicious cycle of poverty and dependency is not broken, it keeps on recurring generation after generation.
The most effective way to fight poverty is to eradicate it at earliest stage, by giving birth to rich kids or making the kids rich before they get their broke kids.
More or less like rigging the game in favor of your off springs. Hoping and having faith that your child will beat all odds to become that great person who was born into poverty is overrating them or just being overambitious. Faith and hope most of times do not work that soon. If you are in doubt, just think of the first Christians who existed over two thousand years ago, majority of them believed they would see Jesus come back for them during their lifetime. They counterparts are still exercising the same patience but our big J does not feel that the time is ripe for him to show His Shinny face.
For ladies, a reasonable number of these sisters get kids for very selfish reasons. Most of times, whenever you hear a gentleman claiming he was trapped or tricked to getting a kid with some lady, it is almost always true from the side of the man. A woman will look for a man who got some potential, especially in assets. Fat bank accounts, real estate, exquisite toys and some cryptocurrencies would make a many a qualified candidate.
This is done so that her kids will have a rich dad and if all goes well, she will get herself a wealthy husband. Not many women get “accidental pregnancies”, and in case a notorious sperm from a broke man tries to enter her fallopian tube, if it survives the wrath of P2, once it tries attaching itself back to the uterus, someone will have to finance eviction strategy for that ambitious zygote or embryo.
Broke men most of times don’t get trapped in terms of pregnancy, they are assigned lighter duties like kutuma fare and kuitwa uncle na ikienda sana a friendly match that usually ends in a goalless draw or even when the goals accidentally get in, they are ruled offside.
The downside to this move is that, a good number of unlucky young women who trap who is who in the society, could meet their untimely mysterious deaths, allegedly sponsored by the ‘trapped men’ who are trying to save their marriages and protect their public image.
Additionally, there are people who get kids because they feel the society wants them to have them. They cannot justify why they just multiply exponentially. If some were honest enough, they would openly declare it is their hobby to procreate. They just do it to please the society, maybe a pastor, mother-in-law, or just to prove to someone they can have a kid. These people could be compared to the primitive farmers who just wake up and till their fields just because the neighbors are doing so. The idea to add one more kid never originates from them. They just do it because they have the right reagents to perform this reaction. Same way US invades and bombs other countries just because they can.
Whatever the motivation is for you to get a kid, at least before you have them, make sure you will not inconvenience or disadvantage them. If you get a copy of your DNA out there, make sure they end up way better than you are, do not be selfish and don’t expect much from them, you will be disappointed big time.
Your kid will always deserve better than you, whether you like it or not. Think of them as a software or a smartphone, they should be made better than their predecessor versions for them to be competitive going into the future.
OPINION By CEPHAS MUTAI
MWINGI TIMES for timely and authoritative news.
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