‘I love you son. What? No! Take that back dad!'

‘I love you son. What? No! Take that back dad!'

All this American television I grew up watching has seriously led to a lot confusion with regards to social norms and what is comfortable and what is not. Allow me to expatiate. For the longest time I have never heard the words ‘I love you come from my dad’ I also never had a problem when he would miss most of the events I participated in, because I knew that whatever he was doing was more important, especially because it would result in my stomach filled with all sorts of treats upon his return.

Lets keep it there dad. Pic sourced : <www.mvwelnesscenter.com>

With this outlook in life I find myself scoffing at the drama that ensues and the sorrow or self-destruction that befalls teens on a plethora of these American television programmes. 

 I tell you, as a parent if you dare miss a day without telling your energetic tyke that you love them and then proceed to kiss them on the forehead as they leave for school in the morning. You will find yourself sitting on a psychiatrists couch 5 years later, trying to explain that you are not the devil incarnate all because you miss little Kyle’s  swimming practice sessions 8 years ago when he was in grade two.

Was it only me who thought it was good when my parent was away at work because that would mean a full stomach and new clothes on Christmas on my part? I seriously don’t get the sentiment that says your parents should come home after a long day and play hide and seek with you in a bid to avoid you turning to drugs or to a ‘star’ in adult entertainment all because ‘you were neglected as a child’.

You're grounded: Pic sourced <www.semiproper.com>

I’m tempted to add race into this, not because I want to partake in South Africa’s favourite pastime (bickering about this and that being black or white), but because I have only ever seen this on the limited contact with Caucasian kids I had back in junior primary. I tell you, growing up none of my friends or playmates had ever came to the playground or the streets, with their eyes red because they only saw their dad on the weekends-twice a month at that, no, instead having your father roaming around the living room and messing with your precious time for watching Sharky and George or Biker mice from Mars, would be the very thing that would send worry signals in your cartoon drunk brain.

I honestly think I would have fallen into a mini depression if one day my father had pulled me towards him and gave me a hearty hug preceded by the words ‘I love you son’. Good god! A smile and a nod would've been enough, dad! 

On the event I got a hiding which was pretty much at least once a week. I wouldn't have even held my breath for an apology from my Mom-admitting to me that she acted out of haste and that next time she will try sitting down and talking about the matter. What!?

At least I'm playing: Pic sourced <www.kidcriticusa.com>

Since things apparently, never disappear from the internet, this is for you future son and daughter. You’re kidding yourself in thinking that when you are naughty you will be given time-outs, grounding and your toys taken away from you. Keep dreaming my sweet nunu.You can have your toys, only you will have to play that XBOX standing up because sitting down will be mission and a half after I have torn that ass up!

'The lost generation'

'The lost generation'

I hear the rhetoric almost every day ‘today’s youth is lazy, today’s youth is entitled’. To an extent that may be true, but set against the logic of the proponents of this message, it couldn't be further from the truth.

<Pic sourced: www. www.saha.org.za>

Here’s what I mean by this. The main argument to the noise about ‘this generation’ being filled to the brim with lazy and unimaginative youth is because generations such as that of 1976 are used as a comparative device. 
What these people forget is that the militancy, awareness and resolve of that youth was not up to the individual, that simply means that a person did not have to be an avid reader or a follower of current affairs or partake in community engagements to know about things, no. The issues were tangible and right there in their faces.

No matter how lazy or ignorant someone was, there was absolutely no way that they wouldn't know about the state of emergency in the late eighties, because they were security forces in armoured vehicles patrolling the streets on a daily basis to constantly remind them of that fact.

Today’s youth is a direct reflection of the broader society which has ceased to care about the well-being and progress of the collective and instead focuses on the self. 

The reason why people don’t join others and campaign against injustices today, is simply because they are better off. People will not go to the streets or join a petition and protest against youth unemployment or the ludicrous Electronic tolling system because unlike the majority, they have a job or they can afford to pay.

What happened to 'a person is a person because of others' ?

<Pic sourced: www. funny-pictures.picphotos.net>

The sooner we realise that regardless of the fact you or I are in a better state in comparison to the next person, is the sooner we’ll know that what affects ‘us here’ and what affects ‘them there’ affects everyone throughout the length and breadth of this country.

 The same youth which is not at school or at work is the same youth which will hold you hold you up at gun point, so the notion that there is a ‘them’ and an ‘us’ is baseless and at worse short-sighted and un-South African.

When the youth through the decades saw that the majority of blacks sat uneducated, oppressed at the work place and ostracised in public, they didn't fold their arms and say ‘ at least my family or community is better off ’ no! They instead made it that their fight, hence our history speaks of such events as the bus boycotts in Alex, the defiance of the public gathering ban in Langa (http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960) years later and the well-known 1976 uprisings in Soweto.

Furthermore, this resolve from the youth of yesteryear could also be seen in the older generation of that time. When members of the united party broke away from it, after the rejection of the proposal to return land to the black majority, to form the progressive party ( http://www.da.org.za/why-the-da/history/). They actually didn't have to. They were white and privileged like the rest of their kin, but they chose to break ranks in Solidarity with the oppressed black majority.

In summation. The above-mentioned, is the exact spirit today’s youth should espouse. Failure to do this will render us worthy to be labelled with a much worse title than that of ‘the lost generation’.