On Friday I get a call from my (older) sister. She says “Hey wena, ngwana kolona o tshwerwe”. I’m thinking he banna…”Which one?” I ask. She goes “K” and I’m like WTF?! My 16 year old little sister, the one we still refer to as “baby”. She goes on to tell me my dad called her and told her that she (“baby”) and a bunch of other kids bunked school and went to a “friend’s” house and apparently there was a lot of boozing and Gaad knows what else as it wasn’t just members of the same sex there. My sister tells me my brother’s not really surprised by all of this, that in fact, when she told him he as much as said that they (my parents) shouldn’t expect any less, given how they’ve basically let go of their parenting responsibilities.
I’m sure a lot of you can relate to this. I’m the 3rd born in a family of four kids. For eleven years I was the youngest and yes, I do remember those times that my parents were a little less firm on me seeing as I was the youngest. That’s to be expected, however, it was NEVER as bad as the way they’ve been raising our little “jail birdie” (what we now call my little sister). I still had my chores, which I did without a second thought. I never talked back to my parents/brother and sister as they were both older. I did what I was told. I never thought twice about being asked to go buy something ko spaza. Little things like that are important when raising a child. They instill discipline and respect. My little sister lacks both. She has absolutely no respect for anyone. It’s so bad it’s gotten to a point whereby I don’t even talk to her anymore just to avoid raas raas. She locks herself up in her room, is forever on that irritating Mxit (sorry to those that luv it, I only fell this way about it because of her), we’re told not to “disturb” her when she’s in her room so she stays in there without being bothered, until she feels like coming out and irritating someone. She never goes ko spaza to buy a simple loaf of bread (mind you spaza is only 3 houses away), she doesn’t wash, clean, cook, nor does she wash the dishes. She does absolutely VOKOL!
At some point I told her she should be grateful and show a little more appreciation that at least she didn’t grow up like us, that she never went to school ka scaftin sa borotho le butter. That she can do her hair like someone who’s working and not rock the afro we used to rock back in them days. That when she doesn’t have to borrow like me and my sister used to borrow from each other when we had to wear anything other than our uniforms. That she doesn’t know the meaning of di kapolelo. That whatever she wants, whenever she wants she not only has her parents to ask, but 2 sisters and a brother so she always knows gore ha bumpile mo o the next one will provide. On her birthday she went on a R2000 shopping spree. I was truly shocked when I heard this but kept my trap shut. I mean, it’s not only about money or things of monetary value. The child gets too much freedom. She goes where she wants when she wants to. When I was growing up my mom knew all my friends. Most of them she never liked and said as much, some of them she even went as far as banning me from seeing…and I found later on she had been right. But she only knows one friend of our little jail birdie. Hawu!
So there we were, on Friday afternoon, for what was to be an intervention. I knew cause I’ve lived in that house longer than my older siblings, that not much would change. My brother and sister felt different and were hopeful that this was the wakeup call they (my parents)needed. Ofcourse jail birdie made up some story about how they had been told that Friday was civvies and how when they got to school they found that it wasn’t and turned back and went to some friend’s house (we were all hearing aobout this “friend” for the first time) and how this friend took them to some house where everyone started drinking etc. She says she wasn’t drinking and they’d only been there about 30 minutes before the police came. Ofcourse jail birdie didn’t think of cement to cover cracks in her story like:
• how did the misunderstanding come up with the civvies story?
• Why did they just walk away, instead of being told by a teacher that they must go away?
• Why didn’t she come home?
• How does she explain the gap between her turning away from school and her calling my dad at around 12, when supposedly she’d only been there 30 minutes before the cops came?
Who can say this was the first time something like this happened? The whole thing was just disgusting really!
Haai kids of today…I normally don’t say anything to my parents about their downslide in raising this little one. I found a long time ago it only created friction so I just shut up. Even on Friday I didn’t say much. The sad part is our little jail birdie will be the one that suffers in the end. Why do parents raise us so different and expect the same results? In case you’re wondering, all the drama was on Friday, the next day, it was like nothing ever happened…