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Most children are proud of their parents and prefer them to any known personality in the world. I often remember December 1955 with pathos. We returned home for Christmas from Abakaliki, where my Oga was a Headmaster and I had just sat the First School Leaving Certificate examination. Left for me, I would have loved to go home to my mum’s house but I had no choice but to stay with him.
The standard of food served in my Oga’s house was obviously far greater than what my widowed mother could afford. Notwithstanding, each time I was sent on errand, I would run as fast as my legs could carry me to visit her and eat her food! It may surprise a governor, or anybody of that stature, that a beggar’s son loves his parents more in spite of whatever largesse he receives from the privileged class.
Children knew their parents before being acquainted with any other person. There is also a way parents love them, which any other person will hardly do. This makes it imperative for them to trust their parents more than they do to any person. Some parents, for whatever reason, tell their children certain things about themselves that are not true. I wrote on this column a few years ago on, ‘Why I Love Lies’. It might be misleading if someone did not read the contents. I wrote that I love lies because, no matter the ingenuity displayed and the remoteness of its environment, it has an expiring date. This underscores why Ndigbo say that nothing happens at night that is hidden from the human palm.
Imagine a Dad of 75 years old, telling his children that he was coming first in school and that he was very obedient to his parents. His claim may even be reinforced if in material possession, he is taller than his few mates that are still alive. May God have mercy on him, if during his birthday, one of his classmate wades into the memory lane and informs the crowd, how, ‘Our celebrant, who God has today graciously blessed, was a big rascal, very disobedient to his parents, always coming last in our class… That was why his parents sent him to live with Mr. Akwa, a teacher in our school.’
It may even be that as you were blitzing the house preparing for his birthday, you stumbled upon his certificates and school results. A very careful man, he still preserved them, all buried carefully inside a trunk box in his room. You wondered since you are not too sure where you kept your degree certificate of yesterday! As you glanced through, not really to confirm what he said, but a reflex action, you refuse to believe what you saw. ‘Poor illumination,’ you blamed. You cleared your eyes and looked again. It was still the same. Well, your dad was right that he was coming first in his class if the school result sheet is always looked from the bottom!
As you were putting the documents into the new folder you have brought, one of them could not enter, being a bit wider. As you perused, it was his School Certificate, where he bagged ‘Division Three’ and not ‘Grade One’ he told you! Your problem is what to believe: what you saw or what he told you! “Do I ‘gossip’ this to my siblings or confirm with Mum? Could he be lying? If he lied about his academics, what of the other things he told us: his Dad, mum and the loss of N100 million?” you asked yourself.
The Rechabities, in Jeremiah, were offered alcohol many years after their dad had died and they refused to drink, though it was from a Prophet. They still treasured what their dad told them years after his death. This was in line with Proverbs 22:6, where the Bible says that we should train a child in the way he will go so that when he grows up, he will not depart from it. Rechab trained his children in such a way that they lived up to it. Training can be formal and informal.
Children learn faster in informal training. When parents live in peace or fight, it is a training session for the children. When they gossip other people or spend quality time praying for relations, neighbours or others, it is also training. It is the same story when they steal, make money in unclean manner or abuse someone that splashed water on them. When the children grow up, they will not depart from what they learnt.
In Egypt, Abraham lied that Sarah, his wife, was his sister. Isaac, his son, when he grew up, he lied in Gerah that Rebekah, his wife, was his sister. Isaac was so passionate about food that he loved Esau, his first born, because of it. It became the prerequisite for blessing him. Confused when the food was brought whether it was Esau or Jacob that stood before him, he could not wait to clear the air and because of the appetizing food before him, he ate and blessed the wrong person to his hurt. Esau copied his passion for food and sold his birth right in exchange for ordinary food. But the Lord Jesus has warned that ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’.
If we tell lies to our children, we are training them to tell lies also to their children and the chain continues from one generation to the other. If we tell them the truth, they will live to be speaking the truth, even when it is painful to do so.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0909 041 9057; [email protected]
