A toast to shorter school days, weekends and holidays

NAIROBI: My last child is finally in school. I am torn between nostalgia and sheer glee. My last born is four years. And, yes this is his first week in school. To many, keeping him home this long appeared to be a cardinal sin. That despite being a teacher, I was fostering an illiterate and raising a future lay about.

I, however, made a decision a long time ago that none of my children would go to school before the age of four, and I might as well confess it all, I also hate holiday tuition and extra classes. I agree some children may need remedial classes, but that’s a discussion for another day. And do not even get me started on boarding schools for children in primary school.

I fully support the new education laws. I believe as parents, we have lost our way. We give birth and hand them over to the government to rise, via schools and teachers. I see sides; teacher and parent.

I will tell you now. I am a teacher. My job is to impart knowledge. To help, yes help, you give your child an education, it is not part of my job description to raise your child. I certainly don’t want to; I have five of my own.

We seem to have no idea what to do with our own offspring. They have become an inconvenience, a blight on our busy important lives. I confess, there are many times when I think of going to my house and there is trepidation, because the truth is that parenting is hard work. It is, however, the most important work we will ever do.

It is our legacy, we are literally framing our country’s and by extension the world’s future. It is a sad testament that we are choosing to abdicate this role.

As I said I have five children. I want to have them with me, see them grow, be their first influence, let them be children. I do not want their primary influence to be a teacher whose loyalty to them is vested in a payslip. Or worst still to navigate the vagaries of life led by their equally naive peers.

I want my babies to be children, to enjoy being babies, so that when I send them out they are at the very least, toilet trained! So, I applaud the shorter school days, the weekends and the holidays.

My son is off on his journey to literacy having learnt what matters - that mummy loves him, and it’s okay to be a child.