That was then, this is now. Gradually all the attention was drifted to the girl child. Someone along the way, probably one learned woman then, decided to go vocal on the vulnerability of the baby girl. As we say, the rest is history. Today, the girl child enjoys total freedom from gender bias. Society today enormously directs all the attention to the girl child. Women empowerment is gaining momentum by day. Somewhere along the way, the boy child was forgotten and all the energy hence shifted to the more vulnerable one. For the boy, nowadays, all it takes is a constant reminder of ‘\be a man!’ and that he has to observe the older men to figure out how to navigate through this murky life. The girl child, unlike the boy receives all the required guidance, every step of the way.
For the boy, the end result is a sorry state of confusion. A lack of identity. He goes around looking for it. Majority of them find it in the wrong places, among their peers. See, if you lack direction and someone you think you trust tells you this is the way to go, you will follow him. Hence an innocent boy finds himself in some drug dungeon in town or in some dangerous gang. I don’t blame him. Reason being, he searched for his identity, and he found it .In his conscious mind, that’s what it means to be a man. Then we curse them, further neglecting them and letting them be. Before we realize it, we have lost young, energetic and capable countrymen.
So, here goes the three big questions, who is going wrong, where did all this mess start, and how are we going to mend this tear? The answer is so simple. The man forgot his fellow man. Some man forgot to be his brother’s keeper. Some father ran away from his responsibility and decided to be the proverbial ostrich, dig his head in the sand and let the woman do the double job.See, today’s man, who is capable of mentoring these young ones, is too busy trying to make ends meet. If free, he is out there cheering some foreign football club. So the boy child grows up observing and not being taught. He is left with the woman, and if not, his peers or the internet. As a woman, much as I want to make the boys of my generation be real men, I just can’t, because I am woman and I simply don’t understand the man’s psychology.
They say a man is made amongst men. It’s time that men woke up. Someone has to do something before we have a generational crisis. Fathers need to watch their boys, talk to them, and be their friends. And like the traditional African society, all boys are your sons; mentor them, regardless of relation. They need you to be men. Men that society can look up to. Mentor a boy child today and create a prosperous society.
