Going over an article circulated on WhatsApp recently, my mind wondered on the so called Nyeri women known to clobber their spouses. The coronavirus epidemic and its accompanying curfew should be a good lesson to some men as to why they should not mistake their wives for their mothers.
Yes, our wives can only suckle our children but not us. For those men expecting to be babysat by their spouses, this is the bitter truth.
Our fathers used to cane us terribly when we went wrong as children and then we would rush to our mothers’ bosom to be consoled.
If your father never killed you or inflicted lasting injuries to your body, then this was simply disciplinary measure. If all you can remember your father for, at the age of forty, is only the pain you suffered in childhood, then the worst is yet to come. They say life starts at forty and whoever coined the phrase must have really tasted reality.
Back to Corona Chronicle posted on WhatsApp by a colleague at the end of March. This Alfayo guy has adhered to the coronavirus curfew ‘albeit nonchalantly’. “Alfayo is always home lounging on the chair like a python that has swallowed an elephant.” He became a thorn in the flesh of his wife only a week into the curfew. What will happen when he retires from employment?
To sum it all, the wife concludes that “since the government directed that parents take care of their children, I feel it is high time I called his mother to come and pick him and take care of him. Alfayo is his mother’s child not mine. I cannot take care of someone’s child when my own are around. Kila mtu akae na mama yake. Men should not mistake their wives for their mothers. Did I say? ” she observed.
Men! note carefully, where will our mothers be at retirement?
Yes, if Nyeri men can only lounge on the chair like pythons that have swallowed elephants, then the clobbering is not yet over. Our fathers canned us to instill discipline. If the consolation from our mothers’ is all we can long for, at the age of forty and above, then it is very unfortunate. They are no longer anywhere to be found.
Someone said, when people reach senility, they retrieve their infancy tendencies. Wetting the bed, watching cartoons, memory lapses, craving for delicacies name them!, Who will babysit men since their mothers will have certainly passed on?
The elderly, today, are receiving Cash Transfers from Inua Jamii, but these are over 70 years yet retirement age is 60 and who knows whether the programme will still be running by the time of our retirement.
Be wise. We can only be babysat by our savings. This will enable us to pay for a home for the elderly or at least employ a nanny. We should not retire expecting our spouses to babysit us.
When our fathers pass on and we soon forget to visit their tombs or even sell off the piece of land where they were buried, simply to rid ourselves off the canning memories, then the clobbering begins.
A curse from ones parents is lethal. Your spouse has no sentimental attachment to your father and neither will she cane you to instill discipline. Once the romance is over, she will clobber, dismember or even kill you to rid herself off the burden of babysitting someone after menopause. Unless she is God fearing off course.
Coronavirus will certainly come to an end but the survivors should have learnt a thing or two because retirement will only end at the grave. We would be the dupes, if we insist on believing that coronavirus is only a curse to humanity. There is always two sides to a coin.
By David Mutwiri
