It’s a question a psychologist friend of mine tells me is one of the most irritating to his clients especially those with family problems. The question being: how does the rest of the family react when you arrive home?
Of all the many men, and few women, he has asked this question, none of them has answered that they are welcomed with excitement, joy, hugs, kisses and all. Those who are honest and frank, psychologist told me, say that the mood at home changes once they enter and that the children become less talkative. Others say that the children scamper to bedrooms to avoid their father.
Another, he said, told him of how he would stand at the door for some minutes listening to joyous banter from inside only for everyone to glum up the moment he knocks.
This, psychologist said, was quiet message the children and wife were sending to the man that either they weren’t happy with him for one reason or another or that they were afraid of him. It could be that they aren’t happy that he’s drinking or that he’s not responsible father. It could also be that the man is a house despot who, as they say, when he coughs, everyone squeaks.
Duale, President Kenyatta and DP Ruto
If this last bit be it, the psychologist tells them, they have an inferiority complex brought about by a feeling, real or imagined, of deficiency and to cover it up, they adopt a defensive stance that manifests in them seeking to make everyone else feel inadequate.
As a result, they keep on finding mistakes in wife or children even where none is and quarrel everyone incessantly at home to make themselves feared. It reminded me of the village drunks who make their way home at night singing which grows louder the nearer they get home where on arrival they shout “huku ni kwangu” as if that was in dispute. Those fellas, you’ll find, are mostly the ones who are fed by their hardworking wives and hence feel that saying that huku ni kwangu makes them superior to the wife as it shows that they can tell the women to pack and go although in true sense they daren’t as then they would starve.
Whenever he comes across such a person, the psychologist said, he knows he’s seeing in front of him a man who has failed in his responsibilities. Mainly it is from circumstances of their own making and so the denial to this is what worsens the matter as they want to find fault elsewhere and remain blameless themselves.
He might not be there yet Uhuru Kenyatta but going by the manner he’s haranguing Kenyans and making them keep quiet wherever he shows his face, there’s cause for concern and reason to worry.
If they’re dysfunctional homes those of ever cantankerous men who rule with iron fist to camouflage their irresponsibility, Uhuru’s home that is Kenya is, from the look of it, a dysfunctional one.
Just walk down Kimathi Street in the heart of Nairobi CBD and you won’t need to look further to discover the pathetic state of roads. From Kayole to Karen, from Gatundu to Matungu, from Kuria to Bura, from Mombasa to Malava, from Gatanga to Namanga, from Moyale to Mbale, the boasting rights aren’t on who has the smoothest roads, but who has the shallowest potholes.
Roam about the streets of Nairobi and see the closed shops and you won’t need a financial expert to tell you that Kenya’s economic meltdown is complete.
Go down to Industrial Area and you’ll meet people who haven’t been paid since August because the goods they manufacture aren’t moving from the shelves owing to crippled purchasing power.
Visit a household in Mathare and you’ll realise miracles akin to the blind seeing still happen if their bodies and souls are still unseparated; water is considered a meal there nowadays.
Anyone who was the in charge of this country, if you can dignify him or her with that respectable honour, would, if he had an iota of shame, just not want to be associated with the country.
Fair to Uhuru he’s not directly to blame for the despicable situation of our country but those he has bestowed the onus of aiding him govern. Problem is that instead of directing his wrath to those he’s given work who are letting him and country down, he’s directing it to those who point out his bad workers and their bad work. This because if he directs his anger to his workers, he’ll be admitting that his own work, being the contractor-in-chief if I may, is wanting.
Like psychologists tell the wives and children of the quarrelsome men above, continuing to behave coldly towards their fathers only worsens the problem and so they advise that they show love to the fathers for the sake of themselves, their father and home, so should Kenyans show love on Uhuru if country, themselves and Uhuru are to be saved.
As impossibly seeming it is to love Uhuru today, if that’s what is going to take us from this sorry state of affairs, let’s do it.
But Uhuru must accept that he was the first at fault. Our keeping mum when he shows his face is merely reacting to his shortcomings. It’s him to change first before we change our attitude towards him. For us to change first is to appear to condone his ineptude.
Yet all we’re asking of Uhuru is to just work. Too bad for him he can’t say he’s working. Not when Mwai Kibaki made us know what work is.
We can only pray that the next president won’t use Uhuru as a millimetrestick. No yard here.
