In the meantime , the girl , taking full advantage of the spotlight on her , able to relate with her newly liberated mother , who not only taught her to do household chores but demonstrated that she was equal to man , became progressively aggressive .
The traditional roles that were culturally determined in the African setting were now meaningless and as the girl child intruded into the formerly male domain his role as the protector and provider was becoming irrelevant .
But the narrative that he was the head of the family and the breadwinner was still alive and well and he still has a father who was asking him to man up and take charge oblivious to the fact that he is an absentee dad .
With an obliterated cultural role , the measure of success of a father is his ability to make money . This has become the obsession of family heads to the exclusion of all else and since many of the get rich schemes are illegal the fathers do not involve their sons .
It seems to have escaped the notice of many that the very existence of an unclaimed financial assets authority in Kenya is testament to the scope of illegal deals that take place in Kenya that men cannot share with their families .
The amount of such assets held abroad is anybody ’ s guess and a man who does not earn his wealth with integrity is not likely to pass any financial skills to his son since his persona of a self-made man is actually a myth .
The boy child feels like a failure in that he is unable to emulate his super successful father , who has provided him an elevated lifestyle but who has in turn not been available both as a mentor or a companion .
In the past there were jobs that were traditionally reserved for men and those for women but in the new economic reality all jobs are open to all and with an aggressive and self-confident girl the boy is finding the going tough .
A more insidious current development is that the now successful girl is finding it hard to associate with a timid and rudderless boy and she is now finding it easier to find the type of man she admires in her father ’ s age group .
The emergence of the ‘ sponsor ’ culture , has created an unfortunate and disastrous scene for the boy child since the currency of this new competition is solely money which puts the boy child in a real disadvantage .
Night spots which used to be the traditional hunting ground for young men are now full of pot-bellied older men who by dint of their economic might are now the ones that the girls , that the boy child finds attractive , want .
This intrusion into his domain has done nothing to help the boy child ’ s self-esteem and his self-worth and this has further chipped into his confidence and undermined his ability to act like an empowered man .
We came across shocking statistics that half the households in Kenya are single parent households headed by a woman and one can very well imagine that the boys brought up in such households are in double jeopardy .
Thirty percent of what we shall call normal households , the principal breadwinner is the woman . Is it a wonder that the boy child is not only lost but cannot find his place in this new world . His presence is becoming superfluous .
Society sees the boy child as a lazy and unfocused person not recognizing that he has been molded by the very same society and the environment into irrelevance and his role is slowly but surely becoming that of a sperm donor and neither a parent nor a companion .
The boy child , finding themselves in an unaccommodating and hostile environment have sought refuge in substance abuse and aberrant behavior . This has unfortunately come about when the global gender identification crisis is rife .
If you dig deeper into the four scenarios that were the background to this article one realizes that the fabric of society is not held together by what is outwardly seen but by the core values that guide the community .
The behavioral manifestations of depression and a sense of hopelessness that leads to escapism and violent expression are not the symptoms of an errant boy child but the result of collapsed social and cultural system .
The emergence of a dominant alpha female and the prevalence of failed marriages and the attendant situation where grandparents have become the primary caregivers of their grandchildren is indicative of a society in crisis .
The adage that those without a cultural heritage are slaves happens to be very real and in the Kenyan situation the only time we seem to pay homage to the cultural guidelines that previously ordered our lives is during weddings and funerals .
What is alarming is that Kenyans don ’ t seem to realize that there is a problem and they are more concerned about the rehab center they are sending their children to rather than addressing the reasons why their children are abusing substances .
Kenya , as a country , dropped the ball of parental and societal responsibility without even realizing that they had the ball . This lost generation is already raising the next generation of lost souls who do not have a cultural foundation .
The building blocks of a community is the nuclear family that gives credence to the extended family and from there sub clans grow into clans and tribes are created as the basis of society and the nation .
When the family unit is shacky and unstable , the human tendency is to cling desperately to something that defines belonging and unfortunately in the Kenyan situation , that sense of belonging is the tribe but only nominally .
Kenyans are not tribalistic by nature but identify as a tribe only when the need arises , an example being elections , where in the absence of any other unifying parameter , Kenyans resort to tribal enclaves , in this case defined by names .
The leadership crisis is apparent from the family level , at corporate level and up to the national level as the lack of etiquette and manners in Kenya has become the norm not the exception . Kenyans have become a very angry and impolite lot .
This is why Kenya finds it necessary to have an independent commission for peace and national cohesion although the jury is still out on whether you can legislate good manners and moral rectitude . Kenya is at a crossroad !
The cover piece was pieced together by the Marketing Africa editorial crew . For feedback or any more discourse please drop us a line at : Info @ marketingafrica . co . ke .