When we were much younger, me & my sis measured the love of our mother by Chips and my brother by bread i swurr.
At first when my brother became of age and outgrew the bread, we started feeling threatened of our status quo (the sole beneficiary of the chips) mum started to bring him his own packet of chips and us guys would only get one to share.
When my bro was born i was 9 my sis was 7 i don't know what has changed but this days, 9 year olds are still toddlers but at our time we were grown children who could possibly do all types of housework. I am still shocked that i can't make chapattis. So we fed on his weetabix, cerelac (esp) carried him around. So on this day i put him on the table and poor boy woishe angukas, my mum instead of picking him took a slipper and did the necessary. My mom's tool of punishment was a slipper and boy it worked. The threat of a slipper was enough for total submission. Because my bro was so beautiful, my sis carried him around telling everyone to come and see her beautiful brother. But sometimes we were not amused because my brother was such a toddler and you couldn't leave him alone when we wanted to go play. He had this habit of crying until my mother came back and instantly would go to slipper mode in the name of "mlifanyia nini mtoto"??.
(digression)
My mom would go to do her business in town everyday and in the evening without failure would come with 2 packet of chips, mine and my sis. When she claimed to have no money we would only have one to share and with a lot of fight so when my brother came of chips eating age (3years) we would bribe him really hard. you would hear my sis humbly submitting "woiyee kababa si mimi ndio nilikubeba leo" only to get these extra chips. Call it love-hate, encroachment of a right to eat a full plate of chips, but that is how it worked.
Childhood stories though sometimes bitter (slippers) can be very entertaining especially when you sit with your mother and she denies that she ever did do anything leave alone cause misery. Like the day my sis disappeared and we had to look for her for almost 4 hours only to find her hiding just around the house. My last beatings were when i was in standard 4 after being slippered daily in Standard 3.
I bet everyone had one worth remembering.
There is no mum who will accept she beat you. Memories are sweet.
ReplyDeleteNakeel is right, no parent will admit they used to beat our ass. I love my ma but my childhood was nothing to look back and smile about, maybe that's one of the reasons Im not down for having kids.
ReplyDeleteBesides that fries for tene rocked!
My mother has no problem recollecting that she used to beat me...my mother rarely tries subtlety if you don't do what she wants she employs as much force as she can muster to get it done.
ReplyDeleteI was an only child for so long that I barely remember my sister's growing up though no one loved his sister when she was born like I did....I told everyone in the school and took every chance to be with her.
Childhood memories are sweet...reminds me I was a pretty lucky person growing up!
@nakeel, you were the spoilt last born...lol
ReplyDelete@Aco, it seems mothers for them days used pain to apply discipline no longer the case now
@mwangi, lucky you to feel lucky when growing up, i don't sometimes feel that way, i always think it would have been better.
my mum once said to me in no ncertain terms, "I gave you life and I can take it away" two seconds later she proceeded with this process. I could beaten more often than I care to remember but there always seemed to be something new to be beaten for.Either that or I just took forever to learn. I would not change it for the world.
ReplyDeleteLooks like our mothers went to the same mothering school. "I gave you life and I can take it away" was used by mine on more than one occasion.
ReplyDelete