Whats not happening?

I’ve been having very interesting conversations with women, mothers, wives, from very different backgrounds in the last 72 hours and I cannot help but feel theres an ugly vein throbbing under all the joys of parenting. This throbbing vein is felt with the men in these womens lives, in our lives, who seem to be doing the dumbest things! Things that make very little sense. Things that make you believe that indeed evil is real!

Conversation 1.

This lady is sitting outside at an open field in my neighbourhood and her face is just misery. It spells misery from the creases on her forehead to the inward downturn of her lips set ablaze by fiery eyes that are not quite seeing whats ahead but seem to be looking for something to torch internally. So I ask her if she’s okay. In polite-nese she says she’s fine. I tell her she looks like she’s just been damned to hell with no hope for redemption. She says she feels like it. Apparently her husband has sent their children to his village saying that he cannot afford to keep them in Nairobi and its cheaper if his mother takes care of them. Apparently this man has been making bad business decisions f or the last two years which  has seen them lose their little land, close down a shop they had and now their home is mortgaged to the bank. This lady feels like he is purposely sabotaging their lives despite advise towards saner ways of making money. So she sits at the open field too afraid that if she goes home she might kill him in his sleep.

Conversation 2

Theres a man I know whose children would prefer not to speak to or even engage with. Not for lack of love but rather for self protection. One of the children recently told me that she would rather send money to his account rather than visit him or talk to him because each conversation ends with her doubting her selfworth after she has been reminded that girls like her don’t amount to much in this world. As much as she says she is lonely and would like to meet a good man, she’s too afraid of being continuously reminded of her miserable place in society so she’d rather learn to embrace her singlehood rather than take a risk with a man who might turn out like her father. To her men are just good for making babies while having fun at it.

Conversation 3

Theres a man I know who seems to have gotten married without knowing why, and cozy’s up to the title daddy while wondering why the baby just can’t shut up and give him peace… He somehow expects a child barely one year old to understand him man-to-man.

I know there are many wonderful men being the best they can be for their families but there re these poor souls who seem not to know that they literally are the bastions of their home and of their families. Is there a way to rescue these men from themselves, or at the very least from women who want to give their all to support the men they believe in and for those poor children who are being wounded by the mans confusion? 

Its easy to blame alcohol, drugs, peer pressure and all that but I think the bottom line is a man needs to understand his place in society, be proud of it and deliver to his family. Otherwise these same men are the guys who will be shouting how women are bullying them out of jobs and out of the home. If you are a man and you are reading this, how now can you help your fellow men rise to their position in society?