The #EnyobeniTavern 21: Is anyone to blame?

21 young people between the ages of 14-20 died at the Enyobeni Tarven in Scenery Park (Eastern Cape). This is such a tragedy as we all know that our future lies in our children and that their deaths take away from us. That being said, this tragedy does show how much alcohol influences our society, specifically black people.

Photo source: Ladies House

When the news of this tragedy broke, social media was a buzz. There was a lot of blame being assigned to alcohol, parents and the tavern owner/s. Some people also blamed the SAPS for not attending to their previous complaints about the tavern. All these elements have a fair chance of being at blame.

For instance, Parenting…

“Parenting a teenager is hard ” – a sentiment shared by a lot of people on Twitter and I believe in people’s waking lives. In fact, neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Seigel says that ‘evolution has primed mammals to leave home and establish themselves away from parents’ causing changes in adolescent brains to prompt teenagers to challenge and push parents away even through they yearn for more time with parents.

Remembering my life as a teenager and looking at other teens, I believe there are ways to parent your children in a way that gives them time with you and more opportunity for communication while still allowing them the independence they yearn for. Also, as black people we know that our parents are not the most involved, seeing a tragedy like this should surely create a new fire in parents to try and change this way of parenting and be more present in order to walk with their children through their changes

However, we all know you can’t watch your child 24/7 ad you are not their exclusive influence and as the saying goes “it takes a village to raise a child” so,

…your village is very important

Your child’s friends can play a huge role in helping them decide their future [and evidently, so can the owner of a local tavern]. In the work of parenting, parents should include vetting the village. Meeting with families of friends, girl/boyfriends [if dating is allowed] allows for open communication and honesty [to some degree] between parents and their teens. Furthermore, scrutiny of any other relationships [is important] such as with a teacher that’s too interested in your child or the older kid from the neighbourhood who is too enthusiastic about spending time with your child. This is the point where your intuition steps in and you communicate with clarity to your child if a friend or acquaintance gives an ‘uncomfortable vibe’, trusting that they will use the lessons you have taught them to stay away from said people {however, remember, even God cannot control people}.

While on that subject, we all know that predators and tempts use many ways to lure our children. Alcohol is one such way.

Blame it on the booze

Aware.org reports that 50% of teenagers try or consume alcohol and that 25% of school-going youth engage in binge drinking – I cannot image what the stats are for grown adults. Our relationship with alcohol needs to change. During this whole mess, on Twitter, someone quoted the bible in proverbs where it states that Kings should not drink but be sober so they can bring about change in society [in summary]. Firstly, whoever wrote this scripture could not have known that South Africa with its brokenness would exist. However, I believe that one of the ways to get our children to ‘reject’ alcohol or use it when they come of age, is to teach them that they are Kings and Queens, that they are royalty and that they need to be sober-minded so that they can achieve greatness. If we teach our children, with love and not in fear, to love themselves and their fellow sister and brother, won’t they make better choices? Instead of looking at alcohol as the monster, should we not teach our children to treat themselves with love enough to make the safest choices for themselves?

There is no manual for parenting but there are lessons on parenting. Lessons on how our ancestors were raised and how their upbringing affected how we were raised.

You know what you would have preferred your relationship with your parents to be like. Maybe now is the time to take stock of how you are raising your children?

May the children who passed away rest in peace and may the survivors heal, learn and grow from this. Matshidiso ho ba malapa a lahlehetsweng ke bana 🕊️🕊️🕊️

A moment on the balcony

MaxPixel

It woke her up in the morning, as she got out of bed her heart started racing, her palms were sweating, it had begun. The morning panic attack had set in and there was only one way to calm it down. She rushed to the balcony to sit on her black plastic chair. She threw herself on it even though she always told herself that the extra weight she had gained from this last pregnancy would probably break the chair. Anyway she lit a cigarette while sitting by the balcony. The smell and taste of the menthol and berry was orgasmic for her. She took her first drag, breathed in the tobacco and felt the calm settle in.

She looked down and saw some people jogging. “It must really be nice to be them. First thing you do when you wake up is decide to jog, no panic, no anxiety, just jogging?”, she pondered. “I wish I was a Karen or Tammy, with my flowy hair and well-groomed dog and all the time in the world”. She took a hard long drag of her cigarette, it was half way done. She leaned her head back against her chair as if she was getting her hair washed at the salon. “Boy if I could just get one million rand in my bank account I would be at my best: paying off this debt, buying a car, getting therapy – oh dear God how I need therapy”, this was her morning ritual conversation.

Cigarette ash fell on the floor as she lifted her hand to take her last drag. “I just want a normal life. I just want..” then and there her phone rang, her heart started pounding. Her phone was getting older so it took a moment for the caller ID to show while ringing. And then she saw it, it was them: “Oh my gosh, don’t these people sleep, I am not going to pay them this month. I don’t have a job or money. I am brokedy broke”. She silenced the phone and stood up. She stared at the rising sun.

She started to dream. She dreamt of being the daughter of a rich man. She dreamt of being married to a rich man. All the shopping and indulging she would do. She would finally finish that Masters degree and maybe right afterwards go into the PhD programme. Heck she would even do her Masters in England just to give herself a challenge. 

She thought, “Those hours and hours of academic research. The data collection. Turning pages of theses done by other young black scholars”. Her eyes opened up wider.  “Imagine seeing a PhD thesis done by so and so Mokoena, sitting in the libraries of universities overseas – I imagine many of our surnames being referenced by undergraduate German, Swiss, what-have-you students. That’s inspiration!” She grinned with excitement. 

“People think it’s nerdy but they don’t know how amazing a library is. How important you feel when you swipe your student card to be let into the exclusive study area for postgraduates. Oh and the smell of old books, they smell delicious. My goodness, all 20 of them that you won’t even finish. Mmmm I can smell them now”. She looked like a teenager on her phone talking to a summer fling. And then she thought of the final day. When she handed in all her research work. When she could boldly say she is a researcher and probably publish. The joy, the accolade. This is who she wanted to be, who she was meant to be.  

Wearing that red graduation gown with it’s funny looking hat was the ultimate thrill for her. “Walking across the stage with my name being read out loud. Lights, cameras, everyone’s attention on me. As Sarafina would say ‘Look at the camera, flash. Smile at the camera, flash…Stars don’t do. Stars just beeeeeee’”. 

She gave a dramatic laugh to an imaginary audience. “That’s me baby, I would be the star. Universe? God? Everyone would see me. The melanin you made me in would shine golden and light up that stage honey”. She waved at her imagined crowd like a pageant queen who had just been crowned, holding back her tears while carrying that big bouquet of flowers.

Her one year old woke up crying, his cry shattered the glass that separated her imagined life from the real world that she lived and breathed in. It was barely 5 minutes of her time on the balcony and she had to leave her sacred space and go back into the wild west.

So, I binge watched Euphoria

Photo Credit: Rotten Tomatoes

Having promised myself never to watch a trending Gen Z series, I am ashamed to say I did. And boy was it good

This series was filled with sex, drugs, parties, power, lowkey rape and some moments of bullying. The characters were very complicated teenagers. They were very burdened for 15-17 year old children and I don’t know if this burdensomeness was self inflicted or out of their control. It made me wonder if we were this heavy laden as teenagers. One thing I am sure of, I enjoyed disliking the characters in Sam Levinson’s Euphoria.

Let’s discuss Rue for a bit – who I dislike

I cannot let this piece end without discussing Rue, the main character *sigh* Rue was a lot.

She is an individual that is too within herself. Too mysterious. Too much of an addict. Too selfish. I don’t know how her mother didn’t give up on her sooner. She did not care too much. She fell unnecessarily deeply in love with her friend, Jules, which was also too much. My wish for her was that she could be less, maybe her life would be better. She is also quite untidy and reckless, too much. Reckless with her life and the lives of others.

And yes, perhaps she lost her father too early in her life. She watched him slowly wither away and die being taken away by a monster of a disease. That is too much for any child to experience. She was also a child who already had mental health issues. Her panic attacks were huge and it was hinted that she dealt with OCD. And in came strong, highly addictive medication to help her manage her illness. I wonder if doctors worry about what these drugs can do to people?

Rue went through a lot and she realises herself that she did not know what to do with it all – how to channel her grief and other deep emotions. Instead of dealing with it she let drugs consume her, leading to an array of events where she got people like Jules, Lexi and Fezco entangled in. Her sister Gia is also deeply hurt by Rue’s actions however Rue is too selfish to see any of this. Her beginning and end goal is drugs.

I don’t remember her parents sending her to therapy though. That plus less pills would have helped, especially after the loss of her father. It could also have been a matter of money or she perhaps became too much of a junkie to care about therapy, when she was older. I don’t know…

I really would have loved to see the story from the parents’ side. For all the characters, it would have been comforting to see that the parents are active in their children’s lives and that they are not just uninvolved bystanders letting underaged children control their own lives. Children are usually products of how they are raised – we see this quite clearly in Nate’s story…

Intermission

My table – maybe I share it with other people so it’s not really mine

My dear reader

I am dealing with a lot sis. I’ve just finished a three week contract at a small black-owned company in Centurion. It was a rush – waking up at 04:00 AMish, leaving home at 05:30 AMish to get to work at 07:15 AMish. It was a lovely revival to my work spirit after my previous six month work-from-home contract and a two and a half month-ish unemployment stint after that.

Here I am today, anxious as ever with Bills Bills Bills.

The sad thing is I have a degree AND experience but that permanent Communications job just doesn’t want to come through. Come through hun, come through.

I have been trying to shape-shift my skills to match what everyone is looking for out here. Copywriting, graphic designing, social media management, SEO and web design. Photoshop, Illustrator, In-Design, HTML and some CSS. All of this plus 5 years experience and maybe a driver’s license. This is easily 3 positions rolled into one. But capitalism right.

While managing my newly diagnosed epilepsy, I have been trying to get experience in all these skills… and Father God. I am struggling. I am overwhelmed. I am anxious. I don’t know how to fit all these skills into the one week I have left to apply for most of the jobs I see. It’s as if every company wants an extra skill on top of the 20 100 you have already crammed into your brain.

I just want to cry nje. All Day. Everyday. Dikeledi, hiiii hiiii 😭😭😭

But… my lil sis said I should just continue breathing. I am worth a lot. So just breathe

The passing of Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison – a picture copied from The Charleston Chronicle article of 22 June 2019

The passing of Toni Morrison caught me by definite surprise. I am not a person who would be touched enough to dedicate a blog post to a celebrity who has passed away however Toni Morrison was not just a celebrity [even though she was world-renowned/famous].

She may not have known this but she touched and changed my world with her writing. Reading The Bluest Eye connected me to the writing of my people – the writing of black people. Her work made loud the voices of black girls [and boys] about the world we live in.

I might not have experienced the African American type of oppression or their cultural way of life but her work made me feel as though all black people have the same experience of life. Her work made me curious about African writers and finding out whether our stories were similar to those of African Americans.

I mention The Bluest Eye because it was the first book I had ever read and analysed written by a black person. Imagine that? An African child who has never read work by other African children and then lo and behold comes a descendant of African children to open up my eyes.

Toni Morrison was a true gift to the African American community [as well as Africans]. I pray she rests knowing that her voice gave all other black people [especially girls] a platform to make their voices heard.

Let’s talk Mental Health and Parenthood

Clo Bare

So, I am a mother to a very energetic and dramatic 34-month-old cute boy. Yeah, he is a joy to be around when he is behaving and doing great things such as learning how to hold a pair of scissors. Or, since he is learning English, it is so beautiful when he speaks in full sentence words we have not taught him at home… Oh my gosh, it is just so adorable and you just want to hug him forever when he excels.

My son was a saving grace to me actually.

Before I was pregnant with him I had a dream of a depression coming over me. A lady wearing grey clothes, in a grey [almost charcoal grey] room decided that she would lay her hands on me and pray over me thus her ‘greyness’  just enveloped me. The dream was not dramatic at all – it was actually the calmest dream yet, however sinistrous.

A week or two after that dream, I found out I was with child. I was already dealing with hopelessness and suicidal thoughts and now my womb was chosen to bring forth a life on this earth. My gosh. What was I do to – I was planning on ways to off myself but here were health professionals telling me to drink vitamins that would keep me healthy and alive for longer.

My overbearing conscience decided that I need to stop being selfish and stay alive to keep another possible person alive. I say ‘possible person’ because pregnancy and child birth are not a guarantee that your child will live. Hell the first few months of your child’s life are no guarantee that s/he will live either.

I continued grappling with the issue of suicide for the next 41 weeks of pregnancy. I did not tell my husband or anyone [if I remember correctly because pregnancy brain had the best of me]. I did however call the SADAG organisation [life savers in my book] which is the South African Depression and Anxiety Group.

Because I am an over-thinker, what started off as just sadness and hopelessness then developed into panic attacks. When I thought of where my life was and where I wanted it to be and how challenging and almost seemingly impossible it would be for me to get there, I would lose it. My mind, heart and the insides of my body would all start working at a faster than usual pace,together AT THE SAME TIME. The worst was when I would get attacks in front of my precious son and his bubbly energy would be deflated.

Even as I write this piece, I feel it is so unfair that as people we have to go through mental illness; that our sweet children who saved us from our premeditated untimely deaths have to see us in those scary moments that somehow feel like the death we want to bestow upon ourselves on those dark and grey days.

 

Writing: It’s a calling if it wakes you up at all hours of the day and night

I have always ran away from exploring my talent for writing.

I would ask myself: Nna ka nnete? Ke tseba ho ngola ka sekogwa? Loosely translated: Am I really able to articulate myself in writing in the English language?

Am I even worthy of people reading my work, enjoying it, engaging with it – with me and my crazy thoughts? Do I deserve that much attention?

I have so many unfinished and unpolished pieces of art sitting on my desktop and in my USB flash drives as well as in my emails. I have wimped out on publishing these because I am afraid of the criticism that comes with having an opinion especially one that is different to that of the collective.

I live in a world where people are monsters behind a tablet, cellphone and desktop screen. I live in a world where you are cancelled for choosing left instead of right.

My talent or calling, on the other-hand, refuses to leave me be. It refuses to allow me to ignore inspiration and ignore the urge to comment on society and how trash it has become. It refuses to let go of me when I am walking around in suburban South Africa witnessing the injustices of the past.

My calling will not allow me to sit down and keep quiet about how religion and culture continue to oppress women and take away their sexuality…

Listen. I don’t want to get into it as yet. I want to ease into it but I also crave to be in the thick of it.

Brewed Thoughts – Charles Spurgeon

What you need to hear on days you believe He has forsaken you!!!

Rhythm In Life

How sweet it is to learn the Savior’s love when nobody else loves us! When friends flee, what a blessed thing it is to see that the Savior does not forsake us but still keeps us and holds us fast and clings to us and will not let us go!

Charles Spurgeon

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Writing… It’s a calling when it wakes you up at all hours of the day and night!

I really have been neglecting my writing [and reading]. The one talent and art that God gave me that fulfills me and keeps me sane. A space that is both therapeutic and influential. I want to grow this space and experience growth in this space

Parenting: Toddlers and Tiaras’ Style

I was watching an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras’ – struggling to even type because my 8-month-old son has realised that he can too bang on the keyboard and things will happen

Anyhow, I am shocked at some parents nowadays and as a parent myself [like all those parents who like adding their 5c of parenting as they see me walking with my offspring in the streets] I feel I have better judgement and clout to speak on this.

Firstly, they have very beautiful babies, my goodness are these kids talented – and these moms and coaches put in 300% into making sure their prized ponies perform well but I was shocked to see how some of these mothers [I will refers to the coaches also as mothers cause in that time the mother has relinquished her role and given it to the coach] are so horrible to their own kids.

One mother does not allow her daughter to play outside – a 3-year-old child that is not allowed to play outside; what madness is that – and all this just to keep her skin tone golden [this baby is biracial]. This mother also bribes her child with food and other expensive items like flat TV screens to allow them to do her make-up, hair, or just rehearse the routine. Did I mention that the child was already overweight – she eats and the mother allows it because it gets the crowns [apparently heavier kids get crowns and they look really adorable in all that fatness, I see how they could be picked first] however her child could get diabetes and be obese before the age of 7 but it is okay because she will get the title???! Sacrifice your child for what, something she does not even love doing?

Then mother two or was it coach, is such a rude human being. The little girl was quite afraid of her. Her demeanour isn’t filled with fear or anything but she knew that if she made a mistake miss thing will kill her. The coach is so abusive even with to make-up artists. The coach swears every five seconds in front of the child and other people’s children. So disgusting and disrespectful and she wants things done her way or the high way, even the little girl has to do it right the first time – meanwhile she has no pageant queen titles under her belt. This lady is so awful and miserable that she does not view any crown – except for the Supreme – as the crown to win. Her child won best beauty title and she was disappointed. I mean really? She clearly is those people that failed horribly at pageants and instead of teaching others with love, she is still angry at the world and spews bitterness at everything and everyone around her.

This episode just made me wonder how we are raising our children and what type of humans we are raising up. Has parenting just gone to the dogs where we let 3-year-old children make demands and we just give them what they want? Have we become lazy parents who leave the parenting up to angry, bitter and disappointed young people?

These children that we are raising are going to be grown up humans soon – what legacy are we leaving? We are leaving them with the following traits: selfishness, being spoilt, needing to be bribed to do anything, entitlement, conceitedness, fear and a whole lot more. How will they form meaningful relationships? How will they take care of each other and this struggling planet we have right now?

These parents need to be called into order. Period.

P.S. I watch Toddlers and Tiaras’ because it is really funny and cute and those kiddies have talent. It would be a better show had the mothers not been living their unfulfilled hopes and dreams at the expense of their children’s wellbeing.