Na we all get the pikin

Years ago I had this neighbor who has a bear palour. Whenever an adult sent a kid to purchase Alcohol in her store, she had a special Q&A section for you.

Child: Goodevening ma, I want buy Small stout.
Mama: Who send you?
Child: My Father Brother.
Mama: Calls a wondering child, run go see if them get visitor for their house.

Wandering Child: One man dey for their house he wear bongo trouser and white shirt.

Mama: My Pikin, take the stout salute your mother for me.

Child: Thank you ma.
It wasn’t about the right to drink alcohol or otherwise. On the contrary it was the norm, years back...every adult was responsible for each kid. A child the community refuses to take responsibility for will burn the community.

These days no one double checks, no referrals, everything is normal, such that it does not bother anyone.

Recently I saw a woman crying in a shop and and beating up an adult because of a child. I needed to know what had happened because the woman was visibly pained and destabilized.

Dave is just 15 years old and loves adventure. He has seen the turmoil of his mum and he wants to make money by all means to take his mother out of poverty.

Roxy is an adult who has solutions to the problems of Dave. he repeatedly tells him he does not need to struggle before making money.

Roxy and his wife are thrift collectors, they tricked Dave and collected his mother’s thrift for a whole month on the basis of making more money.

Roxy runs a betting shop, he teaches young and naive teenagers how to stake bets, he often conned and by deception got these kids into betting addiction. Dave wasn't exempted from the trick.

Dave fills the card by himself and takes the money to Roxy for betting. After a full month of betting, there was no result and the mother needed to collect her N15k from Roxy"s wife.

However, Mrs. Roxy let the cat out out of the bag. He has not been giving me any money. After a good facial slap from Dave"s mother, he confessed to have been doing the betting game with Roxy.

Roxy, and his wife was not just about betting but largely about a form of child abuse. For as little as N500 he gets these kids addicted and all for them was fair.

My late neighbor sold her Alcohol responsibly not to children, today with the level of awareness the adults ruin our children in the name of making money.

Who will deliver our failed adults from ruining our children? Parenting is everybody’s business.

©FBD