By Bamidele Ademola-Olateju
Some issues are very sensitive to tackle, especially when it has the capacity to make one sound self-righteous, aloof and snooty. With domestic help, I have reached a few conclusions rooted in years of careful observation, actual life experiences and informed judgement. Freedom among humans is a universal aspiration. However, liberation is a middle class aspiration. Luck has been defined as an occurrence where opportunity meets preparation. That is very true. Many people are not lucky, because they are seldom prepared. Most often they do not not see opportunity, when they see it, it is unrecognizable to them as an opportunity. Ruby K Payne in her book “Hidden Rules of Class at Work” opines that “In generational poverty, responsibility is defined as loyalty to a person whereas in middle class, responsibility is defined as accountability for a task or standard.” This along with many ingrained facts of poverty, makes it an arduous task to liberate and or upgrade a maid, guard, driver in one’s employ. It is my belief, that, you cannot liberate someone who sees no need for liberation. You cannot change anyone’s circumstance, unless they are willing. My more religious folks will say “na only God for change persin”.
You can be nice in every way imaginable, you can register them to learn a trade while working for you. All these do not matter to majority of them. Many of them prefer the system they were raised in. A system rooted in unlimited freedom, freedom without responsibility. The system emphasizes relationships as very crucial to survival than anything else. Because of unfettered freedom, they are predictably amoral, very destructive to themselves and others and adept at practicing deception. Actually those who recruit them, teach them to be deceptive. Even the name they bear are mostly not their real names. They never bear their real names. The girls are always Joy, Blessing, Patience, Mary, because they have heard, that the “rich” people who employ them will use them for rituals. When they want a holiday or planning to leave your employ, their father will predictably fall sick, be involved in an accident or die. I wonder why it is always the fathers who are prone to mishaps or death. Maybe because he was never there. Have you wondered about their lack of emotional stamina? Why would anyone engage in indiscriminate casual sex, abusive relationships, addiction and violence? They work but we pay their parents, aunts, brothers or anyone else, except them. While it hurts me that they work and do not see the money they earn, they see it as loyalty to their benefactors. They do to aspire to anything higher. They are terribly fatalistic, have no hope and do not think choices and consequences are linked. We do not understand them or their ways but they understand and exploit the mindset of those who employ them. They understand the value of the services they render to the professional middle class. They know you need them, and they need your money. They understand the bind you are in; urban wahala, long commutes, long work hours and two income households.
Why are people not raising their children anymore? Why are we like this? Why have we lost the sense of right and wrong? I think I know why. It is all about the craze for money. It is about materialism in its different shades. Parenting exacts emotional, spiritual, material and financial costs. We have focused on putting food on the table as the sole obligation of parenting. That is why this country is breeding loafers and drifters. This is one of the reasons why I’m focused inordinately on education. When Nigeria got things right in the past, it was because the government encouraged education. In generational poverty, education is feared like leprosy. This is because when people get educated, they leave. Can our country evolve into a society where children are not forced to work? This situation can only improve when college students and young adults looking for additional income sees the opportunity to be nannies, shoppers and maids to finance their education instead of waiting on poor parents and government. I’m pained to see lives wasted in dead end jobs, with the indentured unable to chart a new course, even when given the opportunity. I just wonder. We ‘gon’ learn, Pain will make us learn. It is beginning to bite.
Bamidele Ademola Olateju is the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Ondo State.