The hazards of raising honest offspring

I don’t know about you, but I was raised the good ol’ fashioned African way — by the proverbial village. My norms and values were instilled in me as much by my folks as by my peers in the street, an assortment of adults from uncles and aunts to a riff-raff of neighbours of varying degrees of lunacy.

How are you raising your children? Are you preparing them to fit into the world in its current, broken state, ie raising them to become the kind of human being you are?

Or are you grooming them for the world you would like to see, ie hypothetical spawns of Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi?

I don't know about you, but I was raised the good ol' fashioned African way - by the proverbial village. My norms and values were instilled in me as much by my folks as by my peers in the street, an assortment of adults from uncles and aunts to a riff-raff of neighbours of varying degrees of lunacy.

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For instance, in my neighbourhood, you couldn't be seen walking home wailing because someone on the playground organised a violent meeting between your nose and his fist.

The almost standard response was the sarcastic question, "Did he have three fists?" You'd shake your head, a mixture of blood and snot dribbling onto your T-shirt, and would be told, "Well, you also have two fists. Go back and finish what you started."

I hardly ever went back because even though I am not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, my philosophical views on fighting are not matched by my physical appetite for a scrap. This is why I pay ADT armed guards to do my bleeding for me should the baddies breach my security features.

There really is no such thing as a perfect blueprint for parenting. I truly wish we lived in a world without war, violence, lying, cheating, domination of one by another, or racism. Why can't we follow the cardinal rule that the bearded Nazarene left us about 2000 years ago, "Love thy neighbour as thyself"?

Tragically, we live in a brutal, competitive world and I'm not certain that teaching my children to be kind to everyone, to turn the other cheek and to put others' needs ahead of their own is the most practical approach, as admirable as it may be.

My 11-year-old is not the most athletic kid. He often complains that his classmates don't pass the ball to him during rugby games. Having watched him play, I probably wouldn't either. However, I wish I wasn't the kind of dad who says, "Well, you can get your revenge during next week's maths test, where it really counts," followed by an evil cartoon villain laugh.

Afterwards, I'm always so ashamed of myself for imparting vindictiveness to my offspring.

I recently had a heated debate with an old friend, Tessa, about this very question. Tessa is one of the most idealistic people I know. What I respect the most about her is that she doesn't just talk the talk but actually lives her mantra.

Not only is she a strict vegetarian because she believes the wanton murder of other creatures by our species is not in the planet's best interest, she left a lucrative career in marketing to work for an NGO. I'm just not wired that way. I always choose the path of least resistance.

block_quotes_start So we sat there listening to our dad telling fib after fib, our eyes wide with incredulity. Grown-ups lie block_quotes_end

I don't remember the memo that proclaimed that as parents we need to raise our kids for a higher, aspirational version of the world. I distinctly remember driving to Botha's Hill with my dad, mom and brothers in our Toyota Corona when I was four years old. We were stopped by a traffic officer somewhere around Inchanga.

My dad didn't have a driver's licence. For him to acquire a licence with his complexion in 1976 would have been harder than for me to overcome my "black laziness" and be productive, if Pastor André Olivier of the Rivers Church is to be believed.

This is why the Almighty, in his infinite wisdom, created the traffic departments in the former Kwa-Ndebele in Mpumalanga. Thousands were bused to the Phahladiri Driving School in Mpumalanga to obtain their licences there. Ask the Speaker in our National Assembly where she got hers.

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Luckily for my dad, carrying your licence on your person was not compulsory at that time. So the copper decided to mess around with him for about 10 minutes and demanded a detailed description of the alleged licence. So we sat there listening to our dad telling fib after fib, our eyes wide with incredulity. Grown-ups lie?! My mind was blown.

A few short years later I was hanging out at a friend's house, watching something riveting like Bud Spencer movies, when a lanky man with the face of a dehydrated camel showed up. My friend's mom, who had been happily crocheting just a few seconds before, hastily disappeared down the passage, muttering "Tell him I'm not here." I was to discover later that the man was a mashonisa (loan shark).

When the man got to the door he asked to speak to the "woman of the house", to which my friend responded, "She is not in the house." Well trained child. I was never ready. Mr Mashonisa then turned to me and asked if she was there. I responded, "She told us to tell you she is not here." Needless to say, I lost a friend that day.

I answered a phone call recently when the eight-year-old was home sick. After I finished the call he looked at me with confusion.

"Dad, why did you just tell the person on the phone that you are still in Durban? You've been back for two days already!"

E-mail Ndumiso Ngcobo at ngcobon@sundaytimes.co.za or follow him on Twitter: @NdumisoNgcobo