My upbringing may have prepared me a little too well for lockdown

Does anyone remember the good old days, a long, long time ago, when we were all united in hope and resolve? I'm talking about April, at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown. Do you remember how everyone boldly declared that the lockdown was going to be a breeze because "this is nothing new for us introverts"?

Fast-forward 160 days and we're on our backs, flailing our limbs like capsized turtles, with Covid bloodying our noses while cabinet ministers dangle tequila shots and cigarettes in our faces, going, "Nah nah nah nah nah nah! Want some? Here. Psyche!"

I think I understand why so many of us believed that the lockdown would be a piece of red velvet cake: we were raised in households at various levels of lockdown.

For the first 10 years of my life I lived in a part of Mpumalanga Township that operated on the equivalent of level minus 3. At Unit 1 North, children were neither seen nor heard. I heard "Go outside and play" so often, I thought it was one of the Ten Commandments.

From age five, when I started school, I was expected to get back home, have my maas-and-phuthu lunch, perform my chores and be home as soon as the street lights went on, at dusk. Where I went, what I got up to in those five hours between school-out and supper, was a matter between me, my posse and my imaginary friends.

Weekends were even worse. I would disappear from home immediately after breakfast. The next time I would be seen would be around 2pm. Then I'd disappear again until about 7pm. In between was a rollercoaster of adventures such as raiding orchards, using neighbours' windows as target practice for our rubber slings and skinny-dipping in the Mnqadodo River. Well, it wasn't so much a river as a heavily polluted stream on the outskirts of the township. This is where I had a painful encounter with my good friend bilharzia.

But my folks were on a township upward mobility trajectory. When I was 10 we moved to Unit 2 in what was then the "the burbs" of the township. The community norm there was the equivalent of a level 3 lockdown, a huge jump from my old hood. Our wings were quickly clipped by neighbours frowning upon these "bush children" running around topless, in tattered shorts, shooting at sparrows.

This encouraged my mom to institute a level 5 lockdown in our house. Before I knew it, I was spending every minute I wasn't at school or church within the confines of my yard. I had to suffer the indignity of daily baths even when I wasn't going anywhere "fancy". I was traumatised.

By the time I was a teenager in boarding school, I had become more institutionalised than old man Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption. Novels became my primary companions.

Unbeknown to me, in a parallel universe 650km away, the Masenya family of Mamelodi West in Pretoria was grooming a girl who would later become the BOM (Boss Of Me) with an almost identical staple of confinement, boredom and bookworm tendencies.

And this is how it came to pass that our brood has grown up on level 7 restrictions since they were born. Mommy is borderline hermit. Daddy is as confusing as the nipples on the chests of men: he has a gazillion friends that he spends quite a bit of time with, and then he's locked in the house for weeks on end, reading for hours and pounding furiously on his laptop.

My kids don't even go to the corner shop, 320m away, to purchase the usual Doritos and chewing gum.

After our president announced a softer lockdown, I stood in the middle of their Playstation and Xbox lounge and announced: "I'm going to the mall to get a few supplies. You guys must be feeling cooped up. One of you can come with me."

I was expecting a mini stampede in the direction of the garage. Instead, they gave that John Malkovich "Have you lost your mind?" look from Birdbox, each time someone wanted to open the door.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is whether there's something wrong with my family. I ask this because, when we're in the clear with this pandemic, I am tempted to instruct them to leave my house for hours on end to go and hunt for rabbits and swim in sewer-infested streams.

And I won't allow anyone back in the house unless they have contracted bilharzia.