SOME things really come back to hit you in the face when you become an adult, especially when you have laaities. Do you remember the ‘90s and who started all these mumbo-jumbo: American R&B sensation R Kelly and his kanatje of a girlfriend, the late Aliyaah, who got married to him when she was barely 16? I remember everybody squeezing and smooching each other in the nightclubs over the songstress’ number one hit, ‘Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number’.
I didn’t think anybody would take the song literally but don’t we Namibians just love everything that’s not ours? But thank heavens marriage between the two was annulled; otherwise one could only imagine all the sugar daddies who would be salivating over little girls without any skandes. I have seen older men trying to court girls barely 10 years old, claiming the bigger the age gap, the better the respect. Don’t we all just love to be respected, but don’t know how to return that respect?
I am talking here from a parent perspective. So, it’s better for you to interrupt the future of someone else’s child without any respect for the parent who brought the child into the world. Everyone wants what’s best for their child, isn’t it? How sickening is it for a man old enough to be her grandfather to be looking at your young daughter with bedroom eyes?
Just a few weeks ago, an eight-year-old girl was married of to a 40-year-old man in some Arabic country and the poor child died of internal injuries on the ‘honeymoon’ after a night of kastige passion. What moronic parents would give their child who barely stepped out of her nappies to a man just because he supposedly has money and the lobola is too generous to resist?
And then you have the young kamborotos who behave as though they would remain young forever, talking like it’s some kind of disease to get older. Well, unless you are the Janet Jacksons and Liz Taylors of this world who can afford plastic surgery, it’s not only death and taxes that are guaranteed, beauty eventually fades away.
We have a lot of brothers that are vain and shallow and if they bring the moolah to the party, they expect you to bring the beauty to the party. When your looks fade, so will their interest.
Today, you hear some knuckleheads saying “respect is earned” with so much attitude that deserves a snot klap, but since we are adults about it, let’s just say that things have taken the wrong turn. I mean, unless we have lost our African morals and values, we have always had respect for those that are older than us. If an adult found you in an adult place like a bar or nightclub, you just wanted the earth to swallow you up because you felt so ashamed.
But no, not anymore. It’s the other way around. Imagine adults feeling more ashamed being in an adult place because the hang-out spots have been taken over by children who wonder what adults are doing in an adult place. Duh! Sorry Ngo! mnunuhe@newera.com.na
By Magreth Nunuhe