This is the age when your ten year old boy has not showed interest in any female at his age and the family needs to be worried. It is no longer by the way to always have all boys hovering and playing around your baby boy all the time.

Unlike those times that girls that always hang around boys is a worry to the society, the opposite is now dreaded. I bet you would prefer your child relating to the opposite sex better than the same sex.

There is a fast growing canker that is eating into the skin of society and the ignorance of our poor growing generation. I bet to say that it is silently creeping on us like a shadow in a horror movie that looms on its prey before it could escape. No single movie have I not seen in the past year that has not displayed a plot of homosexuality being ‘cool’.

Be it didactic, entertaining, adventure and even horror movies; just waiting to see a cartoon that spells it to our young beautiful ones. How can we fight this when it is everywhere for our children to see that, it is a normal situation.

This is the age your ward leaves home for the boarding school and you feel necessitated to attach him or her to the opposite sex and be sure they can never do without them, and then you can rest your head. Yes, guardians now have to make sure their wards have girlfriends and boyfriends in the opposite sex at a very tender age as the cliché goes: ‘catch them young and they shall be yours forever.’ Your knees have to be constantly bent in prayers, constant checks and strategic steps when you have a ward or are planning to have one in this our Godforsaken generation. To that child it is scary to pull down their clothing and join the others in a washroom.

Boys cannot take off their shirts and join others in ‘fooling’ or even taking fresh air because my dear, you don’t know who is looking. What is happening? This is just the age when you visit your boyfriend/fiancé and meet this particular guy with him in the name of ‘best friend’ and it is rather alarming to you. Gone were the days you would worry about which lady you frequently see around him; my ladies now I bet will prefer that lady around than that ‘usual guy’. My gentlemen also can no longer be cool with their girls hanging out so much.

Having a female-female and male-male roommates now is questionable. Spending exclusive time with the same sex in the name of friendship now may raise eyebrows a bit into the 90° than opposite sex relations. You cannot find yourself getting so attached to same sex friend these days and be normal about it. You just have to pinch yourself hard and restrain yourself on purpose because no body knows how it happens.

This is the age when your baby girl is 18 years and hasn’t brought any male home for introduction and there has to be keen concerns. Cunningly designed questions and enquiries will be flowing from aunties, grandmas, mamas, uncles all over her head. Suggestions of possible suitors and even arrangements to see that all rites are fulfilled are not herculean tasks for those concerned anymore. That girl of twenty (20) cannot ball around her virginity anymore because the conclusion will be that she is a ‘lesbo’.

Thirty-five (35), forty (40), forty-five (45), and still single; no man known in your regard, single mother who doesn’t want anymore of man ‘wahala’ may receive finger-points at points in time.

I don’t know if this is God’s way of righting our wrong by repositioning everyone to an opposite sex by the original order or we in our own ordeal are just revisiting the land of Sodom and Gomorrah because we want to have a feel of God’s wrath.

This is indeed that age that, it is no longer relieving to leave your three(3) months to five(5) year old child with a nanny, caretaker or at a crèche because you cannot be sure who is socializing your child and more so, what the trend of socialization is.

Many a times you come across parents complaining about how they have no idea where a particular behavior in their child is picked from because when they look into their lives as the parents, they cannot relate anything to it.

Slightly, we forget that other agents of socialization around one’s ward also count and in this era of ‘rush for candy’, these wards spend much more time with caretakers, teachers, schoolmates and friends at home than with their parents.

You definitely don’t expect this your child to look exactly like you in behavior, attitude, beliefs, standards and morals because a lot more people of different value systems even played much more significant roles in his or her life than you did as a parent.

This looks more horrifying in this time that homosexuality is treated as just another fashion trend that is the “inn thing” now. You are ‘the Sampson’ of our time to leave your baby with someone other than yourself in this era because just like HIV/AIDS, ‘e no dey show for face’ and once that mentality is impacted in your child at that tender age, I seriously do not know what will save you again.

I know I wrote earlier that I’m yet to see the patronage of homosexuality in our cartoons but I got an interesting news reaching me; I do not know the authentication of that fact so don’t hold me to it. It says:

“Disney is finally releasing its first gay themed cartoon. It’s supposed to teach children about tolerance, divorce, and the modern family. The plot is that two princes fall in love after realizing that “happily ever after” with their princesses was not meant for them. Would you allow your kids to go to this movie?”

Anonymous. Someone is asking, ‘Can’t we just have our simple, normal lives anymore? But I say no. No we can’t and that is where we are taking our lives to: complex, more complex and to the height of stupidity each day. Watch out and be on guard for the times are treacherous. We sure need much more than we are already putting in.

NESCE AMBA nesceamba@gmail.com