There is Work Ahead...

Last month, I read on Facebook, A woman’s cry for help. The woman, a widow with kids met a married guy on Facebook group and they started dating in secret. The guy slept with her countless times and even made some cash from her then the bombshell; the guy was also sleeping with another widow he met in the same group. Unfortunately, the first woman is HIV positive and she didn’t deny it yet the guy slept with her without protection. The lady also said she believed the guy is HIV positive because of some stuff that happened while they were still together. To summarize everything, the guy started blackmailing the woman and threatened to expose her. The smart woman came out and told people and turned the table against the guy.

Today, I read another story from a heartbroken man whose wife of several years, the mother of his five kids aged 16 downward, started sleeping with younger men she met on Facebook. The man saw the clips the guys made and were using to blackmail the wife and he saved her by using military authority to arrest them and retrieve the recorded videos. As I write, the culprits are still in detention.

Sometimes back, a sister came to me to help her publish the nudes of her husband and two different married women. The women were sexting with the guy and somehow the chats got into wrong hands. The two women are married with kids.

Either we accept it or not, there is fire on the mountain and no one is immune to it. Not even the saints as long as you have families, you can get caught in the web of shame sprawling like a fierce fire in the harmattan. Ask Miss Anambra family members and they will tell you the meaning of transferred shame.

When we were younger, the bad eggs could be easily ignored. We know them in schools and communities. They were the ones our parents told us to be careful of. Their parents were not even covering them up and the community labelled them bad eggs. It was easy for us to be caught hanging out with them and someone will quietly tell our parents they saw us hanging out with the bad one. Correcting us and putting us on the right track was so easy back then because there were little negative vibes around to contaminate us except for the few Lagos kids that comes around to the village during festive period and because we didn’t build enough friendship with them to get polluted. There was no Facebook, No Phones and no means of communication except writing letters. It was easy to protect our minds and sanity.

The situation is different now. There are people who are already condemned but they are everywhere on social media, connecting with us and making friendship.

Back then, in schools, some good kids were easily swayed and polluted by the bad ones they mingled with and people were quick to point out that they changed because they started frolicking with a particular bad one.  Some got pregnant; some spent years failing exams and some became cultist and all the bad things you can think of.

And very much like the truth, a lot of kids simply lack self-esteem and self-realization and they were simply following the footsteps and directions of others. Those ones, who were fragile and unsure back then, have grown to adults. Married and scattered everywhere but the majority of them still lack self-esteem. Some are even trying to come out of it now by seeking validation, making many virtual friends and writing personal stories to garner more confidence and unfortunately keep followers. Many have said so many things about themselves and partners that shouldn’t even be in the open. There is a difference between being open and being out rightly uncouth.

Now, what do we have? Millions of people, with failed and tacky background on social media tampering with the sanity of the few timid cultured ones. I was added to a group back then and a woman was saying she smokes and even went further to say there is no biggie to it and was encouraging women to try it, Someone said she has slept with everything except animal, I read so many creepy things and I quietly left the group.

Somebody told me the other time, Mide, I was almost going mad, After reading all the post on SEX and all, I started trying it in my marriage and one day, my husband couldn’t hide his annoyance when he said I should stop sending him sex messages at work. He wanted to know who I have been talking to and the sudden change. “This is not the woman I married”. I was just giggling.

The truth is, our kids are getting exposed to negative vibes. Someone who didn’t succeed in her marriage will automatically turn to a marriage counselor. Someone who has attitude problems and never had a guy showing interest in her will turn to a feminist. Someone who smokes, drinks and never kept her home as a woman will become the admin of a group that some women will be looking up to as mentor.

There is a huge gap. The younger ones are looking for mentors but they can’t find any so they have turned to social media and picked on the wrong set of people. That is why a book about how a marriage failed will sell out on Amazon in 3days while a book on how to build your marriage will not sell 10copies. We are now celebrating irrelevancies.

And that is why you need to brace up and be the mentor your kids’ desire and long for. That is if you have the attributes of a mentor. That is why you should be more concerned now because someone in faraway North Carolina, Who never stepped foot on the soil called Nigeria will have so much influence on your child and make them do the unthinkable.

It’s a small world. If you still want to groom kids who have it put together, get involve now. Who are they joining on social media? Who are their friends? What group do they belong to? What chats are they sending? What chats are they responding to? You need to know now.