"Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways".
Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux
Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux
Childhood is the time when almost everyday is a holiday. The worries of life are never the concerns of the child. What concerns him or her is eating and playing. The child looks forward to receiving proper food, clothing and shelter from the parents without taking just a second to think of where the father or mother gets the money from. In fact, it is not the child’s business. Childhood is always filled with joy no matter what. There is nothing like problems in the mind of the child unless he is hungry.
To be fair though, childhood has its challenges. The main
one and probably the well-known is the apparent lack of independence. Children
depend on their parents for the basic necessities of life namely food,
clothing, shelter and medical care. Hence, the child’s happiness depends on the
parents to a far extent. It appears there is a positive correlation between the
joy of the child and the ability of the parent to meet his/her demands. When
parents easily provide their children’s needs and wants, they are no doubt
happy. Mum or Dad may not be happy with Life. However, children may be too
young to understand life and the woes of their parents, be it financial,
health, or marital.
I remember the joys of my own childhood. School was always fun. After school, all I could think of and do was play, play and play. My books could wait till a week to exams. Nevertheless, I always performed excellently in school to the satisfaction of my parents. My stomach was almost always filled. I might have experienced occasional hunger. But that is normal even with children of affluent backgrounds.
My Mother, a shop-keeper and Father who was a teacher, enthusiastically cooperated to provide my daily needs. At that time, we didn’t
understand the troubles parents go through to put food on the table. When
mother makes an attempt to lecture us on the economic problems and how hard it
is to make ends meet in the prevailing Ghanaian economic conditions at the
time, we get lost and confused like reading the Book of Revelation – not any
better than understanding Rocket Science.
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