Of the father with the girl asking for an iPhone 8 and the rest of us Nigerians

For the past two days, the video of a girl, who asked her father for an iPhone 8 as a birthday gift, has been trending on Twitter.

This is an 18-year old girl who recorded herself immediately after her father started scolding her for asking for an iPhone 8 when she has not even got an admission or after she has failed a couple of times.

While there have been several reactions and takes online regarding the video, it is important to ask ourselves how we got here as a society, the problem with the girl-child in our society and ask whether parenting is so forceful and unyielding.

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The girl-child and how we got here as a society

We live in a society that celebrates vanities and material things, a society that’s so obsessed with acquisition of material things. This girl is only following a path most of us in this society have created for her. We celebrate number of followers, likes, and reactions. Most of Nigerians are complicit in what are fundamentally wrong: stealing, fraud, girls dating Yahoo boys, illicit practices and double standards, and other vices.

Now this is what social media has created for us: we support what should be rightly condemned. For instance, there are a couple persons who are now meaning to gift this girl something more than iPhone 8, say iPhone 13/14. That is where the problem lies in our society. We no longer celebrate hard work nor do we teach young people how to work for what they desire or covet in their hearts.

Until we stop this act of just randomly helping young boys and girls who come online to pull off publicity, who simply desire things for the sake of it, we will not get it right as a people. For example, I think this girl knows what she was doing when she recorded that video, she knew what the society would do, like they’d support her instead of condemning her. And this is what happened with the Mmesoma Ejikeme’s case.

Is parenting supposed to be so forceful and unyielding?

It’s not what you say to your kids that matters but how you say it, how you make them understand what you’re going through, how you make them know that even though you can’t provide something for them at this point in time, you genuinely, truly care about them.

As Toyosi Godwin said, “I’ll get you an iPhone 8. But promise me you’ll gain admission and take your education serious. Finish. All that speech about how she’s sleeping around was not needed at all. Teenagers can cooperate if you know how to handle them.”

We can say that the girl is also at fault. But “Whatever the teen is,” Toyosi argued further, and I somewhat agree with him, “is absolutely his fault. Teens are very impressionable. No way a child grew up to be vile when his parents are solid and responsible. He probably didn’t see signs of rebellion early enough.”