Kenyan Men are going into an age of crisis

Men and women, are waiting to hear what it is like to be a man in Kenya today.

First of all, even at birth, it is not guaranteed that a ‘bouncing baby boy’ is what parents want. More and more, you hear the phrase ‘I hope it’s a girl’ or ‘girls are less trouble’ from many expectant parents, including men.

Then the boy child will grow up without any NGO giving a monkey’s paw about his welfare, while ‘girl-child’ organizations spring up all over the place to support his sister. There will be no male role models, or at least mentors, in his life.

And unless he’s a real momma’s boy (ama sissy), if he cries, he will be told ‘mwanaume sio machozi,’ so he’ll learn to battle and bottle up his feelings.

There will be a lot of ‘mwanaume’ is this and that as he grows up, including a song, ‘Mwanaume ni effort.’ There will also be ‘Maendeleo ya Wanaume’ to give him false, very short-term hope. Until he discovers, its head has a thin pipsqueak voice.

His ego will not get much float effect from the woman living under his roof. There will always be demands to get bigger, better stuff. That is if he is not from Nyeri, and getting battered at half one in the morning from his favourite, off license ‘Wines & Spirits’.

If he messes up with wild oats outside, he will appear in a picture (with him in his worst Saturday morning wear) and be posted as a deadbeat dad on social media.

If he is trying to rise, old, so-called ‘feminist’ foes from the past who thought he would be irrelevant, with bile rising in their throat, will ‘turn’ his innocent drunk hug at a party into a social media scandal – posting utter garbage that he ‘sexually assaulted’ somebody.

There will be blood, like the movie title says.

His man cave in the house assaulted by the hustle and bustle of the kids, more and more the man will run to the pub. And take comfort in the random nothingness of it all.

Saturday afternoon and evening football will become as sacrosanct to him as that soap opera, ‘Corazon Indomitable’ became to women.

In the evening, this future man will cook, clean, do minor chores and help the kids with the homework; because it is twenty to nine pm, and momma is on her way home after doing evening MBA classes.

The man will look around for a magazine that can help him, and they  find good solutions in  ‘Eve Woman’ ‘gazetini’.

Maybe it is about time I knocked on the Forward Traveller’s front door, yes, and asked her if we can be amicable friends.

Lest one day she goes to Twitter and tells everyone I have been, periodically, assaulting her.