TO MY DEAR DAUGHTER

                                         

                                                          

             this could have been you a couple of years ago...psh, who are we kidding, you were not     this cute as a baby..

I was walking in one of the local parks when my attention was caught by this cute little three to four year old girl running away fronm what looked like her baby sitter (probably house maid…who said Zimboz can’t have baby sitters...mxm). I just looked at that little girl as she dodged and played mischievously with her sitter and I couldn’t help but have that warm fuzzy feeling inside…I really tried suppressing the smile that slowly defeated my “fesi yebasa” ( that expression  you wear when you want form ones to call you SIR, that face a girl who you just met and probably spent the whole day with at a church meeting puts on when you grab her phone and dare to scroll her gallery as she tells you to “uh aah, give me back my phone shamari!!”, that face that you sometimes have when you are in the loo doing number two, concentrating deeply on how much tissue paper you use up on your buttocks every month…or year…depending on your contribution to the national crap load). Instantly, I thought to myself, I want have a daughter! Just as fast as that thought came, a strong voice told me…”no you don’t want to have a daughter, you want to have a son”.  Today I want to share with you what happened in my head that quickly changed my mind. I shall put it as a letter to my,( if it ever so happened ) daughter as a concerned father

Dear Daughter

I know that you might find it strange that I as your father will write a letter to you as I know you probably wont read it soon enough because you are ever so pre occupied with that phone. This is one of the reasons I am writing this letter to you. As your dad, I want what is best for you, I love you with all my heart and soul therefore everything I tell you is out of love, not spite or just being “A dad with issues” as most the children out there put it.

My daughter I am very worried about how you much you are dishonest with me. Do you think I don’t see how you will always guard your phone like overenthusiastic security guards at government banks, do you think I do not know how you will never answer your phone infront of me in the car? Do you honestly think I do not know that half the time you come out with devious ways to get money from me using school trips and seemingly innocent need as an excuse to get money to fund the purchase of skimpy dresses and skirts that you hide in that drawer that your mother has the keys to?

Do you think we don’t know what you do at those sports festivals with those boys from that other high school? My daughter, you think, I, your father and mother don’t know that you have been sexually active since you were fifteen!!!!  It’s a shame you walk around the house the house playing the good daughter and yet we know that like a book, we cant judge you by your cover?

Since its too late to tell you about certain things, I shall take it from here. You are a beautiful  and smart young lady, you have effectively been able to lie to us but that’s not the worst, its how at the end of the day you really are deceiving yourself.

My girl, “its only on rotten meat that you find the most flies”. I know the attention is desirable but when you find yourself surrounded by a congregation of different men, boys alike, you should ask yourself, “ am I not this rotten meat that papa speaks of?”  Men and boys who ,may seem like they want the best for you, will always stay around you like the smell that ushers from the toilet after your little brother exits the loo. They will try and seem innocent, they will buy you from small to big things, and they will be there for you always, until they make a temporary wife of you. That is when  they disappear like cockroaches when the light gets switched on in the kitchen.  This flock of vultures are not there to be your friends, if they were, how come they constantly ask you to disrobe and send a picture of you indecently unclothed, how come all they ever talk about is what you are wearing or why do they always ask you if you if you are feeling aroused every other night!! My daughter open your eyes and not your legs to see the mediocrity of their attention and how all they want is your treasure, or whatever else is left of it.

It shames me your father that you seem so pre absorbed with yourself. You can no longer carry out a proper conversation with me or your siblings anymore. You are always on your phone chatting, tweeting and face booking, Oh? So you thought your father was too behind on technology? I know those sights promote narcissism (go and look that up on google my daughter). You do not even take up in character building activities, you stopped playing sport, you think church is boring and you only ever enjoy it when it comes to going to those questionable church youth gatherings where the boys are more generous with hugs than old women at a large funerals, those meetings that stretch into the night like prolonged prayer sessions at local revivals at pentecostal churches. You might need to re think your life and take the right path.

I heard you fighting with your mother the other weekend about that awfully short dress that she forbade you to wear. You were angry at her for the whole week, which is rather funny because she only wanted what was right for you. What you don’t seem to understand is that, most of the looks that you are proud of, you got from your mother, those buttocks that you grew just yesterday that you are so generous to show the world, your mother had them too!! She has been your age before, what men wanted from her then is exactly what men want till today. What you have to understand is, no one will ever go to buy mealie meal at a fuel station.                                                            

What I am trying to say is, if you always dress like you want someone to have a stirring in their loins then that’s the only thing they will ever want from you, something to stop the anger in their underwear. If you sell the image for sex, then that is all people will buy from you. No man takes a prostitute seriously, since image is everything, and you desire to have a prostitutes image, then my daughter, no man will ever take you seriously!!

As I close this letter, I want you to think about this deeply. God is the only way to see you through. Pray about your friends, your company and your life. Remember, the hard ones to get are the best ones to keep but if you sell yourself cheaper than “dollar for ten bananas” then really there is no way you will ever succeed in life.

Don’t forget to study, can you please make dinner for us today and help your brother with his homework

Your father.

So as I watched the little kid run along, my heart was hit by a sadness greater than ever, the thought that this little kid could end up like the rest of the girls in my generation was too hard to bear. That’s why id rather much have a son….but eish…boys also, weed, gangs..now I’ve gotta write a letter to my son too….aagh