I smoked cigarettes from the age of 12 and started experimenting with liquor perhaps a year later. I comfort myself by attributing all that to the madness that went with Apartheid and a boarding school life that was more like penal servitude. I say to my teenage sons, at least we had Apartheid to account for our human failings. There is a story about a man who was so ugly he believed Apartheid had something to do with it. My boys are at that age where they are experimenting with the donts of life and I cannot do anything about it, except to advise them from the sides against it - cigarette, ganja, liquor and I dont know what. I can only hope nothing serious comes from this phase of parental disobedience; at least we are still friends and they are generally open to me about their lives - I value that most in them. I did not do ganja for very long myself - it did not sit well with me, quit cigarette long before the boys were born and would now like to think of myself as a social drinker. Who am I to judge them? Upon discovering first that I smoked cigarettes and later that I drank too, my dad could only passingly throw laconic asides at me. I guess, as one who had dabbled in them too at some point, he knew the inevitability of standing against the power of these indulgences. There are certain things you will never understand about your dad until you are a dad too or that boys cannot understand about themselves until they are dads.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 09:30:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015