‘When the nanny goat eats grass, her kid watches her mouth.’ African Proverb

I heard this proverb over and over as a child that I have no atom of an idea how many times that could possibly be, but even as a child, I knew my parents meant that I should emulate them by watching what they did.

In essence, it’s not just what they said that I should look at but at the examples that they set.

Of course, believe me when I say that I fell flat millions of times in emulating their examples, not due to any fault of theirs but due to stubborn individuality and sometimes outright foolishness.

It took Higher Grace not to have killed myself with my own foolishness despite all the words of correction and examples set by my parents.

The interesting thing is that now as an adult and parent, I catch myself sounding just like my own parents to my children, repeating the same words of wisdom that they drummed into my ears and hopefully portraying some sensible and responsible behaviour for my ‘kids’ to emulate.

Then again, kids will be kids after all. However, with sustained repetition and the right examples, the lessons planted will be retained and eventually mature with them as they grow and hopefully, their ears will turn out to be more than fancy bits of their body.

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

Written for the Writers’ Quote Weekly challenge prompt from Joan “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
― James Baldwin