A Typical Upbringing – The World of GenZ #1

People have a lot to say about Gen Z. Most of it is not flattering. But you have heard that already, so I’ll skip the list of slanders. Instead, I want to talk about why we are the way we are. Not from books or theories, but through my own life. We are the sum of everything we’ve lived through. Every moment, every influence, every chance encounter. In this series, I will write about everything—from family, school, church, the content we consumed, relationships and just life as we saw it. As I share my story, I hope those of you outside our generation might, for a moment, see life as we see it. And for those who are like me—Gen Z or Alpha—I hope you’ll remember that you’re not alone, not broken, and that it will all make sense someday. And maybe, just maybe, writing this series will help me understand myself better. If not, well… at least you’ll have an easy time writing my eulogy.

I’m the eldest in a family of three girls. My mom was a nurse, and my dad, a driver. Mom was the breadwinner, and more than that, our hero. She had multiple side-hustles to keep us afloat, to make sure we had food on the table, decent clothes to wear, and went to school—essentially to live like normals kids. She even quietly provided for my dad to cover his shame. For example, she would secretly give him money to send me to the shop so that it appeared that he was performing his role.

Now Dad, well… he was in and out of jobs. Mostly, though, he spent time with his friends at the bar. After enough Pilsners and whiskey, he’d stumble home in the dead of night, whereupon he would unleash himself on us. He would yell. He would curse. He would fight. He would hit. And for a long time, we believed we deserved it—because that’s what he made us think. But now, I know he wasn’t fighting us. He was battling his demons—alcoholism was a coping mechanism.

But this is no unique story, is it? Many families in Kenya share a similar experience.

What makes it extraordinary, though, is that for a family whose history and culture are not remotely connected with pastoralism or hunting and gathering, we moved houses and towns a lot! And as a result, I went to 11 primary schools in 8 years! Yes, 11! The longest I ever stayed in one school was three years—from Class 6 to 8—at Tigoni Primary in Kiambu County. We weren’t moving because of some wild thirst for adventure. No, we moved because Mom was always trying to keep us safe. And Dad, well, he kept finding us.

As the firstborn, I carried the heaviest load of this dysfunction. When Mom took longer than necessary night shifts to avoid the storm at home, I became the mom. When Dad went on long work trips or drinking sprees, I became the dad. Most days, I had to be both. These were the hardest days, because nothing crushed me more than coming home from school, knowing I wouldn’t hear Mom’s voice, smell her perfume, or eat her food. I needed them so much that sometimes I even missed Dad—drunk or sober, violent or calm. Life was more stable when they were home. Radical acceptance? Maybe. Maybe not.

Now my daily routine looked something like this: I’d come home after remedial classes at 6 PM, wash my uniform and my youngest sister’s too, light the jiko (charcoal stove), make sure everyone showered, prepare dinner, then sit down to eat. Eating wasn’t a simple task either—it meant calmly negotiating with my sisters to finish their food, which could take an hour or more. Then I’d wash the dishes, iron our uniforms, and brush everyone’s shoes for the next day. Occasionally, I would have to mop the house before the weekend, depending on how dirty it had become. Then, I would help my sisters with their homework, as I struggled to do mine. I would go to bed late—far too late for an adult person let alone a child. Some nights, it was 2AM. It was a hard life. Many of those nights I cried myself to sleep.

Come back for this one: A blog post from youth to older generations.

By 5 AM, I’d be back at it—preparing breakfast and snacks for school. At 6, I’d wake my sisters, help them freshen up, put on their uniforms, and make sure they were prepared for school parade—short, clean nails, neat hair, handkerchief, petticoat etc. Breakfast followed, and then, signing their diaries (I had learnt my moms signature). This was my life from age 5 to 13. It got a bit easier between class 6 and 8 because my sisters had grown up a little for me to delegate a few tasks.

Needless to say, I was always in trouble. “Oliver where is your homework?”, “Can you come back to class young man!!”, “If you got below 50%, step forward!” If I was not completing my homework (or doing it all all), I was forging my parent’s signature on the diary, sleeping in class, absent-minded, repeating dirty uniform (obviously I cut corners), making noise, reading magazines and comics, doing graffiti on exercise books, making paper crafts while a lesson was ongoing and failing my tests. I jumped on all opportunities that presented themselves to not to be in class. You needed someone to escort you to the toilet and back? I had your back! Someone to discuss football with? Worry not! Last one to get into class after break time, yes please! I refused to tuck in my shirt, keep my hair short or run like a focussed student. And yes, I wore the monto quite often. Granted, you would think that with all this hard-headedness I was a high confidence child. But I wasn’t. I was timid and suppressed, like a caged animal.

Sometimes, I’d show flashes of potential—in sports or academics—but the people I wanted to notice, the ones whose approval I craved, weren’t there. My teachers, meanwhile, were frustrated. They said I showed great promise, but I wasn’t trying hard enough. I was ‘joking too much.’ I was ‘lazy.’ “You’re not average! Stop acting like you are!” they would say. And then there was my Class 6 English teacher, who left me with a proverb I’ll never forget: “The road of ‘I don’t care’ leads to a town called ‘I wish I knew.’” They were right, though. My grades could have been better. I could have been better. But I was tired, and bitter and afraid. I didn’t know this then, so I didn’t tell them. If they knew, perhaps they would have handled me differently, perhaps they would have handled all of us differently.

Somehow, despite everything, I was always a teacher’s favourite. I was even class rep for multiple subjects. Somehow, I managed to pass my KCPE and got into a good high school, where for once, I settled for all four years. And somehow, I passed my KCSE too. I say ‘somehow managed’ because I was always the first to the dorm and the last to leave. I spent my prep time daydreaming, writing poetry, looking at diagrams, studying the atlas, reading Shujaaz, Mwanaspoti or the Nairobian. My favourite part of school was break time and P.E. In my heart, I was always a backbencher, but my teachers kept putting me in the front row with the serious ones. The boring ones. The ones who asked a question that required a long answer just before the teacher left class. The ones who said, “Excuse me teacher you have forgotten to leave us some homework.” The ones who seemed to actually have their shit together and who were guaranteed to attain their life goals.

If I was not playing, I was sleeping, talking, or just being a clown. My hyperactivity earned me more than a few broken bones—two leg fractures, three arm fractures, and several dislocations. In the hospital they convinced mom I had “brittle bones”. But the truth was that I a brittle ego so I played reckless games to build a reputation amongst my peers and be seen. Were it not for the grace of God, I would never have joined campus. There was inflation and what mom was making was doing less and less. I would have remained in my grandmother’s homestead begrudgingly cutting nappier grass for her goats, feeding her chickens, sweeping around, having long conversations with my dog and generally living a life I absolutely detested.

I detested it because I thought I deserved better. Was a touch-screen phone too much to ask? (I really wanted the Samsung Galaxy pocket!) All my peers had Huawei Ideos! I hated that when everyone else was WCW-ing and MCM-ing on WhatsApp, I was pressing 4 times to reach ‘s’! I wanted sneakers. I wanted more than one Sunday best. I wanted pocket money. I wanted to go to parties, take road trips with friends, and be around hot girls. I wanted to be able to contribute to conversations about the euphoria of getting high and the joy of sex. But I couldn’t. First, because we didn’t have the money. Second, everyone around me was Christian. And third, if I left, who would take care of my grandma? Mostly, though, it was because I was weird. A misfit.

Social interactions made me so anxious I’d shake, sweat buckets, and stumble over my words. It was awkward—painfully awkward—for me and everyone else. I could barely express myself. Yet everyone else was so perfect. Everyone but me and my family. So instead of being a typical teenager, I stayed alone. And when people asked why, I’d say I was an introvert. Some of these things are true even today.

Again, this isn’t a unique story. So many young people grew up like I did.

I realise that our lives were shaped by violence, abuse, and trauma. We couldn’t be ourselves because our parents were strict or overprotective, trying to shield us from the unknowns of the new world. We couldn’t be kids either because we were busy raising our siblings, because our parents we busy trying to figure out their own place in a world that was changing faster than they could keep up with. Time was limited. And in that environment, anger and resentment brew in us—baggage we have carried into adulthood. There was so much going on around us, good and bad, but we couldn’t react. If we did, we’d get punished, or be scoffed at. After all, what did we know? So we learned to suppress everything. But not we are grown up, and if you think you saw demonstrations the other day, just wait! We also learned how to lie because there we needed a reason to give our parents when we were caught in mischief.

So much was expected of us, even when we were given so little. We had to become our own cheerleaders because the adults were too busy to see us. The only time we got noticed was when we failed, not when we achieved something. So we grew afraid of failure and learned to doubt ourselves, to be of low confidence. These days, we crave motivation and affirmation, and we have serious mommy and daddy issues. Most of our households made less than 50,000 shillings a month. So in a world that was becoming more consumerist by the day, we always wanted more than we had. Snapchat and Instagram worsened it. Sure, we were educated. But school wasn’t just a place to build a better life. For some of us, it was a shelter from the storm. Many of us were smart, gifted even. But we saw ourselves as less and sold ourselves short. How could we not?

This is just the first story. They’ll only get better from here. Stay tuned!

Does this resonate with you? If it does, help me understand us by commenting below 👇🏽