Dear Ezekiel Mutua, The Vulgar Consolata Pupil Doesn’t Warrant For Conferences, We Got It All Wrong

This era of the internets has become an interesting place to live in, making interesting times in history. The internet is a content jungle and usually, it is your choice as the user to choose which path to really take. Even though loitering in and out of window tabs is almost unavoidable, it is key that you do not catch ‘information obesity’. Lately, Consolata School has been in the limelight following a viral video by a pupil in the school.

The kid is seen spewing vulgar language all through the video where he addresses his ‘enemy’ at school. This is no different from what we see out here…politicians, businessmen, socialites, ex-spouses, and couples all go straight to social media before having a conversation with the ‘enemy’. It has even gone to a point where spouses learn of their divorces on social media. Well, I know ‘monkey say monkey do’ has been many people’s defense narrative with this recent incident, some have come out to point a finger at parents, teachers and now our KFCB CEO Ezekiel Mutua has pointed a finger at mainstream media and local content producers.

Ezekiel’s Ignorance

As the CEO of KFCB, Ezekiel Mutua has sure stepped on many toes matters creativity and content in the past and because of this, his reception is mostly if not always faced with aggressiveness. If you have watched enough speeches by Mutua, he is obsessed with local media and artists that beg the questions; How much of Kenyan content do Kenyans in urban settings consume today? How much of Kenyan programs do children especially from affluent families consume? We all know when the internet became very accessible and cheap in this case, mainstream media and local content took a back seat and international content from nations far developed and exposed than Kenya took over our screens. The Consolata kid, therefore, is not a Kenyan problem, it is a societal one and in this case, a society that knows no boundaries; the internet village.

Covenant Family

Back in the day, if your house had a television you were considered lucky no matter the make or type. Television was bonding time and without even saying, the remote did not belong to the children. Therefore, content had a pivotal point of control and the kids sure didn’t have a part in it. Today, you walk into a household and you will be shocked; If the parents have not left all the gadgets to the children and gone out drinking, the father and mother sit in different corners browsing, the children on another side of the room scrolling their expensive tabs courtesy of their parent and more peculiar situations that do not say ‘parenting’.

Single Parent Family

There is nothing wrong with SPFs, in fact, so many children from such have made it to great heights with a lot of discipline and civilisation. The pupil from Consolata has been associated with the laxity that may come from a single parent claiming that if the kid was from a covenant family (containing both father and mother) then the pupil wouldn’t have gone to the extent. Even though it is likely that the rules might not be as tight, it is not the core cause of a child to go on social media, film content and post it on social media.

Socialisation

If you have watched the video, the child is no stranger to curse words, vulgar language or westernised insults. The video says a lot about what this premature one consumes matters content. In the video, the class seven pupil threatens to shoot parents to *Nikita if she dares report him to the teachers over the insulting video and even promises to throw the girl down a cliff once they go on a school trip. “You can go to the teacher if you want b**ch, go tell the teachers and after that, I will shoot your f***king parents. I will blow off their brains and then you will be living in a f**king orphanage b**ch.” The kind of speech by this youngling who claims the schoolmate called him gay is just disgusting to listen to if not embarrassing.

Social media has taken over parenting and like many others, I wouldn’t blame Consolata School for this. Many parents with children in the school go beyond means to make sure the children don’t just grow but are actually brought up. This is largely socialisation and parenting; whoever this kid is allowed to hang out with, sleepover at, access the internet and gadgets at or with, is the core reason he actually has the audacity to spew such vulgarness.
once a minor, it is the parent’s role to know what you are up to, how and who with you have conversations and lastly, if you are the vulgar speaker, your child will surely define the kind of person you are.

Parenting is not so far from socialisation, the children listen to adult conversations because they are that curious and if your sentences begin with f**k or the likes, It is totally the upbringing at fault.