We grew up being sold a defined path to success and fulfillment; go to school (leaving out our ridiculously limited scope today), get a job, get married and live happily ever after; until death comes. Maybe it was that easy for the earlier generations, our parents and guardians. But the reality on ground is that things are not the same today as they were in the past.

Typical of our people though, they rarely ever try to adjust or try to understand that when life changes, there is need to adapt and survive. We hear stories of jobs awaiting students who had easy access to scholarships after having benefited from programmes that made studying a lot easier; including free feeding and provision of adequate materials to aid every learning process. They have denied us these benefits and had raised the current youth of today who are taking their own lives, letting the love of money, with little to no honest work, take over their lives.

The biggest competition between young individuals today has not been about doing things better but all about getting more money and getting it faster. Will the earlier generations believe they led us here though? Your guess is as good as mine.

The Child’s Dream

Every child, all over the world, has a dream. No; this is not about the point where a child believes in fantasies like fairies, Easter Bunnies or Santa Claus, and may tend to say the unlikeliest of things. Of course, sometimes, somewhere in those laughable fantasies of an innocent child lies a story that may earn millions if they fall on the ears of a creative fantasy writer.

Again, this is not about that. It’s beautiful to let kids be kids, so we let their innocent thoughts be theirs. The older they grow, as expected of a good parent or guardian, we tend to “mold” them into what falls within our own definition of “good”. The days of being those harmless kids gradually slip away and the teachings of the books, both religious and nonreligious, are put to use; as well as those lessons life experiences and culture have taught us. We want them to turn out better than we have and that is beautiful too; but where should the line, between what we want and what the kid can best grow to become, be drawn?

How about a quick pause and a short foray into your childhood; are you really putting your own nature-given talent(s) to good use? If you are, has it been as easy as it could ever have been if there was no detour, like having to study a different course or give up on a skill you could have developed and mastered because it wasn’t rated highly or wanted by your more dominating parent or guardian?

Snap out of it! Let’s live one of mine.

The Child I Was

During my childhood days, I would hear many kids say they wanted to be medical doctors, some wanted to be lawyers, some, engineers. A few have turned out to do the studying part of those dreams, fewer have got the jobs and not many of them are truly happy either. There was a group I belonged to. We didn’t know much about what we wanted but we knew we could do a lot with our simple thoughts and creative drawings. In a Nigerian home, back then at least, only simple English words would be thrown around both at school and at home.

We watched a lot of Superhero movies ­– from Spider-Man to Batman, to Superman and X-Men – and a lot of cartoons and animations as well, but we never knew those characters were called Superheroes or that those movies came from comics. With my small group of friends, about three to four creative kids, we would draw our own superhero characters and we gave each powers. We created villains and love interests too. The books were beautiful and we told the other kids the stories so well.

The smiles on their faces remain the only part that stays with me today though; that with the memories of how often I was flogged by the teachers for wasting ink, crayons and paper on “stupid drawings”. How could these people, victims of a molding process themselves, be fair judges of talents and gifts they had no knowledge of? I am not a comic artist today.

Yeah, I write for fun too; another part that has stayed with me. Since money has always been the yardstick with which success and fulfillment have been measured by most Nigerians though, how much more has been lost due to the death of talents and skills, all while wanting our kids and wards to be the products of our own desires?

What They Say

“Generally, the good graphic novels fetch $100 – $300 per page, although professionals who have been in the industry for a long time can command as much as three times that amount. In fact, one elite illustrator commanded as much as $1,000 a page (on a 22-page comic book)! Most of the popular titles that artists, like David Cassaday, work on are monthly issues, which end up providing him with a six-figure salary. The back-end royalties on merchandise, trade paperbacks and movie royalties are also generous.” – Freelancewriting.com

Going back a bit, “In 2008, Sean Jordan, founder of Army Ant Publishing, claimed established freelance comic book artists were paid anywhere from $220 to $4,400 per book project, which breaks down to $10 to $200 per page. Pencil and inker artists can ask for $75 to $200 a page. Colorists often fall in the range of $35 to $125, and writers and letterers make $10 to $50 a page. A lucky few dozen famous artists working for top companies bring in $1,000 per page.” – Smallbusiness.chron.com

Although we may not have arrived at the pinnacle of comics, or drawing, or painting, who can truly tell if we would not? It was a dream realistic enough but it was stolen from us out of naive efforts of trying to mold us into the ‘perfect beings’ but how much do average African guardians and parents truly know about talents?

Worst of all, we are mostly great at studying the works of others for the sake of passing exams and getting good jobs but not equally as great at changing the world through inventions or promoting our own brands. The ultimate dream of most remains taking all the knowledge or talents to other countries where they will be appreciated and catered for; despite potential challenges like racism and xenophobic attacks.

The Child That Made Us Sing

In high school, I met a talented kid. With a beautiful angelic voice that had a soul of its own, he would melt our hearts and even had us making rap verses out of our poems. His parents, due to the religious doctrines of theirs, were against his art. It only does give me joy today that he has taken this art up as a pro and is gradually making waves and leaving us wanting more of his songs. This did not come without a price though; he had gone against his parents’ wishes and for years, if it has ended now, he was called names and was labeled a black sheep.

How many children can endure such a horrible phase of life though and before the society would understand a child’s reasons for defiance, would that child not have been judged wrongly, especially if the child fails due to the lack of the required financial and moral supports?

Before the changes we see today, there was a little child who had a dream to leave a mark on the world in his or her own way. Before the world was, there was a creator, or an energy, that was going to create life; depending on what you believe.

We, as parents and guardians, need to broaden our horizon by going higher beyond the things that are normal today and learn to see what the needs and interests of the future man will be. Only by doing so can we see the potentials in our young ones and know how best to help nurture their talents towards achieving the best possible outcomes.

Life will always be dynamic; let us not limit their potentials by being shallow ourselves. Let us lay the corpses of our dead dreams in earth’s belly and let them live their own dreams out.

Start today.

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About Post Author

Samuel Ola Akinpitansoye

A writer with an unusual mind. Before anything, I am human. Mankind is my tribe and Love is my religion.

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