If while growing up, beverages were hidden by your parents and only brought out on weekends, when it rains, and daddy wants to drink tea, or the pot of stew is under the bed closely monitored by either your dad or mom. If during the festive period, the fried meat or chicken are taken to daddy’s room and shared from there, please come over let us have a family meeting on Above whispers.

Why do our parents hide this “basic necessities” of life from us?

It is time to set up a commission of inquiry or better still a truth and reconciliation commission to unravel the immediate and remote causes for hiding meat and beverages amongst others by our parents. This commission when set up should be chaired by a millennial since they have been labelled the generation with a sense of entitlements.

Let me see if I can rationalize why we have too much of “resource control on beverages and meat etc” during our growing up days. I lead a medium-sized organisation with about 15 staffs who are on the average in their late twenties and early thirties. They are young, vibrant and intelligent with more women than men. Trust me I like women and men but “I dey straight forward”.

Since we run very crazy schedules and tight deadlines, we run our office like home, you are free to cook, take a nap, play music, run around and even play table tennis or skip. We let you be you so far you meet your deadlines and give the organisation your best. In creating a culture that makes our work flow seamlessly I sometimes cook or bring my food, however each time I do, I have about 7 or more spoons already around my plate.

I love my team no doubt. You know that part when as an adult you are expected to share your things with those you are older than? Now I have been doing this for long such that if I buy kulikuli, I must buy that of my colleagues so that I am able to breathe with my nose otherwise I won’t. At least I am the boss I can’t afford to be stingy. If I put anything in the fridge so far it is labelled mine, I am sure not to meet it when I return.

I am not complaining o, e hen. I am just making sense of why our parents keep things away from us back then. Imagine putting a bottle of water in the fridge and you already planned to come back to it after your morning walk only to find that it has been taken by your colleague. Are you with me? And when you ask who took my water, no one talks, some 30 secs later you hear one voice in a remorseful but not remorseful voice, I did.

Well I try to maintain my calm and ask that another one be bought for me. This has happened over time. I see my team as an integral part of me. They are hard working and make me feel young though they are quick to remind me that I am growing old and I can’t be a ‘zaddy’. Over time I have had to process why I do not feel mad at them when they take my things, while I saw patience and ability to give freely, I also flagged affordability. Could it be I could cope because I can afford the things they take? Could I have also issued an executive order asking that no one take my things without my consent? What if I have all the 15 staff doing this, will I cope?

Can we trace things back to our days when our parents had more than their resources can cater for? And as children we do not want to know whether there is money or not, whatever we see in the kitchen or on the dinning table we pick and eat. Sometimes because they have even hoarded these materials from us, we look for it and take some— stealing! Maybe if our parents can afford things, or if they had planned our families well, they wouldn’t have to hide all sorts from us.

Am I making sense?