School-going children adorned in different uniforms have joined the wave of the multitude of people walking briskly in Nairobi streets to various places.
As a Nairobi resident, you might have noticed more school buses on the road, small groups of excited children at different bus stages and even a few of the uniformed children confusedly looking for landmarks like Archives.
As more children break for the August school holiday, Kenyan parents have a mixture of emotions.
Speaking to The Star, Jane Mirithu, a mother to a Grade 3 daughter, explains how excited she is for the August school holiday.
From the tender age of six months, her daughter has always had a propensity for respiratory infections.
The cycle of these respiratory infections sometimes forced Mirithu and her daughter to make the hospital their second home. Therefore, for Mirithu, this cold July season has been nothing but tumultuous.
Before the cold season began, Mirithu had fully prepared by purchasing warm jackets, socks, scarves, and stockings.
In spite of her efforts to keep her daughter warm, her daughter contracted a respiratory infection within the first week.
Trying to nip the infection in the bud, she immediately took her daughter to hospital, where some antibiotics were prescribed.
However, a few days after her daughter regained her health, one of her classmates infected her with another respiratory infection.
“At least with this holiday, my daughter can be able to go for a week without getting a respiratory infection from a crowded classroom with several children coughing and sniffling,” Mirithu says.
This August holiday is particularly special for Timothy Polo who is a recent divorcee.
Since Polo and his ex-wife have joint custody over their son who is currently in high school, they both agreed that Polo would get their son for the August holiday.
The divorce being contentious, he had unfortunately left the house and consequently his son for a month without a goodbye in an attempt to protect his inner peace.
By the time he felt more emotionally stable to come around the house again, his son had already left for his second term.
Since then, he has been counting down the days to this August holiday. Even as he prepares to pick up his son from school this weekend, he has made sure to pull all the stops.
From restocking snacks in the house, buying the Xbox that his son had always wanted, planning weekend getaways within and outside Nairobi- Polo has gone above and beyond to show his son how much he cares about him.
“I am just trying to make sure he knows that I love him and he will always be my first priority in spite of the divorce,” he adds.
Nevertheless, there are Kenyan parents who view this August holiday as more of a hurdle than a blessing. Despite the silent whispers of parental guilt in her head, Amanda Njogu does not shy away from admitting that she prefers the busy school terms.
Being a single mother to a Grade 2 son, her son being constantly at home just adds more to her already overflowing plate.
In particular, she is not excited for this August holiday because of a lucrative promotion opportunity at her job coming within the same month.
With the mountain of workload that she has to attend to if she wants to impress her boss, her son being constantly at home is something that Njogu feels ill-prepared to manage.
For instance, her son being constantly at home means that she has to wake up earlier than usual for the whole holiday to prepare the meals that he will have for the day.
Earlier mornings aside, she will also have to employ a house manager who could take care of her son while she is away working.
Managing this and many more motherhood responsibilities is too overwhelming for her, especially when she is fighting tooth and nail to get a promotion in a male-dominated profession.
“For this August holiday, I am thinking of sending my son to his grandparents for the whole holiday- society might say otherwise, but this does not make me a bad mother,” Njogu confidently states.
In the case of *Kibet, a father with a son in high school, school holidays mark the beginning of palpable tension in their home.
Since his son enrolled in high school, Kibet and his wife have been stuck in a gruesome cycle of trying to set their son on the straight and narrow path.
What began as a few instances of subliminal rebellion snowballed to an extreme of being constantly called to the school because of indiscipline cases.
Trying to find out what fueled their son’s rebellious outbursts was like finding a needle in a haystack.
At first, Kibet and his wife tried to sit their son down to find out his reasons for his drastic personality change.
However, when this intervention was met with arrogant retorts from their son, it dawned on him that their son was too far gone to listen to them.
Not willing to throw in the towel, Kibet and his wife decided to try therapy for their son.
Nonetheless, this also proved futile when their son kept mum, waiting for the therapy sessions to end.
The school holidays particularly present an added challenge for him and his wife. During the school holidays, their son has a tendency of meeting up with some infamous boys in their estate.
More often than not, the earliest their son comes back home after these meet-ups is at 10 pm.
Not knowing what kind of mischief encompasses these meet-ups, Kibet and his wife have tried everything under the sun to keep their son from this bad influence.
“I know it makes me look like a bad parent but having exhausted all options but tying him down in the house, I am between a rock and a hard place and would much prefer my son in school,” he laments.
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