“Go to School, Baby…”

Bad Advice from Grandma

Monday Morning. Monday morning I greeted one of colleagues in the break room. “How was your weekend?”

“I was bad this weekend,” she replied. “I didn’t do any work. I just spent the weekend with Tommy cleaning around the house.”

This is not an unusual conversation. I have it often with friends and colleagues. What is unusual is that many of us feel the need to apologize for spending our weekend on ourselves. Not only is it unusual, this is crazy. For many of us Monday through Friday is spent slavishly working to enrich others. What time is available to us is used to enable us to be of better servitude to others. We eat, sleep, and transport ourselves around to work for whatever corporate or government entity gives us a subsistence stipend (Ugh! Excuse me.) …a paycheck.

The Realization. Then it hits me. Over 50% of US workers don’t like their jobs, at least according to the Conference Board (http://www.conference-board.org/) which conducts a poll of job satisfaction every few years. So, this means that over half of US workers spend five days out of seven toiling their lives away doing something they don’t like in order to enrich someone else. What is more, many of them (especially those that are salaried) will allow work demands to encroach on the two remaining days that are actually allocated to them.

Enter Grandma. Now here is our beloved grandma telling us, “Stay in school, Baby. Work hard. Get good grades, so you can get a good job.” I’m sorry, Grandma, but you are giving Black children some bad advice. Why should we encourage our children to devote 12-18 of their most creative, energetic, optimistic, youthful years to the drudgery of school? Those youth who endure it get the prize of “a good job,” that will most likely commit them to 40-60 more years of drudgery.

The Fix. Don’t do this to the babies, and don’t do it to yourself. Here are two suggestions. First, leave work at work, and stop apologizing for enjoying your life. If you want to spend your weekend on your couch scratching yourself, that’s your business. Have fun with that! Second, advise Black children to aspire to self-determination (kujichagulia). If you give them a stay in school message, make it, “Stay in school, Baby. Work hard. Learn how whites are oppressing Afrikan people. Bring that knowledge back to us, so you can help us to get some Black Dominion!” Now that is some good advice!

Jomo W. Mutegi is a husband and father committed to the improvement of the African world community, an author of science-related children’s books, and an Associate Professor of Science Education. To learn more about Jomo’s children’s books, visit www.JomoMutegi.com. To learn more about Dr. Mutegi’s research visit www.ES2RP.org.