Why was sleeping in late akin to sin?

A hilarious post on Facebook I came across sometime back is what inspired me this week.

The Facebook friend who wrote it was talking about how her mother would have reacted today if she found her still asleep at 7am on a weekend. Or holiday.

According to her, her mother would exclaim at the top of her voice, loud enough for the neighbours to hear, “Wuuuuiiii! Kujeni muone bibi ya governor!” (Come see the governor’s wife …) In essence implying that with the state of the economy in Kenya today, only a governor’s wife can afford to sleep in.

After all, our counties’ billions, which the custodians have been plundering without shame or mercy, will feed her and pay her bills.

Anyway, this mother would say this statement in such shock and alarm, anyone hearing her would think she had discovered a robber in the house.

That post still tickles my funny bone because I can somehow relate to it: for some reason, my dad would get offended when we stayed in bed later than usual, even during school holidays. His favourite rhetorical question was, “What are you still doing in bed at this time?”

Worth noting is that he did not require you to do anything because there was really nothing to do. He just wanted to see you out of bed.

At home, sleeping during the day was especially frowned upon, such that up to now, I am unable to sleep during the day.

It doesn’t matter how heavy my eyes are, I am simply unable to bring myself to sleep even when I go to bed, cover myself with blanketi gubi gubi, and even draw the curtains to give the illusion of night-time. I guess my brain was long conditioned to sleep only at night.

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

Moreover, the latest I can sleep is up to 6am, and whenever I happen to sleep until around 7am, which is rare, I am dumbfounded, and cannot help feeling that something is wrong. A shame, isn’t it?

Pray, why were our parents so opposed to sleep? Woe unto you if you loved the blanket because you were mercilessly mocked for it and called lazy, even worse, everyone in the village knew about your laziness.

From many other stories I have heard, mothers of yesteryears were quite melodramatic.

An older friend once recounted how her mother once suddenly screamed at the top of her voice, saying how she, (this friend) was on a mission to kill her before her time was due — reason? She had accidentally spilled a cup of milk. This friend was around 12 years old at the time.

Decades later, she gets anxious whenever she spills something, even water, and in her own kitchen for that matter, thanks to her mother sensationalising that one harmless incident.

Breaking a cup, plate, or God forbid, a tea flask, was akin to a cardinal sin. Your mother would give you so much grief, you would shed tears, which she would pointedly ignore and inform you that she expected you to buy her plates and cups with your first salary, never mind that at that point, you were eight years or thereabout.

Nowadays, when your eight-year-old accidentally breaks a glass, you rush to her side, all concerned in case a shard has pricked her, and then proceed to pick up the broken pieces for her.

And when your 10-year-old gets up at 9am on a Saturday, you ask him why he’s up so early, and even try to get him to go back to bed. How things have changed!

The writer is Editor, My Network Magazine in the Daily Nation. [email protected]    Twitter: @cnjerius.