A story is often told of an old farmer who took his only child to school. He knew farming. He understood the needs of tomatoes, oranges, maize, beans, and sukuma wiki.
A story is often told of an old farmer who took his only child to school.
He knew farming. He understood the needs of tomatoes, oranges, maize, beans, and sukuma wiki. Each day, under the hot sub-Saharan sun, he walked his land slowly, inspecting leaves for blemishes, testing the strength of stems, confirming the soil was alive.
"Maji iko. Manure iko. Dawa nimepuuza kwa hii…" he muttered, moving methodically through every section of his farm.
No day passed without care. And in time, the harvest came.
He sold most of the produce, keeping only what he and his son needed. His Pride. The boy who carried his face, his smile, his quiet way of thinking. The farmer believed—deeply—that education would lift them from small-scale agriculture into abundance. Not abundance of land, but of opportunity. He saw it advertised daily in the newspaper from the local canteen.
School fees were high. Always rising. Still, he paid—faithfully. And with every payment, he reassured himself that his son was becoming responsible, disciplined, and mature.
But while the farm flourished, the child was left unattended.
The farmer never asked what his son was thinking. Never followed up on his studies. Never reviewed grades or questioned habits. Boarding school was far away, and trust filled the gap where involvement should have lived.
"Nimechoka kwa shamba. Mtoto ako sawa," he would say, dozing off at 7PM to his favorite radio station.
How foolish.
Did he believe a child governed himself? That growth happened automatically? That money could replace mentorship? He tended plants daily—yet neglected the mind that would one day carry his name.
How many of us do the same?
We prune businesses, careers, and projects with precision, while leaving our children to chance. We claim they are our greatest investment—yet give them the least of our time. At life's end, will harvest totals matter? Will office hours? Or will we ask what kind of people we raised?
Much of our labor is justified by a single phrase: "I want my children to live better than I did." But how can that happen when children are left alone to form their thinking—absorbing values from everywhere and nowhere at once?
Unexamined thoughts, over time, become character. And unchecked character can devastate families.
So it was no surprise—though the farmer called it shocking—when his son's final examination results proved disappointing. For eighteen years, he had accepted, "Mambo iko sawa shule, Dad, wewe lipa tu school fees."
He had never verified. Never guided. Never shined the light of his hopes and dreams to the truth of his childs' inner reality. And again, this cannot be communicated in a once in a lifetime talk, or in passing conversations. It must be deliberate and intentionally conveyed in a manner that ensures that the child is fully aware to the reality.
In the end, only truth remains. Unanchored dreams cannot survive in the day of the test, whatever test it may be.