I recall as if it was yesterday something that happened decades ago when I and all my siblings were still studying and living in the United Kingdom. A girlfriend of one of my older brothers (who we his siblings fondly call Femo or bros Femo) phoned the house asking to speak to him. My younger brother Segun who couldn’t have been more than eight years old at the time answered the phone. After politely asking her to hold on, with the exuberance of a child he quickly ran up the stairs to inform bros Femo. What transpired during their brief conversation wasn’t something I was privy to as I was busy doing something in the kitchen. A few seconds later I heard Segun’s hurried footsteps as he ran down the staircase to return to the phone, a landline. What I heard next still rings loud in my ears till today, 37 years later! To my total disbelief, Segun told bros Femo’s girlfriend that “bros Femo said he was sleeping”! Unbelievable! Such is the innocence of a child.
We need to catch the children at this stage of innocence. This stage where we can infuse virtues and values in their minds before they get corrupted and polluted by what society yearns to teach them. Our hope is they will school society and not the other way round. As our present society is, an older person asked to tell this same “white lie” would execute it to perfection as he would know what’s up, as they say.
Bros Femo once told me how it took him a while to adjust when he first got to the UK. His mindset was just totally out of synch with that of a typical Brit. He said he would throw major tantrums whenever his team, the school’s 1st XI, lost a football match. His team mates would watch him in total bewilderment as they headed off to enjoy tea, which is actually a full course meal, with the opposition after the match. The same opposition they had been tearing into as bitter rivals and vice versa just thirty minutes or so earlier on the football pitch. The two teams were now sharing a meal as best buddies and respected adversaries. In the UK this is quite normal.
I was sharing with my children the other day how it’s usual practice after every match for the home team to form what we call a tunnel of honour. This is where all the players of one team form two lines while facing each other. The space in the middle is the tunnel. The tunnel is always formed on the touchline so the opposition team walks off the pitch as they walk through it. This is accompanied with clapping by the home team who form the tunnel and the traditional hearty “three cheers’ led by the captain. As an unwritten rule the spectators would join in to appreciate
both teams and as it’s customary, the home team would give their adversaries congratulatory pats on the back as they saunter through the tunnel, not necessarily because the visiting team won but just because they played a “good game”, even if they did suffer a most humiliating defeat. Still, in the spirit of good sportsmanship we would do this and offer the traditional outburst of “good game” as they pass through. As soon as they pass through the tunnel they too would form a tunnel and offer the same pleasantries. None of the sneering or jeering that you may experience in other cultures. No mocking for losing woefully. The victorious team doesn’t rub the nose of the losing team in it. Everyone acknowledge and appreciate that you did your best even if your best wasn’t good enough to win. This culture of good sportsmanship encourages integrity. Accepting defeat and learning to be gracious even in victory. This marks a huge departure from the do or die and win at all cost attitude, often advertently but sometimes inadvertently encouraged here. This is not an approach to life we should pass on to our children. Life is not all about winning. In fact, many a time one gains more from defeat than from an easy victory as it presents a wonderful to learn.
As Rabbi Harold Kushner rightly said, “the purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come back to look at all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought to other people’s lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.”
Dapo Akande
