“Daddy”
“Yo”
“What’s this song about?”
“It’s called ‘Sabaliʼ” *
“What’s Sabali?”
“I don’t actually know, it’s French.”
“What’s French?”
“It’s a language, like Sesotho and English and isiZulu”
“Oh, Kabo speaks French, and I speak Sesotho with Auntie”
“Exactly”
“What’s this song about again, daddy?”
“It’s called Sabali. Do you like it?”
“Yes I do Daddy, it’s my favourite song” **
The older she gets the more Maisha and I interact on a deeper and deeper level. As much as I’m discovering what she likes and who she is, I think she’s doing the same with me. She knows daddy runs, daddy likes music and dances awkwardly (with her and with no one else), daddy watches a lot of sport and plays a lot of sport PlayStation games.
To some extent though, she isn’t quite getting the full experience of who I am.
Daddy loves music, but daddy loves hip-hop, gangster rap, violent vulgar rap. Daddy loves to play PlayStation, but daddy loves sports games but daddy also loves violent shooting, games. Daddy watches a lot of TV, a lot of sport, but daddy also loves watching horror movies, violent action movies and series.
Being a dad makes you reconsider certain things. I need to do my best to protect her little mind, as far as I can. This means having to curate not only what she watches and listens to, but also what I watch and listen to around her.
So far I’ve found a few resources that I turn to and use. I’ll be sharing these over the next while. Some apps, some shows, some movies, some games…
*Sabali – By Amadou and Mariam.
**It is not, in fact, her favourite song…