Sometimes all you can do is simply accept  that your child is who God chose for you

Don Corleone: I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see. They talk when they should listen. Anyway, Signor Sollozzo, my no to you is final. Thank you.

Don Corleone: Santino, come here! What’s the matter with you? I think your brain is going soft with all that comedy you are playing with that young girl. Never tell anyone outside the Family what you are thinking again.

That is one of several intriguing subplots and gripping dialogues from Mario Puzo’s greatest work of fiction, “The Godfather”. Evidently, a life of violence and ruthlessness has not diminished Don Vito Corleone’s sentimentalism and the value of family.

Visitation days were an anxiety-inducing experience for many boarding school students. You didn’t know whether your parent/guardian would show up or not. Great if they did; woe unto you if they didn’t because that meant an indefinite extension of your starvation.

Regardless, we prepared and hoped. On this uneventful rainy Saturday evening, one of our friends – let’s call him Tom – was washing the same shirt he planned on wearing the next day. We asked how he planned for it to dry, considering the weather. His answer was a story of an experience from his previous school, explaining why it was important that he looked tidy and presentable.

Apparently while other parents sauntered around the school with their children, the father looked around for Tom, to no avail. Eventually, Tom showed up, muddied, as if he had just been dragged out of a rathole. His father watched Tom as he approached and looked around to see if anyone was looking. He was embarrassed.

However, he swallowed his shame and exasperation, and remarked, “Katonda, ono yewange gwawampa!” (God, this is the child you gave me!). He then held Tom’s hand and walked on to the next station. This was about two decades ago, and Tom was just a teenager, so his shenanigans might have been excusable.

You wonder if his father would make the same rationalization today if Tom had turned out roguish. Would he look at others’ children and still mumble to the heavens, accepting that this is it?

How about the legendary South African musician, Sello Chico Twala? You might remember him from growing up to his tunes such as “I need some money”, and “We miss you Manelo”, which were popular in the nineties. It was the time when South African music had us in a chokehold. Anyhow, Chico’s son, Longwe Twala, is one of 7 people who were in the house on that October 2014 night when South African national team goalkeeper, Senzo Meyiwa, was shot and killed.

Longwe is famous in South African social circles, for being a playboy for whom rules are only suggestions to be ignored. There is an interesting scene in the Netflix documentary, Senzo Meyiwa: Murder of a Soccer Star, which details events on that night and the circumstances that preceded it. In said scene, Longwe has been arrested for theft, and his father is called to bail him out.

Chico goes on a tirade, lambasting his son for ruining his name and everything he has done to build his reputation and business. He is so livid that he even yells, “I know people say you are involved in Meyiwa’s murder. I wish that you had done it. I wish you were guilty so that you can go and rot in jail instead of ruining my name and destroying everything that I have built.”

Why are these stories important? Well, because they are a window into the complexities of parenting. It is easy to see how to chalk off Like Tom’s misdemeanors as simply a streak of teenage impudence that won’t go beyond refusing to take a bath, make his bed or desist from bullying others. It is a different ballgame when you are having trouble dealing with an adult Longwe, where the stakes are much higher. His clangers have the potential to send you and everything you have built down the drain.

Even in a fictional story, Don Vito admits that he knew his son, Santino, would have made a bad Don. Yet, he was still willing for him to be the successor, had he not, in a rush of blood, gotten himself killed. How much harder in real life then?

Mr Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless Minds. @Rukwengye