Raised for duty, Growing towards self

Enmeshment, transactional parenting, obligation language & emotional debts.

The conversation Kenya has been having these past few days didn’t actually begin in a courtroom. It’s been simmering for decades in our homes, in our living rooms, in the quiet places where roles blur and love becomes obligation. But the courtroom is where it finally spilled into public view. A university student refused to apologize to his parents, a judge insisted he must, and suddenly, everyone had something to say. Parents felt attacked; young adults felt vindicated; the whole country felt exposed. Because beneath the noise was a truth many of us recognize: a deep generational mismatch about what respect, adulthood, and family actually mean. For many young people, the moment didn’t feel like rebellion; it felt like naming something we've lived with our whole lives. And for many parents, it felt like losing something sacred: their authority, their sacrifice, their story of what it means to be a “good parent.” These two emotional realities crashed into each other in public, and what we’re left with is not scandal but an invitation to examine the cultural scripts we inherited.

One of the clearest framings of this tension comes from Simply Sayo’s observation: African children are often adultified as children and infantilized as adults. And when you sit with that line for even a moment, it unlocks a whole world of understanding. Because this is the truth many of us know intimately. As children, we were trained to be little adults, responsible, self-sacrificing, and emotionally aware of everyone but ourselves. Then, when we finally became adults, we found that our autonomy was treated as immaturity, our boundaries as disrespect, and our independence as betrayal. This double bind runs deep. Many of us grew up being the “responsible one,” the helper, the emotional sponge. You might have been the child who mediated fights, comforted a crying parent, raised your siblings, or took on chores and roles far older than your years. You learned early that your feelings were secondary to maintaining peace, preserving reputation, and keeping the household afloat. You learned to swallow your own needs because “life is hard” and “you’re the strong one.” You learned that being a child was a luxury you couldn’t always afford. Then adulthood arrived, and suddenly the script flipped. The same people who expected you to carry weight beyond your years began to treat you like you were incapable of carrying your own life. Decisions about work, relationships, where you live, how you live, and who you become, everything came with scrutiny, supervision, or soft coercion. Not because your parents didn’t love you, but because autonomy had never been part of the relational bargain. Your usefulness had been. Your loyalty had been. Your compliance had been.

And this is where culture enters the story. Because this dynamic did not appear out of nowhere, it came from historical survival strategies. African families relied on interdependence to withstand poverty, colonial trauma, instability, and the emotional labor of holding communities together. Children contributing early wasn’t dysfunction; it was necessary. Obedience wasn’t control; it was a way to preserve order in chaotic conditions. Sacrifice wasn’t leverage; it was the currency of love. But survival practices have a way of becoming culture long after the conditions they were built for have changed. And when survival logic meets modern individuality, the clash can feel violent. What was once necessity is now sometimes misused as entitlement. What was once unity can slip into control. What was once loyalty can slide into guilt.

This is why the language of “we raised you, we paid your fees” shakes so many young adults. Not because upbringing isn’t deserving of gratitude, but because gratitude has too often been weaponized. It becomes a leash rather than a bridge. It turns family into a transaction: we gave, so you owe. We sacrificed, so you must comply. We suffered, so you must silence yourself. At its most extreme, this is where we begin to see enmeshment and parentification: blurred boundaries, emotional debt, and the expectation that children will be extensions of their parents, not individuals with their own psychological landscapes. Love becomes intertwined with guilt. Duty becomes indistinguishable from manipulation. Parents’ unhealed wounds quietly dictate the emotional climate of the home.

This isn’t every family, but it’s enough families for many of us to recognize these patterns instantly. And it’s important to say this plainly: this is not an attack on parents. It is a mirror held up with gentleness. Because many parents did the best they could with what they had, under pressures we may never fully comprehend. And many of them inherited these scripts without question, the same way we did. This conversation is not about blame; it’s about naming, so that healing becomes possible for everyone involved.

Still, it’s equally important to understand why parents react so strongly when young adults push back. For many parents, autonomy feels like abandonment. It makes them feel irrelevant, unappreciated, or erased. They fear losing their children to modernity, to “Western ideas,” to independence that looks like distance. They fear becoming unnecessary. Beneath the anger is often sadness. Beneath the defensiveness is often fear. Beneath the moralizing is often love that doesn’t know any other language. Meanwhile, young adults are reaching for something their parents weren’t allowed to imagine: identities of their own. Emotional clarity. Boundaries. Mental health. A self that exists outside family duty. We aren’t rejecting our culture; we’re rejecting the parts of it that confused devotion with ownership. We are gently, quietly trying to grow.

Which brings us back to the student in court. His refusal wasn’t just about an apology. It was about a generation quietly stepping into adulthood on its own terms. It was about breaking the unspoken rule that parents must be apologized to even when the apology is performative, symbolic, or coerced. It was about saying, "I can love you without being swallowed by you." I can honor you without offering my autonomy as proof.

And as we have this conversation, it’s worth turning to those who will one day be parents themselves. Because many of us want to break cycles without breaking relationships. Psychology gives us a few simple, compassionate tools to become the parents we needed: Allow children to be children. Let them feel, make mistakes, and grow without excessive responsibility. Separate love from debt. Care for your children without keeping score. Encourage autonomy early. Teach decision-making without controlling outcomes. Be the safe place, not the fearful place. Create a home where honesty isn’t punished. Repair openly. Apologize when necessary; model the behavior you hope to receive. Honor individuality. Let your child become someone you didn’t imagine but can still love fully. This is how cycles end, not through rebellion or shame, but through gentle re-parenting of ourselves first. At the heart of all this is a simple truth: Kenyan families are evolving, and evolution is not disrespect. It is growth. It is healing. It is love expanding, not disappearing. The goal is not to dismantle our culture but to refine it. To hold onto the warmth, the closeness, and the strength of community while releasing the control, guilt, and emotional debt that keep us stuck. To build families where respect is mutual, not one-sided. Where adults relate as adults. Where childhood is honored. Where love doesn’t suffocate, it supports, frees, and expands.

Maybe this moment in the courtroom wasn’t a scandal after all. Maybe it was a turning point. A mirror. A chance for all of us, parents and children, to grow in ways our families could not before. And maybe that’s the quiet blessing in all this: an opportunity to become healthier versions of each other, together, across generations. Because in the end, that’s what we all want: to love and be loved without losing ourselves in the process.