- Hillary Muhalya reflects on how his mother raised four children after their father’s death.
- He says discipline, responsibility, faith and listening shaped their lives despite severe financial hardship.
- Muhlaya argues that modern parenting requires presence and guidance alongside material provision for children.
There is a place in Kolongolo, near Chimney in Kitale, that I can never think about without remembering how quickly a family can be changed by death.
It is a grave.
The grave of my father.
There is nothing elaborate about it. Just a simple epitaph:
“Rest in Peace.”
Those three words are almost all that remained of the man who had been part of our lives.
But life does not stop when a grave is closed.
For the four of us, his children, life had to continue.
For my mother, it became a completely different life.
She had lost her husband. She had four children to raise. She had very little money and no easy answers about how the next day would be managed.
Yet every morning came with the same demands. Food had to be found. Children had to be cared for. School had to continue.
I was too young then to understand the enormity of what she was carrying.
I only knew that my mother worked hard.
Today, I understand that she was carrying a family on her back.
We worked on people’s farms. We gathered fruits from the village bushes. We helped around the home. We did whatever honest work was available.
Our clothes became old and tattered. When they tore, they were patched and worn again. There was no readily available mitumba market where we could simply go and buy another set of clothes.
There were days when food was scarce and, like many struggling families of that generation, one meal could sometimes be all that was available.
But what I remember most is not the hardship itself.
I remember my mother’s attitude towards it.
She taught us to appreciate whatever was on the table without teaching us to accept poverty as our destiny.
She never made us feel that having little meant we were less important than other children.
Instead, she gave us something more powerful than material comfort: hope that our circumstances could change.
Her biggest dream was remarkably simple.
All four of us had to complete high school.
Education was not a luxury in our home. It was a mission.
My mother worked and sacrificed towards that goal. She knew she could not change the circumstances into which we had been born, but she could fight to ensure those circumstances did not determine our future.
Looking back now, I realise that some of the most important lessons she gave me had nothing to do with money.
Sometimes children need a listening parent
One of those lessons came when I was in Class Seven.
I had failed mathematics.
I knew I had performed badly, and I expected punishment. In my mind, the reaction was obvious: shouting, anger and perhaps a beating.
Instead, my mother sat down with me.
She asked:
“What happened?”
Then she listened.
That question has stayed with me for years.
She did not immediately call me lazy. She did not insult me. She did not make me feel that one poor examination result had turned me into a failure.
After listening, she told me to wake up early and study.
She corrected me, but she did not crush me.
Today, I understand the wisdom in that moment.
A child who performs badly may need discipline, but the parent should first try to understand what went wrong.
Sometimes children do not need a louder parent.
They need a listening parent.
My mother’s approach taught me that discipline and compassion can exist together. A parent can demand better from a child without destroying the child’s confidence.
She also taught us that being part of a family meant having responsibilities.
We worked on farms. We gathered fruits. We helped with chores. We contributed in whatever ways children could.
At the time, I simply thought that was how life was.
Today, I see the lesson.
My mother was teaching us that a home is not a hotel where one person provides everything while everyone else simply consumes.
She was teaching us:
“This home is yours too. Help build it.”
Those responsibilities prepared us for life.
They taught us that honest work is not shameful, that contribution matters and that receiving should eventually be accompanied by giving.
Then there was prayer.
At night, my mother prayed with us.
The prayers were simple, but they carried enormous meaning.
She knew she could not follow four children everywhere. One day, we would leave home, go to school, meet different people and make decisions without her.
So she wanted to put something inside us that would remain when she was not around.
She gave us faith.
She also understood that education alone was not enough. A child could pass examinations and still lack character. A child could become educated and still make destructive choices.
She wanted us to have both knowledge and values.
Providing cannot replace parenting
That is where my childhood begins to speak directly to the parenting challenges of today.
Kenyan parents today live in a very different environment.
Many parents work extremely hard to give their children opportunities they never had. They pay school fees, buy smartphones, provide internet access, purchase clothes, organise celebrations and try to make their children’s lives more comfortable than their own.
Those sacrifices matter.
But there is a danger when providing becomes a substitute for parenting.
My mother had little money, so she could not solve every problem with money.
She had to give us herself.
She listened.
She knew when I was struggling.
She gave us responsibilities.
She insisted on education.
She prayed with us.
She corrected us.
She made time for us.
Today, a parent can provide far more materially and yet be physically or emotionally absent.
A child can have a smartphone but lack meaningful conversation with a parent.
A child can wear expensive clothes but have little understanding of responsibility.
A child can attend an expensive school but still need values, boundaries and guidance that no school fee can purchase.
A child can have almost everything materially and still feel lonely.
This does not mean modern parents should deliberately expose their children to the hardships of the past.
Poverty is not a parenting strategy.
Children deserve adequate food, decent clothing, healthcare, safe housing, education and opportunities.
The lesson from my childhood is different.
It is that as parents provide more for their children materially, they must not give less of themselves.
Technology can assist parenting, but it cannot replace presence.
Money can pay school fees, but it cannot listen to a frightened child.
An expensive school can educate a child, but it cannot replace the conversations that happen at home.
A smartphone can connect a child to the world, but it cannot teach that child how to become responsible.
Children still need parents who know their fears, understand their struggles, monitor their friendships, guide their online lives and are willing to sit down and ask:
“What happened?”
That question changed something in me when my mother asked it.
It reminded me that parenting is not simply about reacting to a child’s mistake.
It is about understanding the child behind the mistake.
Where you begin need not define your ending
When I look back at the grave of my father in Kolongolo, I think about how much my mother had to carry after he was gone.
She could not bring him back.
She could not give us a life without hardship.
But she could make a choice about what kind of children she would raise.
She chose to raise children who would work, study, pray, appreciate what they had and believe that their beginnings did not have to determine their endings.
All four of us eventually completed high school.
That achievement was not accidental.
Behind it was a woman who worked when she was tired, sacrificed when she had little and kept believing when circumstances gave her every reason to give up.
Today, I look back at the tattered clothes, the farm work, the gathered fruits, the scarce meals and the small home we grew up in differently.
They were not things to celebrate in themselves.
They were circumstances we survived.
What deserves celebration is the woman who stood in the middle of those circumstances and refused to let them define her children.
My mother had very little money.
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But she gave us something that has lasted far longer than anything money could have bought:
The confidence to believe that where you begin is not necessarily where you must end.
By Hillary Muhalya
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