He looked like a caricature of a teenager from the 60s! Pot-bellied, receding hairline and Elvis Presley era clothes.
My son is earning good money as a software designer with an international company. He has just finished a multi-million shilling contract with a US company, but he has become so proud. The once adorable boy, who coped well with my relatives, now hardly speaks to them, disdains non-performers and is now reaching a point of embarrassing his father. Recently, he refused to attend the funeral of his uncle in the village saying he has no time. What has gone wrong?
Those who drink alcohol know that at a certain point one becomes drunk and in that state he is unable to recognise the fact that he has taken too much and continues to ask the bar man for more beer. It is only later, when one wakes up from the drunken slumber of alcohol that he is confronted by a fuming spouse, pounding headache and evidence of dangerous driving showing in his damaged car.
Like alcohol, money and power sometimes gets into the heads of people and the more of it they have, the more drunk they seem to get. It is possible that your son has become drunk with money and power and he is now like the typical drunkard at a party, unable to recognise his state of advanced inebriation and behaving badly in the circumstances.
It is difficult to be sure what has happened to your once adorable boy, but because you ask we must examine a number of possibilities. Some people go through life under the shadow of a powerful father or older siblings and although they do not say so at the time, they resent the relationship.
There are young men, who as teenagers resent being known as the “son of so and so”. When introduced to girls, it is only as the son of that famous politician or professional. The development of an individual personality seems impossible from under the dark shadow of his father’s great name and presence in public.
Some years ago, a client asked me to talk a 50-year-old lawyer who had gone “berserk”. His wife came complaining that her husband of 25 years had changed beyond recognition. In tears, she explained that he had left home and moved in with his receptionist who was younger than their last born child.
Although he regularly sent money to the family, he lived in a small flat, had bought himself a red sports car and had discarded the grey suits he so much liked and now wore brightly coloured shirts and trousers.
He was drinking heavily and spent most evenings in nightclubs in the Westlands area. She knew something was wrong when he started wearing platform shoes and plaited his hair. He looked like a caricature of a teenager from the 60s! Pot bellied, receding hairline and Elvis Presley era clothes. He remained in this state of mental confusion until eventually agreed to present himself to therapy. His was an interesting story. His father had died a few months prior to the onset of this “adolescent crisis in middle age”. After the funeral, the lawyer began to feel “free”.
As the youngest son of a prominent businessman, he had all his life existed under the wings of his father. His death represented the onset of his freedom.
Because he was the only son who had excelled in school, the father was particularly proud of him. As soon as he left law school, his father made him the family lawyer .
His practice had grown in part because his father had unlimited influence in Government and private sector. Because his father was a teetotaller, he dared not drink alcohol and he remained outwardly very respectful of his father. The 50-year-old man still lived under the shadow of his father, spending all Sundays at home with his parents! To illustrate how badly he felt treated by his father he described himself as one who had been castrated by his own father. He had never felt like a man!
Following the death of his father, he felt at last able to live the life he had not lived and felt an uncontrollable urge to “riot” There are a number of men in Kenya today who are going through the equivalent of an adolescent crisis in their 50s and 60s.
I am not sure how old your son is and why he might be behaving in the way that he is, but, you might want to talk to him and find out why he needs to behave like one drunk with money and power . It is possible he missed a stage in his development as a teenager!
Well adjusted men and women respect their parents and elders all their lives. Something is wrong with your son!
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