Public holidays are some of those bright days that lighten up our weeks, years, name it. I mean who does not need that time off to forget about work, school and all the other nagging schedules?
However while these days come with a common cause to celebrate, some other days just leave me a bit confused. I mean, days like “Mother’s day”, “Father’s day”, and all the others in that line.
While I might appreciate the gesture in setting certain days aside to celebrate the special people in our lives, the way in which some people choose to do it gets very annoying. I mean, lately, the slight mentioning of such a date will expose one to a whole lot of poems, pics, and all sorts of sentiments from people that you may not really care about or know in the first place, all thanks to the social network platforms.
And do not get me wrong, I have no problem with how one chooses to spend their day but here is what beats my understanding. We all know that a good number of “old school parents” may not be “social media friendly”. The few that have insisted and embraced it, may not be active enough to catch up with these ever changing trends. Now, when I see a person old enough to have an “old school” parent, getting all sentimental on all the social media platforms about their mum, dad, I see a huge problem.
I doubt the parent whom that poem is being addressed to will ever read it because duh! they do not have an account on that particular platform. Then, I do not think that the author of the message, coupled with pictures and the like will take the trouble to show her whatever it is that they wrote for them on their wall. (I hate to even imagine the sort of hassle that would be).
So why do the rest of us have to be tormented with all sorts of messages and further get forced to go through the extra “pretentious pill” of liking and commenting on these statuses when one can simply pack all their stories, tears and take them to the particular individuals and celebrate the day to make it worth their while?
Yes! Talk about how she used to wash your feet, drop you at school, send you off with a prayer, blah blah blah to her/him and back it up with a gift, cook a good meal, take them out, etc. I believe that counts as opposed to a midnight paragraph on Facebook for a lot of people who do not care just for the sake of getting oba how many likes and tu comments?
I think we need to know when to use what to achieve a certain goal. If people in the west do this for their parents, then it’s because they use the social network. If a dot.com child does that for her mum/dad, then it is pretty cool because we all know that today’s parents have embraced that. But if one in their mid/late 20s, 30s and beyond does that for their “old school” peeps, then I will say, they are trying too hard to work with the ever changing trends but instead, end up misplacing everything to achieve nothing at all. Talk of wasted efforts!