No Shoes No Phone Room

One of the disadvantages of being wealthy is too much space and little  human touch. A new born baby has its own room full of expensive blue or pink things.

In so-called poor countries, the baby wakes up to a pair of loving eyes, the mother’s eyes. Aunts and grandmothers are in and out, to collect laundry, bring food and clean because the new mother is exhausted, after giving life.

Babies in wealthy homes wake up alone in their expensive cots thus miss the most important initiation, sounds and movement associated with humans. The trouble and fun begins when they start crawling. They touch things. They touch faces, especially faces. That’s why wealthy parents can enable the exploration phase by having a NO SHOES NO PHONE room in their mansions. They already have walk-in closets, a T.V. room which doubles up as a gaming room, a billiards room, a trophy room, a sauna, a full bar room, a cellar downstairs and a library, which is gathering dust.

No Shoes No Phone Room

The baby is the star in this room with no furniture. It might have wall to wall carpeting because cold is a reality in Europe and North America. It can also be covered with grass or straw-like rugs.

Visitors sit on the floor and the crawling fun begins. The speed! We will never understand nature and that’s intentional. If we did, we’ll try to destroy it. The baby crawls to a pair of feet, assesses it and zooms off to another pair. It might press the brake pedal and allow someone to hold it. Not for long, because there are all these people waiting for inspection. Women visitors must not wear earrings. It gives them an unfair advantage because they attract babies. They like pulling them.

The show ends when the baby falls asleep in someone’s arms. Visitors leave and collect their shoes and phones outside the door, ready to go back to dead objects that define their importance.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.