Sitting on Daddy's Shoulders

Time. It’s not that parents, aunts and uncles don’t want to carry kids on their shoulders anymore. Time is the problem. So much to do, so little time and most of it is online, which means we must be on our phones all the time.

We even check them at night during dawn bathroom breaks. We have to. People in another part of the world are in their offices and trains posting content, while it is still night time over here. We don’t want to miss a thing.

Yes, we remember the fun we had when our parents carried us on their shoulders, but they are grandparents now so bones like complaining.

We loved it. We saw our neighbourhood differently. It looked wide when sitting up there on dad’s or aunt’s shoulders. We loved it so much, we used to beg them for a ride.

Kids love sitting on parents’ shoulders because they don’t crane their necks looking up, as usual. That’s the disadvantage of being little, always looking up at adults when they are hungry or wanting to see what is happening over the fence.

I forget the title but there’s a Bollywood film starring superstars Hema Malini and Amitabh Bachchan. They visit their married sons only to be treated as a burden. There’s a part where he gives a soliloquy about carrying them on his shoulders. Very touching.

I guess kids will just have to wait for when Wi-Fi is on vacation. Only then, we’ll lift them up to our shoulders for a ride, even trot like horses.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.