As a celebrity, you share a connection with millions of people who love you, your art and now, with the advent of social media, follow your life as if they lived in the same home with you.
For a celebrated musician like David Adeleke, popularly known by his alias, Davido, who has touched people’s lives in more ways than one, when he rejoices, people rejoice with him and when he cries, people cry even more.
And so it was as people of all ages across the country, tribes and political divides, mourned with him over the death of his 3-year-old son, Ifeanyi.
The little Adeleke reportedly drowned in a swimming pool in the Adeleke’s Banana Island, Lagos home in circumstances investigators are still trying to unravel.
When the news broke, a lot of netizens prayed and hoped it was fake news or that he’ll be resuscitated at the hospital but alas, it wasn’t. He had died and it was final. What a sad episode!
Following the death of the toddler, the internet is suddenly awash with parenting experts dishing out all manner of parenting and child protection tips.
Rather than show empathy for the grieving family, some have blamed the parents of the child for having a swimming pool at home, saying having too much money makes the rich acquire things that are needless.
But guess what? Children of the poor have drowned in uncovered basins of water. Children have fallen in and drowned in open wells.
Toddlers move very fast and as a caregiver for them, one must be extra vigilant because you cannot be too careful. They get up to the most crazy and dangerous things you can imagine, sometimes while playing.
I’ve scalded a child with hot water before while trying to make a hot chocolate drink for them. I turned to grab a bottle of water to mix to get the right temperature for what lasted maybe 15 seconds and was jolted with cries of the child who had grabbed the cup and drenched himself with the contents.
I read an account of a mother who came back home to meet her 3 children and 2 children of a neighbour in a near suffocating state in her freezer. The children had hidden there during a game of hide and seek, unknown to the other children.
A similar horrendous incident occured in Kakamas, a town in South Africa, when a grandmother found her five grandchildren, aged between three and seven-years-old, dead in a freezer where they were trapped and suffocated while playing.
Nearly a year ago, eight children between the ages of four and six were found dead in a parked car in Ajegunle area of Lagos State where they must have gotten trapped while playing.
Earlier this year, three children of the same parents between the age of three and eight were found dead inside a parked car they were playing in at Owode Elede area of Ikorodu, Lagos.
In 2021, a five year old boy got drowned in a well in Kano. A similar incident occured in Dawanau Ilesha Nawawu area of the state in January 2022 while yet another child suffered similar fate in Kofar Waika by Masallacin Karmawi, Kano.
It is unrealistic to expect parents (read mothers) to take their children everywhere they go or be with them all the time. It is simply impossible. And it is for this reason the parents hire nannies, minders, caregivers or whatever nomenclature they go by to look after their children when they are not there.
Nobody expects anyone to put their entire existence on hold because they have a child. I mean, you even need to go out, work and raise money to be able to care for that child.
Children also go to school. Would the parents still be blamed for not being present if this accident happened in school? Or are we saying parent’s should home school their children to avoid such mishaps?
Who says children have not slipped away from their parents and gotten themselves into trouble before?
It is obtuse and cruel to be apportioning blames when the body of the deceased is yet to get cold.
I’d say those who aren’t yet parents should save their hot takes and sit out certain discussions until they’ve had to mind a restless child for even hours.
As a popular saying goes, the smallest coffins are the heaviest to carry.
The death of a child is one of the most difficult to bear.
People shouldn’t make it any harder for the family with their takes on the matter. An accident is what it is and there no telling if it would have happened even if the parents of the child were at home with them.
May the soul of Ifeanyi Adeleke rest in peace and may God give his young parents the grace to bear the loss with equanimity.
