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#Letr2Jil – LESSONS FROM PIGEONS starts now.
1. My dear Jil, there’s that sense of responsibility a young man ought to have. You’ll be hugely frustrated if your husband has no sense of responsibility. There’ll be constant disappointment. #Letr2Jil
2. You will have to resort to self-help to cover the gaps and shortfalls if your husband has no sense of responsibility. There WILL BE gaps and shortfalls. #Letr2Jil
3. A lack of sense of responsibility is why a man won’t prioritise rent over purchase of a vanity item. He’ll be unconcerned as the rent becomes due. He believes it will somehow sort itself out, meaning you will rise to the occasion and go and look for the money. #Letr2Jil
4. He will expect you to approach your parents or relatives to look for the money. After all, your family won’t want you thrown out on the side walk. #Letr2Jil
5. But if you’re thrown out you can always squat with a friend. In which case he’s absolved of feeding responsibility for the family. #Letr2Jil
6. A lack of sense of responsibility is why the children’s school fees will not be prioritised. The fees will sort themselves out he believes. They’re supposed to sort themselves out, somehow. #Letr2Jil
7. Which of course means you’ll scramble all over the place to raise the money while working out an arrangement with the school. #Letr2Jil
8. Even utility bills will not be paid when there’s no sense of responsibility. It will not be uncommon for electricity supply to be cut off from your home. Criminal reconnection to the mains will not be off the table. #Letr2Jil
9. God help you if either you or the children fall ill and there’s no health insurance. There’ll be no you to run around. Your family and friends will have to step in. #Letr2Jil
10. There’s a reason he chose to marry you in the first place. He knows he can coast along. You’re resourceful and driven. #Letr2Jil
11. You can’t know the sadness of a woman who marries an irresponsible man. Until you experience it. #Letr2Jil
12. Reminds one of one of those irresponsible young men who barely provide for the home yet elects to host the secondary school set meeting. #Letr2Jil
13. The wife will have to scramble. The family must not be put to shame. At the meeting the man will lament and boast to his mates about the challenges of manhood! #Letr2Jil
14. Even nature allocates specific responsibilities to the male species. Haven’t you studied pigeons? #Letr2Jil
15. I got to study pigeons when two pigeons built a nest on my window sill at work. It was cleared away but by the next day the nest had been rebuilt! It was a shallow nest, more like a bedding. #Letr2Jil
16. I soon understood why. Turned out the female pigeon (or hen) desperately needed a spot to lay an egg. #Letr2Jil
17. I did some research and learnt a lot about pigeons. Turned out pigeons are monogamous. They mate for life. #Letr2Jil
18. If a mating pair is separated by death the other bird is free to remarry in a manner of speaking, but to a single guy. Long distances don’t break the mating bond of pigeons. Seems we humans are full of excuses. #Letr2Jil
19. Both male and female build their nesting place together. This after scouting for best location. That’s how my window sill got chosen. The nest was protected from rain, and the glass had a tint. Won’t easily be located by predators. #Letr2Jil
20. An egg was soon laid. It did look like a white ping pong ball, though smaller. Two days after another egg was laid. Which got me curious: are they officially twins? #Letr2Jil
21. Now here’s where it gets interesting. Both male and female take turns incubating the eggs. I had to read that up because it seemed like the mother kept changing her look. #Letr2Jil
22. Both pigeons had big a red patch on their face, like they were attending a masquerade ball. But I knew something was different. #Letr2Jil
23. Both male and female had responsibility towards the eggs. And they have a time table. The female sits on the eggs from 4pm till 10am the next day. The male takes over from her, allowing her to rest. They’ll do this for an average of 18 days. #Letr2Jil
24. At the end of 18 days the first egg will hatch. 24 hours later the second will hatch. Then the parents begin to feed the young. You need to read up on pigeons. Quite fascinating stuff. #Letr2Jil
25. The point I’m trying to make is that if ordinary pigeons have a sense of responsibility in marriage how much more a human! #Letr2Jil
26. When we’re dating all that’s on our mind is the romance and the outings and the gifts and the texts and the letters... And that’s all well and good. But it’s not the totality of what should be on our mind. #Letr2Jil
27. For the young man sex is high up there on the list of desires. There’s a fixation on anatomical features. He begins to daydream. #Letr2Jil
28. Again that is all well and good, but marriage is not just about romance, sensuality and sexuality. A large chunk of marriage is consumed by responsibility. #Letr2Jil
29. When there’s no sense of responsibility in marriage romance suffers. You don’t think of valentine when your landlord is knocking on your front door. Irresponsibility is anti-romance. #Letr2Jil
30. Unless you want frustration therefore don’t marry an irresponsible young man. You’ll be sad and severally disappointed. #Letr2Jil
31. No matter how smooth talking he is if he does not demonstrate a sense of responsibility don’t go into the union. There’ll be pain and disappointment. #Letr2Jil
32. And you can tell if he has a sense of responsibility at courtship stage. Is he constantly spending money on non directional stuff – tangential stuff that are of no strategic value to starting a life together? #Letr2Jil
33. Does he have an apartment or planning to get one? Is he saving towards the wedding or just blowing money on nonsensical stuff? #Letr2Jil
34. I’ll advice you don’t stay with your in-laws after the wedding. You won’t have unfettered freedom. It’ll feel like living under a watch. You won’t have command of your space as a woman should. You have no proprietary space. #Letr2Jil
35. Is he expansively talking about kids without a thought on how to take care of them? Does his family planning incorporate school fees for example? #Letr2Jil
36. A responsible young man approaches such topics with trepidation. He knows baby formula costs money, that quality education doesn’t come cheap. #Letr2Jil
37. You should be wary about a poor young man who talks about having six kids but is unconcerned about how to take care of them. #Letr2Jil
38. There are those who believe the raising of their kids is the responsibility of others; their responsibility is to bring the kids into the world. They just pass on their responsibility. #Letr2Jil
39. They’re the type who’ll send texts to others about their children’s school fees, along with their account detail. It’s a strange kind of confidence that suggests faith in juju. #Letr2Jil
40. They don’t even bother to call or go over the details. They just send the invoice by text with their account detail. They expect the money to be wired. #Letr2Jil
41. As a matter of principle such texts should be roundly ignored. They shouldn’t even be dignified with response. Some people are just irresponsible. #Letr2Jil
42. And they take advantage of bereavement. The father-in-law passes on and they turn bereavement into a fund raising program. The monies raised will of course be dissipated on conspicuous consumption. It’s all a racket. #Letr2Jil
43. It’s why I say think twice about dating an irresponsible young man. Your invoicing starts during courtship. He’ll be full of promisory notes and excuses. #Letr2Jil
44. And such young men can be so convincing. Once he starts borrowing money from you the program has begun. He’ll start small and while the loan is still outstanding he’ll ask for a bigger sum to complete what he borrowed the first sum for. #Letr2Jil
45. What that does is it ties you down. You’ll remain in the relationship in order to recover your sunk investment. You’re never going to get that money back. Oh, he’ll tell you it’s for “our future.” #Letr2Jil
46. That’s not saying a girlfriend can’t loan her boyfriend money and vice versa. But be sure your obligor is responsible and has shame. #Letr2Jil
47. Or he’ll waste the money on hare-brained schemes. And that’s easy. His money is not at stake. Easy to blow other people’s money. Such a boyfriend must not be privy to your bank balance. #Letr2Jil
48. While you’re still trying to recover the unpaid loan he’ll come up with an emigration scheme, possibly to Canada. Everyone is heading for Canada these days. He can’t be an exception. #Letr2Jil
49. But you’ll be the emigration financier even though you’re not the originator of the scheme. He’ll tell you it’s about your future together, but that future is always lacking in detail. #Letr2Jil
50. If you’re smart you’ll realise there’s really no future. He’s going to dump you once he settles in Canada. He’ll develop exotic racial taste in Canada. #Letr2Jil
51. But while you’re still talking Canada he’ll come up with an American scheme. There’s always something cooking. #Letr2Jil
52. Such guys tend to borrow to the hilt. They’re always over-leveraged. He’s possibly collected so much salary advance he can’t survive till next month without another salary advance. #Letr2Jil
53. Means you have to sustain him while financing his schemes. It will continue into marriage. You don’t need a diviner to tell you that. Those who came up with that saying, morning shows the day sure know what they’re talking about. #Letr2Jil
54. If he’s irresponsible in courtship chances are he’ll be an irresponsible husband. Any wish to the contrary is just wishful thinking. #Letr2Jil
55. All that baby, baby crooning will not put food on the table. It’s hard work that does. Is he hardworking? Is he going somewhere? You can tell. #Letr2Jil
56. The worst form of foolery is fooling oneself. We fool ourselves when we won’t believe the facts before our eyes. #Letr2Jil
57. The man who has a hundred groundnuts yet declares two hundred will eat a hundred lies. #Letr2Jil
58. At the end of the day it’s your life. #Letr2Jil
59. Your mentor, LA #Letr2Jil
61. For related letters, search for BE A MAN, I MARRIED AN IRRESPONSIBLE MAN, GREAT EXPECTATIONS and WHAT ARE YOU DOING at jacknjillive.com.
62. #Illuminare – THE CHURCH AND STATE is tomorrow Sunday at 9.00am WAT.
63. © Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com.
