##LONG POST##
Back in South B, the couple who lived downstairs always intrigued me.
The wife had one of those wildly athletic bodies that nothing could ever tamper with, everything carved to perfection. Not a poor diet, childbirth, age, or any vagaries of being born a woman would alter that body. Sprightly, sexy, with a matching attitude, she made the ninth commandment problematic.
The man was handsome, in that rugged, Mount Kenya Way way, with sparse hair that he attempted to comb properly, probably because of his line of work. He had a permanently pissed-off face, a certain fiery rage, fueled all the more by the hard stuff he used to take or smoke. He had a wide physique that made him taller than he really was, giving him a menacing, beastly presence, but in that nerdy way. The kind of kids who never used to read in high school but miraculously topped the class and got their A- before studying B. Com or some Engineering course, ending up with a top auditing or engineering firm after college.
He drove an old Mitsubishi sedan of indeterminate brand, with a large exhaust and, invariably, a big knock somewhere on the body, or frequently without the front bumpers. He drove the car, not because he could not afford a better one, but because of the toxicity of driving a manual car to prove your balls, and the frequent visit to the garage to pad up your man card.
The wife drove a Mazda Axela, always kept super clean and neat; herself, ever so stylish, in her aspirational banker skirts, and the sunny optimism of everything turning out right; hard-working husband, a child, and a career in the bag.
Their firstborn was born in the apartment we lived in. And the second born.
They used to host these big house parties, which were a nuisance to all of us. But almost in that apartment, including them, were cool people, in the way middle-class Nairobians are. The parties used to attract their type: late 20s, early 30s, career types, spinning good cars, dressed cool, the type you are likely to find in Tunnel or any club that is better than Quiver. Their preferred social media, without a doubt, Instagram.
They were the model millennial couple. In another life, they are the type who lived in South B, Lang’ata, Imara Daima, before moving to their own house in Syokimau, Athi River, Kitengela, or Utawala. But they were too young to be lucky enough to make such a transition. Only older millennials sneaked out to the suburbs. Younger ones (born after 1988), not so much.
The cracks soon arrived.
The man drunk too much. From being busy on weekdays and only visible on Sunday mornings with his Red Bull, he became a regular fixture in the hood on weekdays. Playing pool in the local or at the car wash. COVID-19 had arrived, and nobody knew who had a job, who was working from home, or who had been rendered jobless.
The wife started arriving home late. There were drunken screams and drunken fights. A black eye here, a reddened forehead there, a bitter face, like this. Absences. One time, the man was out for a prolonged period. Next, it was the woman. A reconciliation. Word always got around. About the fights. The causes: Other men dropping her off at home. Messages in his phone. And then, she left. For good. And for a long time, it was just the man and the two kids. And a rotational band of house helps.
If house helps could talk, man! They sat in the front row of the millennial spiraling cinema.
The archetype of women leaving their children with their fathers to start new lives elsewhere was mainstreamed by millennial women.
In the past, it was rare. But presently, I can count the men I know who took custody of the children when things went south.
Millennials spiraling.
Many of you know many such couples. Young, aspirational, and seemingly built to last. Then out of nowhere, they are separated. Divorced. You learn about it, a year or two later. Word about divorce gets around slowly. And if you are not the gossipy type, you will never know. Many millennials have been very discreet about their divorces. Divorce still carries a certain stigma, nonchalant and uncaring as we may try to act.
Alcoholism/drugs. Infidelity. Finances.
The dude above used to smoke weed. Personally, I used to think that people stopped smoking weed in the second year, second semester. But I saw millennials, married and unmarried, male and female, smoke their way into dysfunction. It is not the weed that made them dysfunctional, but that continued arrested development that didn’t allow us to step into the responsibilities that adulthood demands. Weed smoking was a metaphor for the unserious decade the 2010s were. You can tell a lot about a country from its choice of president for a particular epoch.
In our parents’ time, it was mostly our fathers who were accused of infidelity or having separate families that surfaced when the old man died. In our time, cheating is a fairly balanced. Female infidelity accounts for nearly half of the divorces triggered by infidelity. It is something that has rattled and scandalized millennial men. I mean, DNA tests are now a part of our lives.
Regarding finances, we have addressed what has happened to most millennials since they lost their gig in 2015. I have written about financial abuse. Women have talked about being financially taken advantage of. I think a lot about those women who even paid their dowries and even helped the man build his ancestral home, only to be shown pepper.
Our parents got by with meagre resources, mostly dad working, and mom doing her best on that farm, in the family shop, or through her efforts with chama and merry-go-rounds. Millennials had the fortune of being the first two-income households, some with a combined income of over Sh 500,000, enough to propel a family out of poverty, but job losses, poor decisions, and changing sociological dynamics made educated millennials the most fractured generation in Kenya.
I have been studying this spiraling with a friend. It is unsparing. Men have tripped. Women have tripped. There are certain extremes that people never used to go to. You read about them, but never even contemplated them. But millennials wanted it all.
Domestic violence for educated millennials was supposed to be rare, but we have been surprised by how common it is. Ndume zinachapwa. Wasee wanachapa mabibi. There is alcoholism. The moment I saw some women drink Red Label in 2019, I knew we had crossed the Rubicon. Rehabs used to be almost exclusively for men, but women have joined the conversation.
Spiraling is both internal, where millennials suffer a terrible identity crisis, and external, where collectively as a cohort, they don’t know what is good for them.
Children are caught up in the mess. Most millennials can afford good schools for their kids, but it will be interesting to see how the kids turn out.
Having sunk into the spiral, many millennials can only emerge from it. Whether it was a divorce, alcohol/drugs, whoring, or stupid decisions, many millennials in the coming years will have to come to terms with their mortality, their final days on earth, and make peace with a lot of their choices. They are not getting younger. The youngest millennial is now 30.
Family. Children. How and where to die (the bits within our control). Work.
I know many will remarry. One way or another. Many may live a functional life of singlehood, but the older one gets, the lonelier it can be, as friends and family have commitments. I see most millennial men say they can live with that.
I see many returning to church, if not for God, then for the community.
Growth after spiraling is a beautiful thing if one embraces it, accepts their mistakes, forgives themselves, and defines the pathways.
A lot of the outcomes for millennials were beyond their control. Social media ruined marriages. Unequal incomes ruined marriages. Bad political choices ruined marriages. Changing sociological dynamics (absent parents/ uncles, and aunts) ruined marriages. The TV ruined marriages. Identity crises, etc.
Some of us men never truly grew up to be the men our fathers were (model, patriarchal fathers), nor did women turn out to be the women our mothers were (caring, nurturing, feminine). The world changed for good, and the old order couldn’t necessarily serve the new demands of modernity.
Millennial spiraling is real.
What is your story.