The innocent casualties of the rich man’s second life

You may be familiar with the second coming from the Biblicalera promising the return of Jesus, but for many black men in senior executive positions in corporate South Africa who started digging for their pot of gold with the advent of our new democracy, they are now living it up in their second life.

To start the second life, you promptly have to divorce the first wife you met in high school or university days because she is no longer compatible to your R3million annual package lifestyle.

She knows you too much and reminds you of the struggle and lack of sophistication that has brought you to this point that you are trying every day to forget, so you kind of hate her for being the witness of your poor self.

You have worked hard at reinventing a new you – one who plays golf, eats at five-star restaurants, lives in a golf estate and knows the difference between kale and spinach.

What irritates you about your wife and many of the people in your first life is how they always want to remind you that you are just an ordinary boy from ekasie.

Really! Fifteen years after you have moved to the suburbs is that all they can label you as?

Why do they keep on harping about your love for tinned fish, curry and tripe?

And since you do not want the constant reminder and the fact that your first wife was the only one in your circle who could remind you about the time when she had to lend you her brother’s pyjamas when you went to Wits University, and stole her mother’s duvet cover to ensure that you fitted in with the crowd 20 years ago, your differences eventually became irreconcilable and you had to let her go.

In the second life, one of more privilege, it is one where you are going to put yourself first and grab your joy with open arms.

It is one with a more sophisticated wife who you are not going to school how to use Snapchat and Instagram. In fact, she will post family pictures on your behalf.

She knows all the trendy international destinations to travel to for your holidays this year. She knows the list of all your favourite organic food and how you prefer your salmon to be prepared.

She is a literal fountain of youth that you drink from and you are wiping off decades from your own 50s and 60s by just being seen with her on your arm.

A second wife’s fertile status soon sees you decorating the nursery and getting excited about becoming a good father.

You were too busy during your first life attending meetings and workshops all your time to be a present father.

You have not been such a bad parent to your three boys as you did provide for them, but a second wife will give you that girl that you yearn to dote.

You will now be able to drop her at school and are even planning her matric dance already and how you are going to make sure that she reads all your favourite classics.

In a second life, you are a better father, husband and lover (often helped along by blue pills but who cares) and, most importantly, you are a better provider. You are practically Superman for your family.

My problem with the second life is when these executive types reduce their children from the first wife to second-class citizens only suitable to get second-class benefits.

Suddenly, there is a pyramid of benefits, including being present in their children’s lives, only reserved for children from the second life.

And here I was thinking the true measure of a man – as actor Sydney Poitier’s biography teaches us – is in how well he provides for his children, all his children, at all the stages of his life.