HOW I BECAME MY MOTHER

Ndumiso Ngcobo on the strange symptoms of a stay-at-home dad

THERE’S a very fine line between being a workfrom-home dad and being a housewife. I opted out of the whole employment scene about eight years ago and the fact that it has taken me this long to figure out that I’m Daddy Housewife is further proof of my slow-learner tendencies.

When I was a lightie, I used to fantasise about being the coolest dad in the world. I was going to be one of those strong, silent dads who wear Stetsons, drive two-door Beemers, drink Castle Milk Stout and smoke Camels. My kids were going to harbour just the right mix of respect, love, fear and general awe for me. Never, in my worst nightmares, did I imagine that I would turn into a bearded version of my mother.

This epiphany hit me at 05h48 on a random Wednesday as I stood over the midgets’ lunchboxes, trying to decide whether to pack hot dogs for their regular lunch and croissants filled with smoked ham and cream cheese for their aftercare lunchboxes or the other way around. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the oven door and muttered to myself, “Just get yourself a satin nightgown with rose print and hair rollers to complete the metamorphosis while you’re at it, son.”

Oh, how this fatherhood role has metamorphosed. If you’d asked my dad to pack my lunchbox when I was seven, no one would have been surprised if I rocked up at school with a scuff-tin full of pig trotters and ox tripe. Chances are, he would have tossed a R1 coin in my direction and mumbled, “Buy yourself igwinya [vetkoek] stuffed with cheese wafers.”

These days I’m catching myself exhibiting all the idiosyncrasies I used to observe in my mother. After everyone leaves the house in the morning, I’m that guy walking around the house switching off lights while murmuring under my breath, “No one ever switches off the lights in this house. You’d swear that Eskom is our uncle.”

My memory bank has a video clip of my mother in a powder-blue flannel nightgown and a doek on her head moving from room to room yelling, “We zingane zalayikhaya [Children of this house]! Is this a competition against the blazing sun outside? What do you have against opening the curtains?”

Speaking of the phrase “zingane zalayikhaya”, it used to drive me nuts when my mom lumped us all together. As far as I knew, she could not tell us apart. So often I wanted to grab her by her collar, shake some sense into her, “Look at me! I am your second born, Ndumiso! I am not Mazwi, Mxolisi or Nkalipho! I am an individual and I did not leave my bed unmade! Don’t ngane zalayikhaya me!” Fast-forward 30 years and this is the conversation I had with my 11-year-old last week:

Me: “Are these schoolbags going to fly from the car boot to your bedroom on their own?”

11-year-old: “They’re not mine. I put mine away!”

Me: “I don’t care whose bags they are, I want them out of this boot!”

He gave me a look that made me glad that I was wearing a T-shirt without a collar because I believe there might have been some mighty daddy-shaking going on.

And then there are days when the kid’s name disappears with his individuality. This is when you’ll be lazing in the lounge and decide you want to snack on some olives without having to leave the couch. You see the eight-year-old walking towards the kitchen. You go, “Er . . . Ntobeko . . . no Vume . . . you, Maxoli whatchimacall . . . I mean you, child! You know who you are!” while the poor kid stands there in growing alarm that his own dad does not know his name.

It was so bad with my mom that she would call out every single one of my three siblings’ names then skip to her own four siblings — before yelling at you for not responding. By the time she hit 50 she didn’t even bother with names anymore and would just look at you and go, “Wena ngane!” (You, child). And now I’m that guy leaving the same emotional scars on my own kids.

My metamorphosis into my mother doesn’t end there. When I have cooked a meal (which is about four times a week these days — thanks for nothing, Mrs N!) I sit there and insist on every morsel, every grain of rice and every single pea being consumed. I also walk through the house tightening dripping taps while having heated conversations with myself: “This house has more water flowing through it than the biblical rivers of Babylon, I swear!”

And don’t get me started on one of the more irritating habits of my mother that I have adopted: waking up three times during the night to make sure every window is closed and every door locked. Or going into every room, closing open cupboard doors, drawers, kitchen cabinets, intermittently stopping to yell, “Who boiled a full kettle of water? If you’re making noodles, boil just the one cup you need!”

When we go out and I’m feeling a bit cold, I’m now that guy who insists that everybody puts on jackets. When we get to school I’m that guy who licks his thumb and removes crusted toothpaste from the corner of their mouths, berating them for only moisturising the front of their face and ignoring the sides.

I used to imagine that when I grew up I’d be some kind of Redd Foxx character; a cynical old geezer with a snarky commentary on life. But if things continue along this trajectory, I’m headed down Tyler Perry’s Madea route. LS E-mail lifestyle@sundaytimes.co.za On Twitter @NdumisoNgcobo

‘Just get yourself a satin nightgown to complete

the metamorphosis while you’re at it, son’ I’m that guy who licks his thumb and removes crusted toothpaste from

their mouths