 where have the children gone? Three boys aged between seven to 10 years kidnapped a two-year-old boy, tied his hands behind his back and took him to a location not too far from the primary places of residence. A vigilant member of the community found something amiss as he made his way back home and decided to interrogate the boys further when he discovered the two-year-old victim. A father got a call while he was at work from the school where his two daughters go through. His attention was wanted immediately. He was met by the teacher of his oldest daughter that is 10 years old. The teacher, while flipping through the journal, each child was asked to keep as part of their creative writing exercise, read the following sentence. I can't wait till a percentage will enter my planet. The distressed father investigated the trajectory of this sad event and discovered that during the Christmas of 2021, when his 12-year-old niece and 10-year-old nephew came on holiday, they had an internet-enabled device and gathered the children, which included children of his other siblings, numbering four, to watch pornography. This they did consistently for the duration of the break. The investigation continued down the line where it was discovered that the housemaid of the visiting relatives had introduced the children to porn. A 14-year-old was employed in Eugen State as a housemaid in November 2021, by December. She had abducted one of the two children of her madam that had been left in her care during Sunday service as the businesswoman left church to attend to a customer. Fast forward a few weeks later, somewhere on the streets of Eugen, a good Samaritan noticed a young girl begging with her sickly brother and decided to take them in and nursing back to health. Once he got better, the young girl insisted on taking the boy to Emo State single-handedly. This raised the suspicion of the good Samaritan who immediately reported it to the police. It was discovered that she was begging to raise money so she could transport her and her victim to Emo State. In a viral video, a little girl presumed to be a three-year-old could be seen drinking a bottle of Star Radler beer beside a woman believed to be his mother who was visibly seen dancing to music playing in the background. Rocking a 30-BG gang necklace, the little boy drunk with reckless abandon was also dancing to the music playing in the background. So I ask again, where have the children gone? Over to Ruth. Ruth, let's take your comments first. It's so disheartening as you listen to all this that you read because it's just so funny how society is the way it is today. It just shows that there's something missing. And it just ties back to what Kairi mentioned. There's something missing. We are not getting a right in our homes. Parenting has gone wrong. I think if we're going to question the children, we need to question parents. Every of these child you've mentioned come from a home. So is either the parents have been more lenient than they should or they've probably been too busy to take notes of their children. I really don't want to place blames because in today's world, everybody's trying to at least... Place blames. Place blames. Everybody's trying to... Everybody's trying to at least make ends meet. And so there's always that excuse of, oh, I need to at least feed and so who's going to... I don't really need to take care of my children. But I feel like taking care of children is beyond providing for them financially. You need to take care of them emotionally, mentally, spiritually. You're responsible for another adult. So if you were never going to take that full responsibility, then you shouldn't even have even started in the first place. Having been known as my mother of this or my father of this, it shouldn't be the driving... That's not the priority. Yeah, that shouldn't be the priority. You should or I'm a grandmother because sometimes it's usually grandparents that forces people to go and have kids. But it shouldn't be the priority. The question is, if I'm bringing a child to this world, can I really take care of this child aside from meeting their financial needs? So do I have the mental capacity to handle the child? Can I properly discipline them? I mean, I had an experience one day in a store. This was like years ago. So I was in a bookstore somewhere in VI and a little girl walked in with her mother. So we're all buying books and all. The little girl, first of all, I already knew that this little girl was badly behaved. So she, first of all, wanted to get a marker, colored marker. And the mother was like, why do you need this colored marker? So she chewed transoms, she was crying. Because the mother was like, she's barely two years old. You don't need this colored marker. She cried, cried, cried. The mother went ahead and bought it. And then the mother was paying for it. She went again and picked something else. Something that she didn't even have. She didn't even be using it in the first place. I can't remember exactly what it is. And the mother was then shouting at the attendants that you should answer me very fast. Answer me in a country where she's speaking other things. Then he dawned on me that this woman has lost it. Like, you should be questioning your daughter. I'm not the attendant. So it just goes a long way to tell us how bad parenting has gone these days. For me, right, when it comes to parenting, I remember when we were young. I was telling someone recently, I said, unfortunately for me, I've never grown up. I've been that child my mother raised. There are limits I was given when I was young. They're up to now. It's like a goat that was tied down. You remove the violation. The goat is just there looking. I'm just there. I just maintain that same structure. You see, when it comes to parenting, the parent has the first priority of being a parent. I always tell people, just like doctors, you don't become a parent, a husband or a wife because you have a child or because you are married. You must become that parent before you get married. Now, it doesn't happen to everybody, but I remember when we were younger, once you give birth, the family that knows you need help will rally around you to support you and give that child the kind of training that they need. Unfortunately, our society now, I don't know if it's because of witchcraft or modernization. Oh yes, because we blame everybody. If it's witchcraft or modernization, we don't allow parents to get close to the family anymore. We don't allow relatives come close. So we're in this contraption where they're just looking for a way to take care of that child while looking for a way to make money and survive. Then again, I also believe that while it is important to have a career path, have a dream. As parents, you must understand that, okay, in life, life is a process. You want to give your child the best. You have to decide that, okay, one of you, if you know, for example, two bankers, one of you might decide to step down for the next five or six years. Yes. Get busy doing some other things. You may not have the billions that you want. Save that amount. Don't look at me like that. That's not always an option. I didn't say the wife. I know, but I'm saying that it's not always an option that one actually gets to take the back seat. It's actually when you think of, if you're living in a place like Lagos where there's so many bills, it may not be an option. It might not be the most, the first option, but it is an option. You know why? Because when one person is working, what that would do to you is that it cuts down probably your class. Probably you can't have all the logs you really want to have because you need to manage. But you know, that's part of parenting. You need to sacrifice that. Okay. I'm dedicating five years or six years to train maybe the two kids I want to have. And after that training, I'll go back to work. Then we can have the kind of life that we want. You are in your 30s or 20s or 40s. God willing, you live till 70 or 80. You have 30 years ahead. Just sacrifice that. I should jump in, right? Okay. So I think that for me, I think the point is we are basing all these premises on the fact that oh, maybe the parents are not available or they're not on ground. Look at that child. The mom was there. Do you understand? So that has nothing to do with the parent not being there. I think Nigeria, Nigerians, we've just lost our moral compass. We don't seem to know the difference between right and wrong. So I'm telling you this parent, because I think I saw that video. The mom was there dancing. I think I saw people spraying. I'm thinking this will must be crazy. What's happening here? The child has no sense. This child has learned these things. This child, this is a learned behavior. And the child learned it from the parents. So I think that's it. The same thing that spilled into the entire society. And we all know this starts from home. Can you imagine the kind of adult that child is going to be? Not because he couldn't be better, but because he doesn't know better. This is all he knows. He's like a child's soldier. This is what the parents thought. It just breaks my heart. So when I was saying to you, oh, it may not be an option. I was a stay-at-home mom. I have four kids. And my older ones are much older than my younger ones. There's like a 12-year gap between the first three and the last one. So I know what it is to be a stay-at-home mom. And make all the sacrifices. And my heart just breaks when I look at this parent. I don't think anyone wants to be a parent. I don't think any Nigerian wants to be responsible for another person, not to talk of a child. Nobody wants to be responsible. Everybody just wants to. It's just a me mentality. Everybody is interested in themselves. And the children have just become appendages. So we marry so that we can say, oh, I'm a missus something. And you have a child so that you can say, I'm a mommy something. But nobody really cares. And that's what I really see. We don't care anymore. And I really well said you ended it very well. And I wanted to say that that's the next topic we should be discussing. How society insists that everyone, as long as you get married, must have kids. We need to come. People need to be allowed to take those decisions based on their reality and who they are. I can only have the mental space for one child. And I have stopped to one child. I don't care what my mother says. The grandparents say. I don't care what he says. He's one child. Because I know my... Some people are probably praying for you. You know that, right? Some people are probably claiming that you will have more. And that you don't have more because you're unable to. And so we need to honestly take these decisions where have the children gone? Our daily life is next after the break. Stay with us.