Family means more than funerals and wedding meetings

I guess you will agree with me that most people lately, meet up with their relatives mostly or even only at funerals and wedding meetings. Likewise,relatives only remember their own blood when inviting them for the above two events.People no longer have time for their families as most think they have too much work and responsibilities to begin looking out for relatives.Years ago when we were still toddlers, one of the things I vividly remember and enjoyed so much was family gatherings, where many of our relatives would come over for as night or two.It felt so good having cousins, uncles, aunties and grannies around, sharing a meal and just spending time together. It created a special, strong and beautiful bond. Children would have holidays at a relative’s and get to bond with them.There’s been a terrible shift in trends, of late, that has torn apart the family bond. Relatives don’t have time for each other. No more slaughtering a whole goat or turkey for Christmas since there luncheons with relatives have become a thing of the past.Grace Umutoniwase, 37 a mother of two says that a lot has changed and people only care about the children from their womb. She admits to having fallen culprit before.As Umutoniwase narrates, while at a famous shopping mall with her 5-year old daughter sometime back, she met with her sister who was also at the same mall.The sister had also come in to do some shopping with her son as well. They talked a little bit and then went separate ways.After they had walked away, Samantha, Grace’s daughter asked,”mummy, who are those people?”Grace felt so guilty that she has never taken time to introduce her daughter or take her over to meet her aunt and cousins.This was a wakeup call for me, Grace says. While we were children, our parents used to take us to the village to meet up with other relatives while they held clan meetings.We would get to know all our relatives, bond with them and spend time together. Our parents would discuss issues affecting every family and if they were problems, they would all put the brains to work and finances; if need arose ad helped out any relative that was going through any difficulty.Every special event would be celebrated with fellow relatives and just the big numbers alone, would create a lot of fun.Lately, everybody seems so engrossed in their lives and that of only their children and spouse.The dot com generation has a hand in thisWhereas the new technology has eased life to a very large extent, it has also had a few adverse effects like weakening family bonds.Damascene Gatsinzi, 66, a shop owner in Remera says that the dot com generation is the cause of all these problems.“Ever since people got phones, they think it’s enough to talk over the phone or send a text. Sometimes I have to tell my children am sick in order for them to come over and see me.Otherwise, they prefer to call, text and send me mobile money,” he said.He says that this shouldn’t be an excuse for relatives not to meet up simply because they think they talk over any issue on the phone.Gatsinzi says that internet and phones have taken away face to face interaction with relatives. He advises that people should take time off to visit relatives and spend time together; otherwise this will bring about cases of incest.“Relatives will end up marrying each other simply because they didn’t get a chance to get to know each other that they were children. The parents are the ones to blame since they have abandoned their responsibility of strengthening family bonds,” he added.Leticia Isimbi, a 22 year old student at the Adventist University, Mudende admits that she hardly ever visits her relatives or having them visit her home.She narrates of how she used to work with a colleague for over three years only to discover that they were actually cousins whose fathers are real blood brothers.“We were one time talking about another cousin of mine who this the colleague claimed that they were relatives. So I also told her that I was her relative as well, when we talked deeper we realized we shared grandparents and our fathers were actually blood brothers,” she narrated.Isimbi blames parents who she says have the upper hand in this whole thing. Stop linking up with relatives only at funerals and weedings.Relatives are more like real family and they do need each other.Parents should pick a leaf from our fore fathers who kept the family bundle intact with the whole clan looking like one whole big family.