I Was Angry at Myself for Being Annoyed by My Son — Then I Found Out What Was Happening at School

The morning I finally heard the truth, my son stood in our narrow hallway in Soweto, one shoe on, one sock twisted, his backpack hanging open like a mouth that had given up. He looked at me with wet, frightened eyes and asked, for what felt like the hundredth time, "Kungani kumele ngiye esikoleni?" Why should I go to school?

I nearly snapped.

Not because I hated him. Not because I was cruel. I was exhausted, late for work, and already angry at myself for how often his questions scraped against my nerves. The kettle had boiled dry. My phone kept buzzing with missed calls from a client in town.

A potjie of pap sat cooling on the cooker while the morning traffic outside our flat thickened into the usual Johannesburg chorus of hooting taxis and impatient engines.

"Lutho, we are leaving now," I said.

"Kumele ngempela?" Is it a must? He asked, his voice small but stubborn.

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My chest tightened. For weeks, every simple instruction had turned into another chain of questions. Wear your jumper. Why? Eat your breakfast. Why? Hold my hand on the road. Why? Some mornings, I answered calmly. On other mornings, I felt irritation rise so fast it scared me.

That day, what scared me more was his face.

He was not playful. He was not trying to win. He looked desperate, as if the answer mattered more than the clock, more than school, more than my patience.

Then he whispered something I almost missed.

"Uthisha uthi ngingabuzi imibuzo eminingi." The teacher says I should not ask too many questions.

Everything inside me stopped.

My name is Ayanda, and until that morning, I thought my problem was simple. I thought I had a child who asked too many questions and a mother who was failing to handle it well.

Lutho had just turned five. He was bright, warm, affectionate, and endlessly curious. He wanted reasons for everything. Why did onions make people cry? Why did the moon follow our car? Why did socks have pairs? Why did grown-ups say "later" when they meant "no"? Some questions made me laugh. Others arrived when I had no energy left to think.

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Most days felt like a race I was already losing.

I lived with Lutho in a modest flat in Soweto. I worked long hours managing stock records for a small household supplies business in Wadeville. My mornings began before sunrise. I packed his snack, pressed his uniform, braided my hair, checked my phone for work messages, and prayed the water would not disappear before I finished cleaning up.

By seven, I was pushing us both out of the door.

At family gatherings, Lutho stood out. While other children sat quietly with juice and biscuits, he moved from lap to lap, asking questions that never seemed to end. My aunties would laugh at first, then sigh. A neighbour once clicked her tongue and said, "Lo mntwana ubuza imibuzo eminingi kakhulu." That child asks far too many questions.

Another told me, "Kumele uqine kancane." You need to be a bit firmer. Someone else added, "Izingane kumele zilalele nje."

Children should merely listen.

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I heard those comments more than I admitted.

Slowly, they settled into me. They mixed with my fatigue and guilt. I began watching other mothers closely. Their children seemed to move when told. Sit. Eat. Come here. Stop that. Mine always needed a reason, a discussion, a map through every instruction.

I loved that he was thoughtful.

I also dreaded it.

That truth made me feel ashamed.

At first, I tried being firmer because everyone said that was the answer.

I shortened my sentences. I cut off the back-and-forth. "No questions, Lutho." "Do as I say." "We are not discussing this," I told myself. He needed boundaries. I told myself I was helping him become disciplined.

For a day or two, it appeared to have worked.

Then it got worse.

When I ordered him to hurry, he asked even more questions, faster this time, as if he were fighting to keep a door from closing.

"Why hurry?" "Why this road?" "Why can't I wear the red jumper?" "Why do I have to greet Aunty Thandi if she never smiles?" By the fifth question, I would feel my skin grow hot. By the seventh, I would hear my own voice harden.

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One evening, I told him, "Because I said so."

He stared at me and asked, "Kodwa lokho akuyona impendulo." But that is not an answer.

I should not admit this, but I walked into the bathroom and cried out loud.

After that, I swung the other way. Friends told me to stay soft, to crouch to his level, to offer choices, to name feelings. So I tried. "Would you like the blue cup or the yellow one?" "You seem upset." "Let us talk about it." When I had time, those methods helped. When I was tired, hungry, and trying to get supper on the table, they felt painfully slow.

Real life does not pause for perfect parenting.

The worst moments happened in public.

At the Jabulani market, he asked why tomatoes from one stall were cheaper than those from the next. In a queue at the pharmacy, he asked why we let elderly people go ahead of us. During a church visit in Alexandra, he asked, loudly, why the pastor needed such a big microphone if God could already hear him. Heads turned.

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People laughed. Some looked annoyed. My stomach would knot as if his curiosity were a stain everyone could see on my clothes.

"Please, Lutho," I would whisper.

"Ngenzeni?" What have I done? he would ask.

That question pierced me every time.

At home, the change came slowly enough that I almost missed it.

He started stopping himself mid-sentence. "Kungani..." he would begin, then press his lips together. He started watching my face before he spoke, as if checking the weather.

If my voice sounded tense, he would go quiet and do things badly on purpose, not out of rebellion, but like a child moving through fog.

Once I found him standing beside his shoes for almost five minutes, too afraid to ask which pair I meant.

That frightened me more than the questions.

Then the nursery school began sending brief remarks through the homework book. Lutho distracted others. Lutho delayed transitions. Lutho struggled to follow instructions quickly. Nothing severe. Nothing dramatic. Still, each note landed on my chest like proof that everyone else had been right.

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One Saturday at my mother's house in Tembisa, Lutho asked why tea tasted different there than at home. My brother laughed. My mother did not. She looked at me and said, "Uyamosha ngezincazelo eziningi." You are spoiling him with too many explanations.

I nodded as if I agreed.

Inside, I felt split in two.

One side wanted peace, obedience, and a child who would just put on his shoes when asked.

The other side looked at his careful little face and wondered why I felt so irritated by the very thing that made him who he was.

The breaking point came on a Wednesday morning after a terrible night.

I had slept horribly due to a power outage and a work report due by nine. Rain had fallen all night, and the compound outside was muddy. Lutho woke late and immediately began again.

"Why is it cold?"

"Why must I wear the sweater?"

"Why can't I stay home with you?"

By the time he asked, "Why school?" for the third time, I felt something in me give way.

Not anger this time. Surrender.

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him properly. His small fingers twisted the hem of his uniform shirt.

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He was not challenging me. He was bracing himself.

So I answered.

"You need to go because learning matters," I said quietly. "We have to leave now because I must get to work on time. Being late affects other people. When you get ready quickly, the whole morning becomes easier. And I need your help today, Lutho. I am very tired."

He blinked.

Then he asked, "Uma ungichazela, ngingakwenza?" If you tell me, can I do it?

"Yes," I said.

To my surprise, he nodded, pulled on his second shoe, zipped his bag, and even carried his cup to the sink without another prompt. The air in the room changed. There was still pressure, still rain, still work waiting. But there was no battle.

Later that week, as I helped him colour a picture of animals, he spoke in the casual way children do when they are touching something sore without knowing it.

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"Teacher Ndlovu says, 'Yeka ukubuza imibuzo eminingi, ubambezela abanye.'" Teacher Ndlovu says, 'Stop asking so many questions, you're delaying others.'

I froze.

He kept colouring.

Then he added, "Uma ngibuza, ezinye izingane ziyangibuka." When I ask, the other children look at me.

Everything clicked into place so sharply that it made me feel sick.

At home, I had been rushing him, silencing him, and feeling annoyed by the very questions he used to make sense of things. At school, he was hearing that same message from someone he trusted. No wonder he hesitated before speaking. No wonder he kept pushing at home. He was trying to understand a world that kept telling him his way of understanding was inconvenient.

He was not being difficult.

He was trying not to disappear.

The next Monday, I asked to speak to Teacher Ndlovu after class.

I went in ready for a fight, but I forced myself to stay calm.

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Teacher Ndlovu was a tired woman with kind eyes and too many children to manage in one room. I could see that before she even sat down. So I did not accuse her. I told her what I had noticed at home.

I explained that Lutho paused before asking questions, seemed anxious about getting things wrong, and responded more when given reasons.

At first, she looked defensive.

Then she sighed.

"He is bright," she said. "Very bright. But the class is large, Ayanda. When he starts asking, three others join him. We lose time."

"I understand," I said. "But when he hears that his questions are a problem, he carries that home."

She was quiet for a moment.

Then she nodded.

That conversation changed more than I expected.

We agreed on small adjustments. If Lutho had several questions during a lesson, he could keep one for circle time. If he felt confused during transitions, he could raise his hand instead of blurting things out.

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She would try not to shut him down in front of the other children. I promised to keep helping him practise listening first, then asking at the right moment.

It was not magic. He did not become silent or suddenly effortless.

But the change was real.

When I answered more intentionally, even briefly, he resisted less. When I told him why we needed to leave, why the tap couldn't stay on, why the medicine mattered, he settled faster. Not always. He was still five. Still Lutho. Still full of "kungani?" from morning to bedtime. But the questions no longer felt like attacks.

They felt like invitations.

At school, Teacher Ndlovu began giving him small responsibilities. He helped hand out books. He got to ask one "thinking question" during story time. She later told me that when he felt heard, he interrupted less.

That sentence stayed with me.

When he felt heard.

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The comments from relatives and neighbours did not stop.

Aunties still suggested harsher discipline. Strangers still raised eyebrows when he spoke too much in queues. Once, at the market, an older woman told me, "That boy will tire you." I smiled and said, "Maybe. But I would rather guide his questions than teach him to fear them."

For the first time, I believed what I was saying.

The real consequence did not fall on the teacher or the people who judged us; it fell on my old idea of obedience.

I had confused quick compliance with understanding. I had treated silence as peace. I had almost helped the world press my son into a shape that looked easier for everyone else and smaller for him.

I still lose patience sometimes. I still get tired. But now, when he asks why the sky changes colour in the evening or why adults say one thing and mean another, I try to hear the child beneath the question, not just the inconvenience inside it.

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I used to think good parenting meant getting through the day with as little friction as possible.

I now think it means noticing what the friction is trying to tell you.

My anger at Lutho was never the whole story. Underneath it sat fear, exhaustion, embarrassment, and the quiet pressure mothers carry to make our children appear manageable in public. I was not angry because he was bad. I was angry because I felt judged, stretched thin, and afraid that his difference meant I was failing.

Once I understood that, I could stop making him carry the weight of my shame.

Children do not always express distress in obvious ways. Some cry. Some act out. Some grow silent. Mine asked questions until the world taught him that curiosity could cost him approval. That hurt to realise, because I had been helping to teach the same lesson at home without meaning to.

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I still believe children need boundaries. Lutho still needs to learn timing, patience, and how to listen. Curiosity does not remove the need for structure. But structure without understanding can become a wall, and some children will spend their childhood pressing their hands against it, wondering why nobody opens the door.

The clearest lesson I learned is simple.

Behaviour is not always defiance. Sometimes it is communication that adults have not slowed down enough to hear.

These days, when Lutho asks, "kungani?" I no longer hear a challenge first. I hear trust. I hear a child who believes I might help him make sense of the world. That is not a burden. That is a responsibility.

And I keep asking myself one question.

When a child's way of learning inconveniences us, do we teach them wisdom, or do we teach them to become smaller?

This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone's privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you'd like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.

Source: TUKO.co.ke