What Eric Wainaina said about co-parenting saddened me beyond belief

Image: Eric Wainaina

Eric Wainaina is a man who is as known for his musical offering aswell as his highly publicised affair with Valerie Kimani, a woman whom he had taken under his wing as they performed a musical show across the world.

Why have Kenyans completely forgotten about Eric Wainaina?

The affair was a really bad issue because Eric Wainaina had a stellar reputation being one of the first artists of a new generation who made music that Kenyan youth could relate to and he has arguably managed to remain relevant even with a new crop of artists and music audience.

Eric Wainaina

Anyway, Valerie Kimani first rose to prominence through a singing competition show called Tusker Project Fame and though she ended up not winning, she got the chance to work with Eric Wainaina. Their romance blossomed over time and it culminated with them conceiving a love-child. Interestingly, Eric Wainaina was married all the while and when word about his love-child came out, Kenya was stunned and waited upon bated breath for how the situation will unfold.

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Eric Wainaina made a decision to stay with his wife and their young family and he ate humble pie and decided to beg. He got on a plane from New York (they were in Broadway performing their musical) and came back to Kenya to beg his wife to forgive him. Whatever the case may be of how you view that action, it saved his marriage.

Eric Wainaina

It was something I noted from talking to my older mentors discussion about this topic (I was in my small teenage years when this happened) but they pointed out the fact that he allowed Valerie Kimani to be ravaged by the media and common Kenyan gossip that painted her as the home-wrecker. He was silent as Valerie Kimani was dragged through the mud for a decision he had a hand in making that resulted in a situation they were in. During his interview, however, Eric Wainaina passed the blame for that on society. That did not impress me.

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What was worse than that statement was when I read something he said about his decision to reach out to and help raise his son by Valerie Kimani… It had nothing to do with his own decision to be a man and father to his son, he had to defer to the decision his wife made on the matter:

Eric Wainaina

Eric Wainaina said his mother advised him to allow his wife Sheba to handle the matter, explaining, “Me and Sheba have two daughters and I have a son called Zion; he lives in the US with his mother. He turned 10 in July; he is a great kid. In the beginning, there was a lot of challenges, how do we negotiate this particular situation. Right now, we are in a place where he is a big boy and we have a relationship, his mother is married. 

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It was down to his wife to give him permission to be present in the life of his son. That says a lot about who he is when you take the context I gave earlier in the article: Eric Wainaina is not the type of man who strikes me as taking responsibility and making the hard decisions. He didn’t accept blame for the situation Valerie Kimani found herself in as a victim of harsh gossip, he instead blamed society for what they did. He created a situation and slinked off into the shadows when it was convenient.

Eric Wainaina

With his son too, he left that tough decision down to his wife whom he had betrayed. He is lucky indeed -or should I say his son Zion is lucky that his wife Sheba is a grounded individual because were she not, she could easily have denied Eric Wainaina permission to be a father figure in his son’s life and this man would just have gone off into the sunset and denied his son a chance to know him.

This was disappointing to read. Actually, I am being measured in what I am explaining. This was some bullshit. To say it was disheartening is to understate how I feel about this matter. Absolute garbage.

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Ozymandias

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay