If a child grows up to be kind, healthy, responsible, self-sufficient, and decent—but not wealthy—has the sacrifice failed? Most people would instinctively say no. Yet many families behave as though the answer is yes. Not openly, of course. No parent sits their child down and says, "I didn't raise you to be happy. I raised you to be rich." But expectations have a way of revealing themselves. In comparisons with more successful relatives. In questions about promotions, land, and home ownership. In the disappointment that hangs in the air when a child is doing well enough to survive but not well enough to transform the family's fortunes. And perhaps nowhere is this tension more visible than in Kenya, where sacrifice is often treated as the highest form of love. Parents sacrifice for their children. Older siblings sacrifice for younger siblings. Entire generations sacrifice in the hope that the next one will live better. But what happens when sacrifice quietly becomes an...
People think they marry for love. But more often than not, they marry to be safe, to be seen, or to be saved.
In Kenya, marriage and children are presented as the natural checkpoints of life. You grow up, finish school, get a job, marry, and have children. This sequence is rarely questioned, because to question it feels like rebellion against culture, religion, and even family. Yet if we strip away the social scripts, the reality is unsettling: very few Kenyans choose marriage or children freely.
Marriage as Escape
Look closely at the stories around you. Many people marry to escape poverty. For women, this often means marrying a man who can provide more stability than their families could. For men, it may mean marrying into opportunity, or at least a semblance of respectability. The marriage certificate becomes a survival tool — less about romance, more about relief.
Others marry to escape abuse. A young woman grows up in a home where beatings and insults are daily bread, and marriage seems like an exit strategy. A man grows up in constant tension with a violent father, and marriage feels like freedom, a chance to finally be “head of his own house.” But leaving one broken structure often means walking into another one, because the choice wasn’t made out of clarity — it was made out of desperation.
And then there is the quiet, almost invisible reason: the desire to be wanted. In a society where singleness past a certain age carries whispers of failure, many marry simply because someone chose them. Not because they truly wanted that person, but because the alternative — being seen as unwanted — felt unbearable.
Children as Obligation
The story doesn’t end with marriage. In fact, it begins.
Children are often not born from desire but from pressure. “When will you give us grandchildren?” “Who will carry on the family name?” “Do you want to grow old alone?” These questions aren’t asked once; they echo constantly until people comply. And in many cases, children become the social proof that the marriage is “working.”
Others have children for security in old age — a deeply rooted Kenyan mindset. Children become a retirement plan, a guarantee that someone will care for you when you cannot. It is less about nurturing a life and more about securing one’s own.
Yet, when children are born of obligation rather than desire, it shows. Parents carry silent resentment, children inherit unspoken burdens, and entire families live out cycles of duty rather than love.
The Disguised “Choices”
The uncomfortable truth is that these are rarely choices. They are reactions — to poverty, to pressure, to loneliness, to culture.
Take campus marriages, for example. In Nairobi, many young women marry or cohabit with older, financially stable men because survival in the city is expensive. Love exists, yes, but the underlying driver is usually security. On the other side, older men marry or pursue younger women because youth is a status symbol, proof that they “still have it.” Both parties call it choice, but underneath, it is transaction.
Or consider rural-urban marriages of survival. A man works in the city, marries a woman from his village, and keeps her at home with children while he lives another life in Nairobi. Tradition demands he marries, so he does. But was it a choice? Or was it compliance with cultural expectations?
Then there are children as retirement plans. Many parents openly admit: “I must have children so I will not suffer when I am old.” Rarely do they admit: “I want children because I love the idea of nurturing life.” Children become functional, instrumentalized — a safety net.
What If We Chose Freely?
And this raises the haunting question: what if we stripped away poverty, fear, and cultural expectation? What if you had financial stability, a supportive community, and no pressure to “prove adulthood” through marriage or children? Would you still choose them?
It is possible that many would not. And that’s the discomfort. For decades, we have told ourselves — and each other — that marriage and children are the natural outcome of adulthood. But what if they are not? What if for some people, the truest choice is to remain unmarried, child-free, and fulfilled?
The Cost of Reactionary Living
Living reactively — marrying to escape, parenting out of duty — comes at a cost. Broken marriages. Resentful adults. Generational cycles of trauma passed down because no one stopped to ask: Is this truly what I want?
Perhaps that is the real tragedy. Not that people marry or have children, but that they do so without ever truly choosing. Out of fear of loneliness. Out of fear of failure. Out of fear of being left behind.
And when fear drives life, joy becomes scarce.
Maybe the question isn’t should we marry and have children? but rather: what would our lives look like if we made choices, not reactions?
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