The Price of Raising Children in the Diaspora
Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation ~ C. Everet Koop, M.D. aising children has never been easy. Before the days of the global village, family was, at the furthest, a bus ride away. When one had a child, your mother would be there to hold your hand through labour. Your aunts would be there in the months before and after the birth to advise you on exactly how to swaddle the baby. When your baby was a few months old and you had to go back to work, you could take your pick from any number of cousins who look after the baby while you worked. Those were the days of the extended family. Today we are in the age of the nuclear family and global village the world is so much closer but we are more alone. We travel easily across continents, fall in love with people from other countries and build homes in countries far away from home. We raise our children in an entirely new social context and this has its challenges.
Most of us need fulltime help to deal with children - more so, if both parents are gainfully employed. Hiring a nanny is difficult for one simple reason: how do you know they are trustworthy? We no longer have the benefit of calling a distant cousin to help. We are faced with hiring a stranger. Aside from the security risks, this stranger will most likely be from a different culture and will bring with them their own idea of how to raise a child. How do you begin to teach an adult the little things you learnt when the ‘village’ was raising you that you would like to pass on to your child?
“The SA High Court recently decriminalized consensual sexual activity between children aged 12 – 16 years of age and today a 12 year old can walk into a family planning clinic with an STI...”
one has to work harder to maximize their earnings and consequently spend less time with the child. In addition, the High Court recently decriminalized consensual sexual activity between children aged 12 – 16 years of age and today a 12 year old can walk into a family planning clinic with an STI. I have no answer to any of these issues but I do know that as busy as we are trying to establish ourselves and become good parents, it is easy to forget that “each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.” Ultimately we are responsible for the foundation that will ground our children when they are making decisions on their own. We may not be able to protect them to same extent we were protected but we can try, as far as possible, to teach them how to protect themselves. That is the price of raising children far away from home. CHIONESU
This scenario engenders problems our parents never encountered. Simple questions become difficult. In a home where both parents are from a different country or tribe or culture and the primary language of communication is English, is it acceptable for your child to grow up speaking English only. How do you teach a child a language they never hear you speak? When they go to school, would it be alright if they learn and begin to speak the local languages regardless of the fact that neither of you understand those languages?
Children of school going age are the source of even greater worry. Stories of sex tapes doing the rounds in high schools, of sexual abuse, drugs, violence in schools and teenage pregnancy have become the norm. It used to be, at least for me, that the “village” had eyes. My mother would know my sins before I even made it home from school. That is not so anymore. Many try to counter these risks by only placing their children in the top schools which comes with a steep price tag meaning that
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