Recently, a lowly placed woman was recorded by a so-called human rights advocate and posted online without her consent or approval.
Her crime according to the human rights guru was bringing her underage daughter to clean alongside her in the wee hours of the morning. For your information, our lady activist is living a cushy life in the estate that employed the lady as a cleaner for a pittance.
Instead of empowering and counselling the woman with comforting words and practices, she simply chased clout with the content. She rolled her camera while openly berating her for waking up her daughter so early in the morning, copiously quoting from Article 32 of the United Nations Charter.
So, we ask, can old style parenting stand in the face of tenets of this charter: Right to life, right to leisure, right to freedom and so on…. Don’t they just run whack when confronted with African old school parenting?
Most women raised in the 60s/70s, before social media and wokeness assisted their parents and guardians in their homes, businesses and farms. It was a natural phenomenon to fetch water, sweep, and wash clothes before going to school or to sleep.
Some children even hawked for their parents and served in their food businesses. The thrust on Women’s Hub this week is to analyse if Western style of parenting that guarantees multiple freedoms for children provides better or qualitative moral and self development.
The Western style parenting equips the children with the following. It’s a one size fits all model:
Education
Leisure
Food
Health
Freedom
Housing support
Government package
The African style parenting equips the children with the following. It’s a hybrid model of: it takes a village:
Family values
Traditional values
Cultural settings
Religious millieu
Work ethics
Discipline
It’s no wonder that we have noted a burgeoning trend for JAPA Nigerians to source for high school education back home for their children. This occurs before their enrollment in the tertiary institutions in their adopted countries.
Some parents, we’re told are battling with socially maladjusted children presenting drug problems, petty crime and under ambition.
We have been regaled with gory tales of children absconding from homes to join cults, criminal gangs or becoming social misfits because of unbridled freedom.
One of such children called the Social Services on her parents for engaging in regular household chores against her wishes.
Another one stopped attending classes and preferred to hang out with friends. His overwhelmed parents surreptitiously brought him back to Africa from the United Kingdom. He reportedly sued his parents for bringing him back to Ghana without his consent. To think this is an underage child of his parents!
The Child Service Department of his adopted country even joined him in the suit against his parents..
The youngster lost the case because of robust testaments from the parents: too much freedom had enabled the boy to skip school and join a knife gang in the city. His parents argued that sending him back to Africa was a way of reducing knife crime in London and saving His Majesty’s Government from harm. That he will indeed be returned to the UK after high school.
Meanwhile in Ghana, he has been enrolled in a boarding school run by religious leaders. His Grandma and aunties have stepped up to provide guardianship for him.
Have you noticed that more British exclusive public and private schools have reportedly opened shop in Abuja and Lagos to cater to such returning JAPA Nigerians.
The school fees of these schools run into millions of Naira. These astronomical fees do not seem to deter these classes of Nigerians as they are determined to burnish their children with some homegrown values, respect for elders, cultural reset and religious fervour. We’re told that there’s even a fast scramble for admissions from Diaspora Nigerians for their children.
So, which style of parenting are you adopting in raising your children in this digital age? Are you raising woke, entitled children?
Let’s hear from you. Please send your feedback and comments to
Mooborscounsellingroom@gmail.com
Mubor Okosun
Women’s Editor.
