Be careful how you love your child, love them not to death!

Dumi Mmualefe | Monday March 16, 2015 16:56

A child is a promise of continuity of a people. Children have to be cared for and loved. In fact in the Christian circles those who love God are called the children of God. Israel was called the children of God, or should one say in the Hebrew Scriptures they are called “The children of God.” As God’s children they were led, nourished and protected by God. This is what God requires of us.

There are many things happening to our children, things that we would have hardly coped with as children. There are things that are happening to our children because as parents we are not taking responsibility for the wellness and dignity of our children. Some of the bad things that our children go through are a result of abdication of responsibilities by parents. By parents I mean the community, those old enough to parents.

Can you imagine? After abdication our responsibilities in order to feel good we even blame the drought and scotching head on “bana ba malatsi ano!” We are called on to love our children because they are precious jewels from God. Unfortunately we have, excuse me for that: a funny way of showing our children we love them. Let us consider the poison we often feed our children in the name of love! Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines poison as a “substance that can cause illness or death if taken into the body.”

We often show love for our children by giving them oily “foods” especially to take to school as provision “mopako.” Sometimes we really love them we give them money, and lots of it for that matter, to buy whatever their hearts desires. Children being children, they would them buy poison and feed on it. That there is a problem of obesity in our country especially among primary school going children is not in doubt. There seem to be, comparatively, more such in private schools. Let me confess that this is from observation and not a scientifically carried out research that I have taken. It is not unusual these days to have a child diagnosed with and ailment that is usually connected with dietary behaviour. Understandably in the distant past as children we could not eat certain foots based on some taboos we were told. The taboos were in fact the surface meaning of what the real reasons are as the real reason were scientific, even though our parents could not engage in scientific logical argumentation. What we know or should accept is that they had what the early Christian Philosopher Justin Martyr called the “Logos Spermatikos”, that is the seed of wisdom that was not only from God but was God in all peoples.

Does it mean we are bad parents compared to “un-book learned” but educated parents of the seventies backwards? With all the “education” and teaching on Psychology and parenting among others, haven’t we become worse parents, or am I a pessimist? Somehow having been in the teaching profession for many years I have come to believe that some of the things our children go through are too much for any child. There are those who have to prematurely become parents to their siblings, others are abused one way or the other.

Every year now when results are released we all expect the same boring heart breaking story! We look for the failure not the pass rate! We do not expect our children to pass and then we all go out to blame someone. I have maintained that the government have a share of blame to carry but what are we doing as parents? What are we doing especially as teachers?

There are some of our teachers who stand tall to share their success stories, but there are again many who burry our children alive and blame it on the government! We need to be honest, those who hurt because of any injustice they believe is meted on them cannot do the worst injustice of killing children through not delivering and still hope they have any moral high ground to stand on and blame the government! Those who demand justice must dispense justice freely and willingly!

We need to all put our hands together, despite our hurts rise up and create a better future for our children. We should all project and see a better Botswana for our children. I would love our children to have a better tomorrow than my tomorrow which is their today! Every parent harbours this same dream for their children. Every child I come across is my child and I should have this same dream for him/her. Every parent should pledge to give the best education to every child that passes through their class, give the best care to every child going through their health facility.

My greatest disappointment and hurt is from parents that I see every morning taking their precious gifts to different pre-primary and primary schools. They show their children love by allowing them to stand between the front seats, or stand on the back seat. My heart skips beats every time I imagine what would happen to these children should the driver be required to make a sudden halt! I often wonder how the parent would feel sitting at the head of this little coffin after the child would have flung through the window and shuttered the little skull! You probably wish I had not written the last sentence this way, but believe you me, some parents need shock therapy. To God be the glory!