Africa-Press – Eswatini. The argument of gender roles and parenting is, on its own, an unending conversation, and the continuous cycle of contributing to poverty starts in another.
It is alarming the number of children who suffer at the hands of incapable parents although many factors come into play. Teenage pregnancy is not the only dilemma that we have, but a lack of education on family planning is creating social havoc. We need to emphasise family planning and make it more than just about the female or male, but also diversify financial preparedness and how important it is when starting a family. Many people lack this and as a result you will find a struggling woman who cannot even afford sanitary pads for themselves having unprotected sexual intercourse with no plan of the obvious consequences of having a baby. A young girl has unprotected sex with a man who can barely buy himself a new pair of shoes or even decent groceries and yet she is taking the risk of reproducing by so doing.
In the same length, a young unemployed man has unprotected sex with multiple women without consideration for his health, let alone the reality that he is a breadwinner for a family of five with no plan for his next meal; taking the risk of bringing a child into this world. The focus is often on the aftermath of this, the sympathy drawn on a father or mother who has to take care of a child with very little. We avoid all the accountability and responsibility leading to this and how a child is not a mistake; it is the constant decision to expose yourself to unprotected sex knowing the potential consequences of it. When a woman and man in no capacity to afford a child create one, they do so knowing the amount of responsibility they are drawing and as such should be held accountable.
Reflect
It is disheartening and also angering to see a child in plastics because both parents cannot get him proper diapers or clothes and you reflect and realise that the child is the third born to a mother that is selfish and constantly making the same decision to bring more people into the world knowing full well they can barely afford the first two. It is the child to a father that has four first born children that he has never seen to a woman who knew this and thought she was the exception. What does this say? It says that we are a generation full of selfish people drunk on infatuation and low IQ so much so that our actions create children and put them in undeserving circumstances and in the same boat, we hate to see anyone hold us accountable for it.
The angriest person is a woman being questioned why they constantly have more children when they can feel the burden of raising them as a single mother. It is the man who is being forced to at least decent enough to ensure that his children have clothes and food. In fact, many go as far as ridiculing barren women to make up for the irresponsibility on their part. Until we hold both young men and women accountable we become supporting casts to the consequences of no family planning and poor decision making. Every other day on social media is a woman sharing a heartbreaking photo and a sad story asking for milk and baby clothes from strangers because they do not see themselves as part of the problem, but rather perceive themselves as victims entitled to a way out of the problem they have selfishly created for an innocent child that deserves a warm home and safety.
I believe that we are failing as a society to bring back the shame culture of things that are counterproductive in society. We are also failing to uphold moral and financial education for young people and as a result suffer for poor decision making and have many young girls that cannot think reasonably outside of themselves. Although formal education is not a luxury for everyone, it is within our capacity as a community to speak on the social ills and create a culture that changes the story. It is saddening to see young people bring children into the world to take them through poverty and I believe that a huge prospect of this failure is because we make family planning a women problem and absolve the boys that also partake in it from understanding that they are equally responsible in the making and bringing up of a child and the emotional availability to do so.
Source: times
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