Black Tax – Navigating your duty to your parents and your duty to yourself

There is a popular book titled, Black Tax.

The thought-provoking collection of essays put together by award winning Niq Mhlongo depicts the reality of most black families and tries to answer this difficult question; is Black Tax a burden or Ubuntu?

Over the weekend, I have been pondering on this question myself. I have a plethora of questions.

Do you get married before you fix your parent’s house? Do you get married before you help your parents with varsity tuition fees for your siblings? Is there an expiry date to Black tax?

Last week, a colleague of mine who is 26 years of age was talking about how she hates being alive.

She further said, now that she is an adult, she is expected to wake up, go to work and make money to finance her life. Yet, she didn’t choose to be born.

She asserts this by saying, she will not have a baby in her entire life. Arguing that parents are selfish because they bring children on this earth, but cannot sufficiently provide for them. S

he still expects her parents to finance her life even when she is employed and making her own money.

For a while, I thought she was being unreasonable. I then remembered that our interpretation of this undeniable African culture called Black Tax differs.

She continued to say that two people should not make a reproduction decision that is going to affect someone who didn’t choose to be born.

However, none of us chose to be born. Furthermore, we believe that our lives are for a bigger purpose than that of our parents’ ‘selfish act’.

It surely felt burdensome to her.

Nevertheless, I see it differently.

I have always asked my family what they expect of me, and I see everything I do for my family as a way of showing gratitude and playing a role in improving our lives.

I believe, just like some of the submissions made in the anthology that it is part of our human virtues.

What I fear the most is marrying someone’s daughter before doing my part at home.

I have heard a thousand stories of unhappy married people who complain about how their husbands or wives keep telling them that they are broke, yet they send money home every month without fail.

For instance, I don’t want to have a renovations project at my parents’ home without the approval of my future wife.

Irrespective of how noble the gesture of helping at home is, I think it should not be the reason why one’s marriage falls apart.

Perhaps we should get married after ‘paying our dues’ to our parents? In this way, we won’t have to carry the burden of doing things behind the backs of our spouses.

Equally, I think we should normalise having a conversation about what one still needs to do for their immediate family before we tie the knot.

In this trying economy, we cannot completely ignore our responsibilities towards our parents and siblings.

However, we can openly talk about how we have to help them with our partners.

So, is Black Tax a burden or Ubuntu? My simple answer to the question posed by the book title is, It depends on the individual.

• Kabelo Chabalala is the founder and chairperson of the Young Men Movement (YMM), an organisation that focuses on the reconstruction of the socialisation of boys to create a new cohort of men. Email, kabelo03chabalala@gmail.com; Twitter, @KabeloJay; Facebook, Kabelo Chabalala

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