Forget the luxuries – help your children

In the wake of actress Ntando Duma revealing her child’s monthly expenses and the storm in the teacup that followed on social media, it is evident that the quality of life for children differs from household to household.

But what shocked me was that there seems to be no wanting a better life for our children!

Over the past few weeks, I have come to realise how so many parents – mostly women, sometimes even grandparents – struggle to have biological parents pay a reasonable amount of maintenance for the children they raise. How does a parent feel it’s okay that they bring a child into this world, only to do the bare minimum?

Children are expensive, from medical care to education, from keeping a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs – how can someone think it be okay to send R750 while they drive a German car and pay exorbitant amounts of money for rent in Midrand?

Why compromise on the quality of life you can give this child, especially if you can afford it?

While there is nothing wrong with services provided in the public sector, why burden a strained system when you can go the private route? Why park your sleek car outside a no-fee school but pay a bank R10 000 for a car you will change before the child completes three grades? Priorities like this do not make sense to me.

The parents of my generation salute the heroes of yesteryear for championing our rights – but they desert their children for the niceties of life!

As parents, we are failing the next generation. We are no longer oppressed on the basis of skin colour, but we fail our children.

How free are these children who have become the new migrant workers to fill the gaps parents leave?

We wonder why our children protest for university fees to be reduced. Perhaps they would not be in such dire straits if parents lived more moderately, without compromising their future.

Government has to cater for the poor and is also burdened with those who can afford it, but elect not to contribute.

How free is this country if parents are oppressing the children?

We require an education on freedom and its the benefits – a freedom so many died for so we can be free today.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo.

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