How free are our children when we parents fail them?

Here we are once again as a country celebrating Freedom Day – free in the sense that all races can have their names reflected on the voters’ roll.

Free in that we can live where our finances allow. Free in that our fathers are not working the gold mines while we languish in the Bantustans.

But how free are the so-called “born frees”?

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 and decent amount of maintenance for the children they raise.

How does a parent feel it is okay to bring a child into this world, only to do the bare minimum and where they can still seek to find a “discount”?

Children are expensive, from medical care to education, from keeping a roof over their heads to food in their stomachs.

How can someone think it is okay to send R750 while they park a sleek German car and pay exorbitant amounts of rent for their pad in Midrand?

Why should these children compromise on the quality of life that you could give them, especially if you can afford to give more?

While there is nothing wrong with services provided in the public sector, why burden an already heavily burdened system when you could go the private route?

Why park your sleek and expensive car outside a no-fee paying school but be content paying Wesbank R1 000 for a car you will change before the child completes three grades?

Priorities of this generation producing “born frees” do not make sense to me.

How free are these children when fathers, sometimes mothers, are so callous in their parental obligations?

These 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 generations that will follow us.

We need to celebrate our freedom by proving we accept the responsibilities that come with it.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo.

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