Time to fix broken families

Sometimes, when danger lurks in shadows, the bogeyman is all to familiar.

When we grew up, we were taught of stranger danger and funny monkeys.

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We were taught to raise the alarm when the unfamiliar dared to come too close, too close for comfort.

The unfortunate part to all of this is the evolution of the perpetrator. We are no longer in that time and area of stranger danger.

The victim and victimiser in rape, murder and assault charges are those close to us.

There are family members who were either raised with us, by us or we were raised by them… what has become of the family unit meant to be the very core of our society?

When a mother is raped by her own son.

The night started with a mother and son sharing a bottle of wine under a tree, but it ended with a loss of life.

This is the new face of family in South Africa. How did we get there?

A mother is killed by her two daughters with their boyfriends for an R80 000 payout.

This then speaks to the depth of the broken state of our society. Our prisons will remain overcrowded because home is no longer safe.

It is no longer a model of where our children can grow up in a model of love, care and a relatable sense of family.

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Now, family is another hurdle to survive. The family structure continues to breakdown.

It may be torn apart by external factors such as alcohol and drugs, as well as the seedy factors of neighbourhood elements such as crime and gangsterism.

Our heads must be hung in shame. We have to fix what remains the core of our society.

While we cannot fix all our ills, we can again dress a wound that needs urgent attention.

Ultimately, by all means necessary, our children will remain our responsibility. As a family, we must do as much as we can to keep them safe.

While we may speak of patriarchy and the abuse of systems and institutions, we must also speak the truth to society.

The truth, as uncomfortable as it is, is that the failure of the family unit to be guided towards some form of structure, absent mothers and fathers, ethics that are situational and parenting that remains lacking.

Our heads must hang in shame at the level of where our families have headed over the years.

During the apartheid years, we knew the migrant labour system was to be blamed.

That there is no denying, even its knock-on effects.

In 2024, we have no more excuses but to work on fixing the broken family.

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