Freedom without responsibility leaves children paying the price
What freedom are we celebrating if we can roll out our camp chairs and braai stands on 27 April before we feed and clothe our own children?
Another new school term and single parents are mulling the challenges that come with the costs of going back to school.
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 child maintenance for the children that they raise.
How does a parent feel it is okay that they bring a child into this world, only to do just the bare minimum and where they can still seek to get a “discount”?
Children are expensive, from medical to education, from keeping a roof over their head and food in their stomach.
How can someone think it’s okay to send R750 while they drive a sleek German car and pay exorbitant amounts for rent in Midrand?
Why make children just to compromise on the quality of life that you can give this precious child, especially if you can afford to give them a better quality of life?
While there is nothing wrong with services provided in the public sector, why burden an already heavily overworked system when you can go the private route?
Why park your sleek and expensive car outside a no-fee paying school but be content paying WesBank R10 000 for a car you will replace before the child completes three grades?
The priorities of our free generation do not make sense to me.
How can these parents of my generation salute the heroes of yesteryear for championing our rights but, in turn, desert their children for the niceties of life?
I fail to understand how our rights became so interchangeable with the compromises that come as a standard obligation.
As parents, we are failing the generations that follow us. What matters is that we are no longer oppressed because of our skin colour, but we fail our very own children.
We wonder why our children must protest for university fees to be reduced in order for them not to be financially excluded.
Perhaps they would not be in such dire straits if we, as parents, give them a fighting chance, without them having to bring a begging bowl to a government that has to cater for the poor, but is also burdened by those who can afford education and elect not to.
What sort of freedom are we celebrating if we can roll out our camp chairs and braai stands on 27 April before we feed and clothe our own children?
As a nation, we do not understand what freedom is and what responsibilities come with our rights.
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