Times Of Swaziland: ACCEPT THE WHOLE PACKAGE

ACCEPT THE WHOLE PACKAGE
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The Editor on 25/05/2018 09:18:00


Sir,
It’s never easy when a marriage or other significant relationship ends.
Whatever the reason for the split, the ending of a committed relationship can
turn your whole world upside down and trigger all sorts of painful and
unsettling feelings. And when children are involved, the situation is even more
challenging.
Divorce is rarely easy for anyone, but children exposed to their parents’
anger and pain often suffer the most. For children, divorce can be stressful,
sad and confusing.
They just cannot get over the fact that they will no longer be under the same
roof with their parents, share a meal with both parents and talk about their
achievements at school or anywhere in life.
In Eswatini tradition, talks of divorce are a rare case, because traditionally a
woman is not supposed to leave her husband, no matter the situation. The only
plausible thing to do is for the husband to take her back home and tell her
parents she is not being a good wife, and therefore needs to have a word with
the elders and get tips on ‘how to be better’. Even when that is so, we
cannot deny the fact that a woman can find herself all alone with children of a
husband who has gone AWOL.
When this woman meets someone else and decides to re-marry, what becomes of the
children? Well, most would agree that it is not usual for a woman to bring
children from a previous marriage to a new marriage. Society expects the woman
to leave the children home with their ‘gogo’. What is ironic, however, is
that if the new husband has children of his own, she is expected to accept them
and love them like her own, while her children are longing for her love.
This particular practice has never been understandable. The concern is mostly
about the abandoned children, as well as the woman’s right to be with her
children that’s been oppressed. While she is showering the new husband and his
children with love, no matter how aware or unaware of this she is, her children
need her love too.
The reason why society has made such customs and practices ‘normal’ cannot
be deduced, and there can never be a good enough excuse to justify this. What
happened to ‘women and children first’? What happened to loving and
accepting the whole package?
We have all been exposed to such situations, whether by being a part of it or
witnessing from a distance. A man who cannot accept you when you come with your
children, and yet still expects you to love and respect him is probably not
worth the effort at all.
Women must remember that their children are the most important people in their
life, so now it becomes all about their relationship with them and how they
interact with them. Everyone needs a mother’s love. A mother is the first
teacher of the child, they look up to her. We have always been taught that
children will do what their parents (especially their mothers) do and not what
they say, but in truth, children will do what parents do and what they say as
well. But all that becomes impossible if the mother is not even present.
Nomsa M