RESPECT IS EARNED, NOT FORCED

Sir,

The bowels of the earth opened up and swallowed a good son of the soil on Sunday and welcomed a dedicated police officer who was diligent in his work in its diabolic chambers.

Many will remember him as a good person and genial officer but who kept to himself. Some who had the luck to be in his family enclave will remember him as a strict and hands-on father who never spared the rod on his children and never shied away from berating a wrong.

To the unlucky ones, he was an absent, inconsiderate and Tinkhundla system of governance father. In the year or so I had lived with him, I saw he was a Khumalo through and through, so stubborn in his conservative and traditional ways, and unmoved by the modern times.

Dismissed

Religiously, he worshipped his Bible like his second skin. Being born and bred in a notorious township I was dismissed as a troublesome nefarious criminal. In his eyes I was a fly in his ointment, ready to disrupt his comfortable home life at his retirement age. Simple minds thought I had come to grab their inheritance. I was blamed for sins I did not commit yet all I wanted was a father figure and a manly shoulder but it was like I was thrown in a wolf pack and the strongest male survived.

Some parents can turn you into a monster with their poor parenting skills and then blame society and peer pressure for their failure. Growing up in a polygamous relationship is corrosive. My father was a true liSwati and a true traditionalist who believed a true man must have as many children as Abraham. But how they grew he never cared as his cattle and goats mattered most in his heart.

Departed

When I got a call that he had dearly departed my heart sank, a tear fell and my mind got dark and chaotic thoughts. How can I feel for a stranger and for a man who never cared for my well-being or my sister’s? I deduced that it was his family that he dearly held in his heart and they should mourn for him. The Bible says I should respect and honour him but he had no impact in my life. Without my mother, I would be illiterate and ignorant of the world. Life in the streets taught me that respect is earned not forced.

Respect can be bought but that fades away when the material is depleted. The Bible is not coherent when it comes to wayward parents but is ‘poisonous’ to a disrespectful child. Growing up without a parent, when you know he is out there taking care of his other children and mistresses, is painful.

And an inconsiderate society is there to frown upon you when you are successful and ignore your parents who abandoned, neglected and abused you. When you grow up wailing for a father figure or woman’s touch, society jeers and passes snide comments. Absent parents sometimes don’t deserve to be buried, they never cared so why should you? Look at the social ills.

How many children have suffered at the hands of polygamy and favouritism? How many children have become vulnerable because of their parents? How many children suffered in the name of new love? Many young girls are prowling the streets searching for a better life as their parents failed to play their part and took the easy route out of their responsibilities by shoving their offspring to grandparents.

Slow

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