Ok, so it’s not as exhaustive or as authoritative as a rigorous work in social studies should be, but it is informative and illuminating.
Last week I put out the challenge for us as South African men and women to debate a perplexing phenomenon that is sweeping through the country as described in a recent single-survey conducted by the South African Institute of Race Relations on the state of the South African family. This survey painted a gloomy picture, which showed that an estimated 40% of South Africa’s 18-million children are being raised by single mothers.
What the survey didn’t probe, however, was why this is the case and I asked you to put on your thinking caps and give your views. Like any budding ‘social scientistâ€, or more aptly a curious observer and student of life and relationships, I admit the limitations of the annual high heels survey straight off the bat.
The responses came online so we knew that access to the internet would be open only to some — this is only a reflection of views expressed on the Mail & Guardian website.
The second limitation relates to the amount of time we’ve had to think about this social experiment, which is less than 10 days — so I’m not going to pretend this is precise or in any way scientific. So. Drum roll please … We had a total of 32 responses.
What is most impressive for me is that you took the challenge seriously and the responses are thoughtful, constructive and pointed. Thankfully, none of the responses seem to have
indulged in any rancorous finger-pointing, but rather focused on the issue at hand.
About 20 of the responses were from men, 10 from women and the other two were banter between two people who’d already made their point in the comments box. So we shall work with a tally of 30 and cast aside the other two, as perhaps would be done with a spoilt ballot.
One thing we are all in agreement on is that we have a crisis. As one reader puts it, ‘the problem may be far worse than we know at presentâ€.
Let’s start with the men as they seem to have been the majority of the respondents. Their overwhelming view seems to be that although apartheid left many scars on the structure of the South African family, this is no reason to keep replicating it in the next generation or continue to use apartheid as an excuse.
What emerges is that there is a lack of responsibility and accountability among some men and that when these men abdicate their responsibilities as parents they are simply allowed to do so. Old-fashioned values have been cast aside and in that vacuum a culture of impunity and lack of respect for themselves and women has taken hold.
One contribution, which I found refreshing, suggested that the manner in which we view relationships needs to be changed from an early age. Young girls and women need to stop talking and thinking about their biological clock ticking and pay more attention to the kind of partner they want to marry.
It’s that kind of talk about ticking clocks, which the reader felt instils fear and panic — particularly among independent black women who decide to go it alone.
In turn, communities should refrain from asking young men when they are going to make babies in that macho manner filled with pride when the pertinent question should be when they intend to marry.
The first question only fuels their bravado and is seen as encouragement for them to sow their oats as wildly as possibly without feeling the need to make a life-time commitment to a partner and children.
The views from the women respondents largely concurred with this and the most commonly used word in most of the responses was responsibility. It’s about instilling a value system that isn’t foreign or ground-breaking, but simply a matter of going back to the basics.
I thank you for your sincerity and honesty in trying to tackle a sensitive and daunting problem with such frank thoughts. I hope we begin to reshape our society.
Changes in behavioural patterns cannot happen overnight so this is just the beginning of a process, which I hope we can all learn from and then maybe, just maybe, future generations won’t be shackled by the same social ills.
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