Childism: The bane of the Namibian child

In the book ‘Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children’, the American psychotherapist Elisabeth Young-Bruehl defines childism as “a legitimation of an adult’s or a society’s failure to prioritise or make paramount the needs of children over those of adults and the needs of future adults over the needs of the present adults”.

I pondered the concept of childism. Though the academic conceptualisation might be foreign to us, it is by no means a notion foreign to our society. If anything, encountering Namibians postulating around ideas pivotal to childism in the context brought forward by Young-Bruehl is quite common.

The views of this piece are particularly directed to the lower- to middle-income families in our society.

We raise children with a set of ideas and attitudes - let’s call them the Parenting Ideas and Attitudes Package (PIAP). To the detriment of children, PIAP is usually written in stone; these are irrevocable principles which parents abide to with a conviction second to none, and therein lies the bane of the Namibian child.

The most concerning thing about the PIAP is best described in what Young-Bruehl phrased as the “role reversal at the level of principle”.

In cases like this, the PIAP is structured in such a way that children exist to serve their parents’ needs without regard for the children’s own needs or development.

In essence, it is a form of abuse. No regard for development is by no means a reference to schooling systems which the majority of Namibian children have access to - it is in reference to harm done to children on the grounds of those irrevocable convictions which legitimise the proprietorial attitudes parents have towards children; the treating of children as property is thus the crux of childism.

Coerced

The protective nature of a parent or guardian is instinctive - it comes from a place of love and the domineering PIAP is supposedly designed for a smooth transition from childhood to adulthood.

But parents who practice childism are often indistinguishable from human proprietors who clothe, feed and house their subjects but refuse to grant them that which fundamentally renders one a free human being – they are not owners of their aspirations. Countless children are coerced to disaffirm their particular dreams in order to follow those aspirations set by their parents because the number one rule of the PIAP is: The parent knows what’s best for the child.

Unlike the many children who believe in their parents, other adults know that parents are not always right.

Sexism is widely rampant and women may decide to report such cases with law enforcement officers. Where do children go who suffer from childism?

Unlike other forms of discrimination, nothing can be done for children who are seemingly being abused or whose particular quality is adamantly being neglected by a parent because the parent undervalues that specific quality the child possesses.

If the 10 000 hours of practice to master a particular skill still holds, how many hours have parents robbed from the development of their children in a particular field of interest which the child may seemingly be talented in? It is no coincidence that Namibian footballers are late bloomers at international club level.

On a national level, childism is evident in the policies and political will of adults who unfailingly neglect the infrastructural needs required by children to develop other skills outside the formal school system. The same energy that goes into fighting sexism and racism should be employed to fight childism.

Education as a core principle

Understandably, a core principle of the PIAP within Generation X is education. This is due to black children of that generation being raised on the notion that education is the key. Education was truly the key, the one and only key, for what seemed like an infinitely long time.

Three generations later, education is one of the keys and not the only key. If this were not the case, the Generation Z-born Christine Mboma would not be who she is today, neither would Peter Shalulile be earning a salary of N$400 000 a month for kicking a ball.

Perhaps it is time to have a class on parenting. The old-world PIAP needs to be scrutinised and reevaluated in order to guide efforts to reform child-rearing practices in many areas of life in order to make them compatible with the contemporary social and cultural contexts. It is time we detach from cultural and psychological conditions which discriminate against children. Parental guidance is what is required in childhood, and because adults are not gods, they are not qualified to set fates or destinies of their progeny without their consent.

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