Being a parent to your younger siblings is something that is never talked about and it is happening all around us, we witness it in our families and in our neighbourhoods where children are struggling on their own with no adult supervision yet no one feels the need to offer a helping hand.
There are many child-headed households as relatives abandon their children after the death of their parents. Families will come together to discuss a way forward especially after the children’s parents have passed on. However, the result will always be that the eldest child should take care of their younger siblings. You find children as young as 14 years old having to take the role of being a mother or a father while having no experience in parenting.
It is situations like these that lead to kids dropping out of school because they cannot keep up with school work and taking care of their newly appointed kids, they have to make ends meet and that means finding a job to provide the basics. They have to neglect their own childhood to make the childhood of their siblings to be normal, instead of worrying about the outfit they will wear to some teenage gathering or studying for the next exam they have to worry about providing and giving their brothers and sisters a healthy environment.
Each day is a struggle when you are parenting your siblings, you have to be mentally, financially and physically there for them while you are also struggling and trying to toughen up. The common consequences to child-headed households are children becoming bullies at school, suffering from trauma, indulging in drugs, with the worst scenarios being teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse.
Some intervention include talking to a social worker, but the issue is that the kids may not know about such and some are afraid that they will be separated from their siblings. The teachers at school can help with finding help for them, but the kids fear opening up and exposing themselves.
Relatively, community and family members are the ones responsible for helping children who are orphaned or abandoned because they are closer to them and know their situation, however, they just choose to be ignorant and sideline them.
Lets practice humanity and let kids be kids so they grow and become better adults, as it takes a village to raise a child.
Slindile Sibiya
Soweto Sunrise News
