Childhoods -Resilience

 

The “other child”

In the African culture, it is normal for children to live with aunties, grandfathers, or elder siblings.  Some are born in extreme poverty, others are born many and parents allow them to live with relatives to reduce the burden of taking care of all of them.  Others would move in with relatives after losing their parents. In the African culture, it is very common to find the “other child” in most of the families.

Though the majority of the children live well there are some who go through challenges that are abusive but instead of running away or giving up, they turn the circumstances in their favor.  Am not in any way trying to say abuse is a good thing, these children work around the challenges to become responsible adults and probably we can learn something from them. Those of us who were lucky to live with our parents can only tell the stories of those whom we saw live with relatives.  Bringing up someone else’s child is not easy.  A child who lives in another home is easy to identify.  They become the “other” child in the family.  They are very distinct from the rest of the family.  Those who survive to adulthood have testimonies to give and what takes them through is resilience.

Though the memories may be painful, the other child has a reason to smile if they grabbed resilience. 
The kind of resilience am talking about here is one that gives you the inner strength to persevere in difficult circumstances and instead of being bitter and vindictive, you become a blessing in adulthood. My observation of such children includes the following narrations.

The early birds

The other child is always the first to wake up.  If there are cows to milk the other child will light a fire and prepare water for milking.  As the water is heating up, the other child would bring cows from their sleeping point to the milking shade and proceed to milk after placing a sufuria with water on the fire for the rest of the family members to bathe.  The other child would go ahead and make tea, and prepare the milk in a selling container which she or he will drop at the regular hotel that buys their milk or a common dropping point for collection and processing in the milk processing factory.  The other child would then proceed to school just like any other child.

Routine life

If there is lunch to be prepared the other child will be the first to come and the last to leave.  After school in the evening, the other child would drop their books, change their uniform so fast and pick jerricans to go and fetch water. This was a shared responsibility since the other children will help but the other child has extra work.  There was milking and supper preparations before sitting down to do homework.  The routine would repeat itself until the seasons change. 

When it is time to work on the shamba, be it in readiness for planting or weeding, the other child would work on their portion in the morning before they go to school.  Though everyone else was likely to be there parents are always lenient toward their own children.  If the family was selling local brew, the other child would serve as the brewer, the waiter, and the middleman while the lady of the house collects money.

There are times when the other child is given work beyond their ability.  They can be given a large portion of land to work on after all they are getting free food and lodging, they carry heavy loads of farm produce, fetch more water than the other children in the family or they tend to the animals while it is raining or care for the animals way past the age of going to school. They start school when they are much older. There are extreme cases of both physical and sexual abuse especially by the older children of the family in cases where the other child is a girl.

What hurts is that it is hard to help such a child with the kind of society we live in now where everyone minds their own business.  We all have enough on our plates to handle and would shy aware from adding more responsibilities.  Helping more cause more problems for both the child and whoever tries to help.  We do not have good alternatives for such children and attempting to help the child will end up back in the same family and the treatment may be worse.

I am not the other child but always ask myself, how did these children manage to get out very successful more than those who were happily living with their parents?  I see them today. We may say it’s God or Karma rewarding and punishing but the truth is I think these children learn adaptive skills which the other children in the family miss out on.

What keeps them going

1.    Resilience: they keep going despite the challenges.  Where they fall they quickly pick up their pieces and move on.

2.     Perseverance: they accept what is thrown to them with grace, never grumbling or complaining because they know where they come from and probably think of their circumstances back at home which may be worse.

3.    Positive thinking skills.  They turn what would normally be a frustrating situation into a Why not me and it is doable.  They learn to view everyone positively and take up the role of the older and mature one who has to be an example to the younger ones.

 4.      They see a loving parent or parents in the people they are living with.  They accept that these are parents and that whatever they say or do is for their own good. They consider it a favor to be accepted to sit even at the foot of the dining table.

5.    They learn to work with speed and accuracy.  They race against themselves within a schedule they have set for themselves to complete the responsibilities given while also attending to school requirements.

6.    The other child matures faster and starts thinking like an adult way before becoming one.  Their focus and thinking are above the rest therefore they achieve more than expected.

7.    They learn strong social skills that will give them a lavage in the future. They can live with anyone.

8.    They learn to control their emotions.  Instead of being bitter, they take everything to be normal.

These are some of the attributes I find in the other child.  Not all of them end up successful.  But those who do, they smile and thank God for what they went through.  Their investments always produce high yields. Despite everything is it right for these now adult children to appreciate the people who brought them up?  We know they are there and probably will always be there, how do we protect them? The child protection efforts are not reaching all children.  We need to scale up our efforts.