Forget Putting South Africans First, Put Your Children First

There is only so much schools can do to produce better outcomes. Without parents being involved, children cannot succeed.

Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

Too often, we discuss ideological and political issues as if these are sufficient to create a healthy society, but this is hardly the case. The broad category of things we label as culture is usually more, or likely most, important. There is no more important issue under this category than the conditions under which children are raised.

In South Africa, from the moment a child is born, they are at a high risk of suffering a systematic assault from then until adulthood. The first thing children have to contend with is being murdered before they are born. According to the government, 260,000 abortions take place per year. This was said in 2018 and, back then, 927,113 children were born in that year, so abortions made up 22% of the total. For those who are worried about a genocide, this is the clearest example of one.

The next issue children have to face is being abandoned by one of their parents. According to Stats SA, more than 60% of birth certificates only have one parent, usually the mother, on the certificate. UCT data shows this issue is actually getting worse. In 2002, 39.3% of children lived with both parents, while in 2024 this had dropped to 31.4%. This is a crisis and, among other things, it leads to a generation of young men growing up angry at the world and therefore prone to violence.

These are also issues that government policy may contribute to, but I do not think the primary blame can be placed on the government. We are often told that our broken families are a symptom of the apartheid migrant labour system, but data from an Old Mutual survey showed that only 29% of single mothers received regular financial support from the father. So these are not men who are away from home to provide for their children. These are men who are running away from their responsibility.

And we see the consequences everywhere: children suffering sexual and physical abuse; children not doing well at school; children not receiving enough food to develop to a suitable standard, something which affects how much they can achieve for all of their lives.

There is only so much schools can do to produce better outcomes. Without parents being involved, children cannot succeed. We need a moral change, not led from the top down, but from the bottom up. We need parents who will put their children first.

Putting your child first starts before you have children. I remember telling a woman I was courting, long before I got married, that the real point of relationships is to provide the ideal environment to raise children. Obviously, she laughed at me, and for understandable reasons, but I feel I was factually correct, even as I lacked the tact to keep this to myself.

Do not date women or men you would not want to raise children with. Dating should not be done casually. Many of us were raised in Christian and traditional African homes, so we already know this, but we think it is old-fashioned. I think data has proven the correctness of this old-fashioned idea.

If you shouldn’t date people you wouldn’t want to raise children with, definitely do not have sex with those people. Take your time to get to know someone before having sex. A few months of waiting is not out of order. It is not just about you and your wants. This potentially affects innocent children.

It is clear that the advice to just rely on contraceptives is not working. We all learn about contraceptives at school and where to get them for free, yet we still have this crisis of child murder and child abandonment.

Once you get someone pregnant, or you become pregnant, you have to realise it is no longer about you. It is about that innocent person. Whatever plans you had, they don’t matter. The child is everything now. You must do everything in your power that is in their best interests.

As a father, it is imperative that you be there for that child when they grow up. Stats SA data has shown that children growing up without fathers are in the worst position. Being raised by a single mother is worse than being raised by a single father. The data is silent on why this is but, if I may guess, I would think that fathers offer protection, strength, guidance, and are the ultimate role models.

I remember growing up and how much I revered my father. I only started seeing him as a human being when I became a father myself. I can see in my own children how much my attention, praise, advice, etc. means to them. They hang on my every word. The little ones show so much joy playing with me. The joy they show playing with their mother is different and unique, and so too is the joy they show playing with their father.

Inasmuch as the contribution of mothers is unique, so too is the contribution of fathers. Fathers provide logic, a model of bravery, and unshakeable moral standards. Fathers are the ones who are able to tell their children that something is wrong regardless of feelings. Fathers provide discipline and structure.

No matter how dire your financial situation is, be with your children and support their mother. There is no excuse for abandoning your family, and everything you don’t like about this country is your fault if you do. Solving our hardest problems is not about politicians coming up with some magic policy. It will simply take parents loving their children enough to put them first.

Mpiyakhe Dhlamini is a libertarian, writer, programmer and an Associate of the Free Market Foundation.