A good start in life! – Important to a child’s wellbeing.

No parent is perfect! That is a universal fact! The responsibility of bringing a life into this world as parents is immense – the destiny of a soul is potentially in your hands – and the joy of getting to know the person you brought into this world, after many years of strife, is often described as immeasurable.

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Parents and other caregivers are the conduit through which humans transmit most of our characteristics as a species. We are not like reptiles, birds, fish, and insects; we are not only the information encoded within our DNA. We have culture – we are people!

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Much of the remarkable laws and allowances of grace we make each other every day, are the product of social reproduction and the transmission of language, and not the result of genes which have a greater chance of influencing our morphology – the way we look – than our character.

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Who people are is so much more than their apparently marvellous bodies! We are – and have become – more like those close to us whether we liked them or not, both in terms of emotions and the reality of living alongside others within a specific locale. We inhabit the networks of people who we call our own and we live in a community of space which enjoys all types of people. This is good; it is the best challenge! The Apostle Paul taught that when advancing a cause, we should become all things to all people! In the spirit of his advocacy to serve, I suggest what is really needed by children.

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What I want to say is that every human born into this world should be awarded the best chance to succeed. It is a cliché, but children are the future. What we teach them and how we prepare them for life ahead not only impacts their lives individually; collectively, it impacts the trajectory of the human arc of achievement.

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Children are incredibly receptive – they are sponges for knowledge and skills – and the best time to learn while having fun and living life fully is in childhood and youth. As South Africans, I really do think we should be concerned about the little ones, and the place we are leaving them.

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Our parents, caregivers, and others of those who provide educational services to children develop relations and bonds with children which are formative to their long-term development.

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The people that surround us when we cry, when we encounter our first obstacles, when we are called nasty names by our peers, do something clumsy, or generally fail to be the centre of popularity – are the same people that witness our eventual triumph! They see the dance of our lives toward some seemingly predetermined purpose – our caregivers and those who help us become ourselves, get to reap the harvest of their work in us becoming ourselves. That is an honour. Bringing human life into this world is a serious matter, with all kinds of repercussions, pains, joys, surprises, and understandings that every parent knows. Children are full of paradoxes!

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Yet, children also do not always communicate according to social norms and rules – we can misunderstand them – because in addition to being extraordinary examples of what is possible, they are human. Being human is beautiful though, and every human is worthy of investment!

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Therefore, in the context of receiving quality early childhood development, getting a good start in life is arguably the most important thing for any child. This involves parents and caregivers being knowledgeable and equipped to nurture children at every stage of their development. Holistic as it must be, they must be able to provide a safe and loving environment, stimulate cognitive and linguistic development, transfer meaning attached to symbolism and culture, promote physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, and above all empower children with confidence, creativity, imagination, and a fighting spirit to survive and make their own mark in the world.

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Unfortunately, not all children are planned, and equally parents and caregivers are often not fully prepared, nor may they appreciate their role in laying a strong foundation for later success in life for their children. This does not mean it is ever too late, and it will take time to challenge the prevalent view of centre-based education, wherein caregivers and educators have had to bridge the gap in a lack of households sewing into children’s futures. This could be due to insufficient means, themselves being at an educational disadvantage based on their own upbringing, or else troubled by violence and trauma affecting their ability to care for anyone but themselves. Historic inequality also has a bearing on inter-generational outcomes. Regardless of origin, every child has the right to life, and a living! Lately, the more neuroscientists, educationalists and psychologists discover about the human condition, the more society has become aware of the critical influence played by all chapters in our life stories as human beings. Small things in life can impact on our ability to perform sports, to comprehend mathematical and scientific concepts, and our ability to convey our thoughts in speech and in word.

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Safety, love and open communication between caregivers and children is key! Children need to feel secure and that they belong – this puts off the chances of developing tendencies to be overanxious, subject to peer pressure and making poor decisions, and motivates them to pursue their interests.

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The wellbeing and life chances of children broadly – is neither the concern of parents alone nor of advocates of social justice alone – indeed, all of us have a duty to the next generation, whether these children are ours or not. Over 60% of children between the ages of 0-17 were multi-dimensionally poor in 2015 according to Stats SA, with black African children most affected. 50% of children in South Africa live in conditions of poverty and deprivation below the poverty line. Recently, the number of children in early childhood development programmes has declined post-pandemic. Moreover, according to the 2021 ECD Census, a significant number of ECD centres remain poorly equipped to prepare children in the early learning developmental stages across several metrics, such as infrastructure, utilities, literacy and numeracy tools, and insufficient caregiver skills. The lack of access to a quality ECD services, for those who live in the disadvantaging conditions of poverty and inequality, should concern everyone.

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The most beneficial response to this problem must be to equip parents, especially young mothers, who are often not far off from their own childhoods, with knowledge and skills about ways to parent effectively, nurture children properly, and ensure strong developmental outcomes are achieved.

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Continuing the struggle against gender-based violence, the sexual exploitation of children, and socioeconomic injustice, responsible role-players need to foster better social dynamics.

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Critically for me, our society needs more engaged fathers, modelling sustainable manhood which puts aside the traits of boyhood taking on the duties of what it means to be a man – to promote conversation, justice, courage, wisdom, and timeless values, and to take delight in maturity – providing for and protecting those they love, through strength without force or violence.

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We also need to foster a culture of reading, of furiously devouring knowledge in a world where humans are set to compete with AI, and just for the old-fashioned notion of reading being a tool to open possibilities for being able to travel in our minds to other lands, places, meeting people and learning about so much through the magical medium of words. We need children to look at each other face-to-face again, reduce their screentime, get active as baton carriers of society, not as armchair activists but as volunteers and members of their communities. We need more self-confident children who embody warrior mindsets and are not burdened down with the hopelessness of victimhood identities. Mark my words, “a generation bemoaning powerlessness, will demonstrate no power” – you cannot let fear rule you. Paraphrasing the words of King Solomon, the Buddha, and Marcus Aurelius “we become and are what we think about”. Thus, children and youth should rather entertain nourishing thoughts.

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In my view, parents and caregivers should enforce age-appropriate boundaries for entertainment, film, music and sexual education – to preserve the innocence of children and allow them to find themselves before being bombarded by the complexities and controversies of the modern world. Children should find their value and esteem in themselves as subjects in their own stories, and not objects of other people’s approval or disapproval. This aura of self-assuredness is often founded upon a balanced view of self and a well-rounded upbringing, which emphasised diverse areas of worth and development of all facets of a child’s body and brain to give them the choice of becoming what they want to become.

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Citizens should mobilise for the support of children, better family planning, access to reproductive health services and instruction to prevent teenage pregnancy, and public and private sector donors should invest comprehensive support for breaking generational cycles of poverty and unemployment through forging a future-ready class of youth who are expertly prepared for adulthood. We also need guarantees on free speech for civil society discourse to open dialogue on the topic of how best to raise children and prepare young men and women for lives filled with responsibility, but also joy and happy outcomes. It all begins in the first 1000 days, and from there it is about the course each life takes!

By Struan Robertson

Disclaimer: The views expressed are that of the author alone and written in his personal capacity.

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