Our kids are angry. They wake up and decide to kill each other at school and on the streets.
They form gangs from as young as 15 years. And the parents are blamed for all their nonsenses.
The Constitutional Court thinks that the level of violence these kids exposed to at home is squarely the fault of parents who spank them.
The ConCourt recently upheld the ruling that corporal punishment at schools is a no-no and that that spanking a child is unconstitutional.
After hearing that pronouncement, I could hear my rural elders saying there goes our beloved country and respect.
I had flashes of them when we were discussing the new technologies.
I was telling them why banks are no longer allowing people to bank inside. How the new technology affects them.
In disbelief they were asking, how did we get here?
With this pronouncement, I am sure they asking that same question.
In rural belief, you spare the rod, you spoil your child.
But this is a sensitive topic and I know for a fact that villagers will not allow the law to dictate how they discipline their children.
That is why many parents in the urban areas take their kids back to rural areas when they start to misbehave.
Villages are used as reformatories by many of us. We adhere and listen to laws only in the urban areas.
We do not assume our parental duties and behave like everything is normal.
When things get out of hand we start thinking about our parents back in the villages.
We start believing that back home they will get a proper punishment. We say they will be harshly disciplined.
This how we do not want to assume our parental duties.
When the same kids do not behave back home, the blame goes to the villagers for failing to discipline them. That is how strange we have become.
But this is the topic I perhaps am not qualified to talk about for I have never stayed with a kid.
Here and there I will contradict myself for I was not only spanked but heavily punished for my sins.
I was never lucky to have been a kid that was raised by two parents who thought talking to me was better than using a rod.
The truth is, we parents are losing power to children and it is disturbing to see strangers telling us how to raise our own children.
Now parents have lost the right to raise their children according to their own convictions and beliefs. Parents are treated as if they do not have the interests of their children at heart.
The ConCourt has become the good parent for us all and tells us we were all badly raised.
I will never condone beating or administering harsh punishment to children and I would not like to see children scared of their parents, but I would be happy if they listened and respected them without being spanked. But then again, how possible is that?
We cannot afford to erode the remaining values and respect we have and will need to find effective ways to discipline our children.
The South Africa we are in needs a level-headed parents, parents who will not allow themselves to be provoked by their kids. I call them robot parents.
They will need to be emotionless, good listeners, and smooth talkers. If not, jail is waiting for them. They will become criminals.
But who will them be raising the kids if we criminalise parents?
I am dumbfounded.