The Dilemma of African Parents in America.

Parenting, in the African society can be illustrated by the work of a blacksmith. Seeing the potentials in a crude iron, a blacksmith resolves to make something good out of it. To achieve this, he subjects the crude iron to a painstaking process that ultimately ends in its transformation into a useful implement or tool. If only the crude iron could talk while the torment lasts!

Africans see parenting as a labor of love, a bitter-sweet task that must be done in the interest of the child’s future. I remember growing up in a home where the kids were subjected to a high regimentation. Outside the home was not better as my actions and movements were also under the watchful eyes of the other parents in the neighborhood. The situation was so tough that I couldn’t wait to get into a high school that was equipped with a boarding house where I expected to be “free”. When my parents heard about my expectation, they simply shook their heads in pity at my abject ignorance.

My subsequent attendance of a high school that had a boarding facility was like “jumping from a frying pan into fire”. In the Nigeria of the 1970s, a high school boarding house was a sort of boot camp where students were made to respect every constituted authority. The very first lesson I learned was that one year seniority was enough for a fellow student to earn “sir” or “ma’am” from me. And so till this moment, it has never been a problem for me to address a boss, subordinate, colleague or even a total stranger as “sir” or “ma’am”.

There were so many aspects of my boarding house experience that shaped my life and still guide me till date. Among them was the rule of “punctuality at all calls”. Since my graduation from high school, I find it rather easy to be punctual at every appointment, personal or official. And till now, I have never had to depend on an alarm clock to wake up. It’s normal for most Nigerian parents to relax the regimentation after a child graduates from high school because they know the child has “been made” into an adult. 

It’s however a different “ball game” for Nigerian, nay African parents in the United States. Statistics show that in the advent of relocation to the United States, most African kids in their formative years experience a culture shock at the unbridled freedom thrust into their hands. As for the parents, it’s often an understatement to describe the challenges with which they are soon confronted as horrific.

Raising kids in Africa is completely different from achieving the same task in God's own country. A typical African parent knows that raising kids in America is like having a tooth pulled without the benefits of anesthesia. The practical side of this situation can be demonstrated in the following letter written by one Kathy Carpenter of Newark, Delaware as published in The News Journal of May 12, 2006. Titled “Defiant Children and Outside Interference Thwart Mother”, the letter goes this way:

I would like to respond to a letter about parenting.
If my 14-year-old son stays out late, I cannot legally grab him by the hair
and force him into my house or tie him up to keep him home.
He can leave whenever he chooses and the state and schools
make sure he is aware of it.

At age 12, my daughter asked me to put her on the pill.
I gave her my reasons for not doing so.
A woman from Family Services (contracted by the school)
came to my home, listened to my reasons and proceeded to
tell my daughter that she did not need to get my permission
or even inform me that she is going on the pill.
I immediately showed her the door.

If my 16-year-old son does not want to go to school,
he can’t withdraw until age 18 without my permission.
However, if he just doesn’t go, there are no consequences.
Truancy laws and courts are for children 15 and below…

To raise a child under this type of circumstance can be quite daunting for an African parent who was brought up with the notion that total freedom is like a red, hot charcoal. It takes maturity to effectively figure out a way to handle a hot charcoal. It’s no wonder therefore that too many teenagers and young adults with unregulated freedom are “getting their fingers burnt”. And there are several correctional facilities (both for adults and juveniles—filled to the capacity) to show for this situation.

A rigid imposition of African values (even as great as they are deemed) on a child raised in the United States can lead to complicating, if not fatal consequences. It's therefore imperative for African parents to find an effective yet legal avenue to blend the core African values with the prevailing cultures in their adopted homeland.

This was a lesson that came rather too late in August, 2005 for New York-based Dr. Joseph Kazigo, who worked at Nassau University Medical Center as an emergency room physician. This brilliant African went through “thick and thin” to train as a medical doctor. And in the true African tradition, he must have envisaged his kids achieving equal or greater feats. But what did he get? A son who was just starting out in college at the age of 26 when most young people at that age would have obtained their Masters, if not Doctorate degrees.

Kazigo’s son accused his father of applying corporal punishments on his children when they were “growing” up. The same father was accused of insisting that his household participated in regular work-outs in a bid to avoid the danger of cholesterol and other consequences of a sedentary lifestyle. To his son however, these were grievous crimes and for which the hardworking father must pay dearly.

For an African child, parents are next to God in reverence. For instance, it’s considered a sacrilege for a child to slap his or her parent. In Kazigo’s case however, his son did not just slap him around. The young man waited till his father, tired from the day’s job, was fast asleep and he bludgeoned him to death! Afterward, the corpse was dumped in a shallow grave. 

That was the price Dr. Joseph Kazigo paid for trying to prepare a better future for his children in America. In another case which was far less tragic, a Nigerian professor in New Jersey knew his two children were doing well in a Nigerian high school. He however went ahead to bring them over to the United States with the hope of a better education and, of course, to pursue the American dream. Unfortunately, the kids got neither. They had barely arrived their new environment when they changed from good to bad.

All of a sudden, they began to question the rights of their parents to tell them what to do. And worse, they developed an “entitlement attitude”, expecting every one of their demands to be met. They realized that they didn’t have to go to schools if it didn’t suit their fancy and their parents had no rights to force them. And they also realized that they didn’t need their parents’ permissions to associate with whomsoever they desired—irrespective of the other persons’ negative tendencies. Whenever the parents attempted to “put their foot down”, the kids would cite the American constitution and threatened to call the police. One day, their father called their bluffs but the response he got was grossly chilling. Smiling mischievously, the older child threatened to lie to the authorities that the man was abusing his daughter. And that put paid to the constant bickering. 

Soon, the girl was lured away from home and into prostitution by a pimp while the boy got involved with a drug gang. The girl has since been in and out of correctional facilities while the boy now has a permanent home in jail after committing a capital offense.

The educational and economic opportunities available to a child in the United States are vast. But there are a lot of moral, social and legal factors that should be considered by every African parent who desires to bring those of their kids who are still in their formative years.