A CRY FOR HELP

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The conversation started like all my other welfare checks with my patients. a hello here; a hi there, how are things going? At some point during our conversation, she broke down in tears. For minutes, she sat there and just wept. The tears kept pouring out. It was as though someone had opened the floodgates. It was obvious that she had many things bottled up, and these were weighing her down. Perhaps crying could help flush some of it out.

I was taken aback by the suddenness of her tears, but I comforted her as best as I could, and then, the story tumbled out. She was a child caught between two warring factions – her parents. To make matters even worse, she loved them both. Moreover, she did not know which side to join. Her growing, tender mind was exposed to all the accusations - the cheating, the lying, and the horrible words her parents were throwing at each other. It was as though they could not care less about the pain they were causing her, or more like, they were unaware that she was even there. As though she were just one of the walls in the house. This has been going on for a long time. She hardly found them together at home. If she did, the atmosphere was charged. It was like gasoline in a can awaiting a spark. The whole place would be on fire with the exchanges.


They simply were not concerned about what was going on in her life. She would, on most days, wake up when they had already left for work, and they would come home late when she was asleep or about to. For as long as she could remember, that had been the pattern. The house help raised her. She felt like a burden to her parents. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t been born, and had thought of running away several times.

                The scenario above is more common than you think, and it raises several questions. Why bring a child into this world if you’re unwilling to be a parent? Why call yourself a parent if you’re uninterested in what is going on in your child’s life? How can you not know that your actions and reactions will affect your child? How do you see only the negative and never the good in your child? How do you prioritize chasing dreams and prestige over the welfare of your child? How do you call yourself a parent if all you do is provide materially for the child? What about emotional health, spiritual health, social health, and mental health? How can you not pay attention to these? And for fathers, how can you get comfortable with the thought that only mothers raise children? Children need their fathers, too! Are you surprised by the moral decadence in the youth? Did you expect anything different when parents are never home? Or even when at home, they are never truly present, their attention captured by gadgets, whether phones, tablets, or computers.

                We are in a different era from when we grew up, and parents must recognize that we cannot parent without knowledge and expect to succeed. Children and the youth of today have access to so much information now – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Several vices, including pornography and gambling, are but a click away on their devices. The same devices that parents have bought for them, but have failed to regulate their use, and it is clear that many parents are not interested in what their wards are doing online.

               


This is an appeal to parents and guardians. The world is moving fast, and our children are growing even faster by the day. We must be intentional about parenting. Parenting can be daunting, no doubt. But remember you have the best parent, God, to guide you; you only have to ask him. Additionally, there are support systems available, like parent groups and seminars. Some of these can even be accessed virtually. A lot of children and young adults are grieving and get involved in all forms of vices because these vices provide an avenue of escape. Be the parent who is active and involved, not the one who is sleeping on the job and never there for their child, before you get a rude awakening. A word to the wise, they say, is enough.


Dr Gloria Amponsah-Kodua

Paediatrician

Acknowledgement

Dr Akosua Omenaa Boateng

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