We are, indeed, in a global village, thanks to technological advancement and human development processes. The question that remains, however, is at what cost? In spite of being in a global village, cultures are not merged; they are as distant as there are many races on planet earth.

Other cultures are making attempts at imposing their way of life on others, some subtly and others blatantly. The rich world wants their system of governance for the impoverished ones before they can offer financial or economic support.

The very people who brought the Holy Bible to our shores and forced us to buy into their idea of one man one wife and the Bible edicts of piety and spirituality and marriage between man and woman are the very people who today have legislated same sex marriages. Where does that leave us, if I may ask?

It was Dr. J.E.K. Aggrey who once said that, “if we educate a man, we educate an individual. But if we educate a woman, we educate a whole nation.” I have turned this over in my mind since I learnt of this wise saying as a teenager and still debate in my mind in what context Aggrey made this profound statement. In his day Aggrey knew the men went to fish or farm to provide sustenance for the family, leaving the women to train the little tots.

That was the culture of the family back in the day but would Aggrey revise this statement were he alive today? Dad and Mom are both chasing money through work today, leaving the character training of their children in the hands of househelps or crèche attendants who need character training themselves.

Parents are in a rat race for economic resources to the detriment of the proper upbringing of their children. My father was a storekeeper and my mother was a baker. She baked at home, so her attention was on us while she went about her chores. Her own mother was a housewife. I can proudly say my siblings and I had a solid childhood.

My wife and I were trained teachers, but we agreed we did not need a househelp under any circumstances. It was a shared responsibility and I enjoyed bathing my own daughters when they were barely out of the womb the way I saw my old folks do.

Back in the mid-seventies we had baby napkins folded in a triangle with which their private parts were covered. The child eased herself or urinated in the napkin and I had the duty of first cleaning the faecal matter, rinsing the napkin before washing it clean. Then one had to change the napkin with a dry and ironed one.

We loved doing these things for our children. The effluvia from their excreta and urine constituted the spiritual bonding between a child and the parents who washed their napkins. Very few will appreciate the spirituality in this, but that is what it is. Some of today’s mothers have devised a means of squeezing breast milk into bottles for their babies to be fed with because they have to go to work.

Some smart Alecs have introduced disposable diapers to make things easy for mothers, so the idea of washing soiled baby nappies is gone out the window and with it the spiritual bonding between parents and child. Young mothers just take these diapers off as soon as the babies soil them, wrap them up and throw them away. I have observed some mothers even use hand gloves before they wipe the backsides of their babies clean. The result is children with no affinity whatsoever to their parents. They are just strangers to them as anyone else.

Economic considerations have taken centre stage, pushing our children, who are claimed to be leaders of tomorrow, to the back burner. The children that are fortunate to have their mothers take them to school are still groggy with sleep when they are dropped off at school. Then they are picked home half-asleep.

The way these youngsters are vandalising school property in the country is a symptom of this lack of parental bonding with the children. Nest, these children will set fire to the very house their parents have toiled to build for them because there is no sense of belonging in those houses.

We overlook certain minute but very important and intangible things that build a home, a family, a community and the larger society. Material things should not be the ultimate. What shall it profit parents if they shall chase all the wealth and have children that would not appreciate what it’s all worth? It is like dressing a pig in white linen and leaving it by a muddy pool.

The absence of parental bond leaves space for miscreants to take advantage and influence our children. The internet and its attendant social media are fertile grounds for children to be radicalised in any form. They become drug addicts, peddlers, sex perverts and sex slaves or even religious fanatics. All they seek is attention and a sense of belonging.

There is more to loving our children than buying fancy clothes for them, putting them in the best schools and feeding them the best meal under the sun. Spending quality time with the children when they need it most is the period to know what their honest needs are.

As a people what are our values? I mean the values that make us unique. Our family values that make us bring up our next generation in conformity with our culture and traditions seem to have given way to the acceptance of foreign values that help us in no way except turn us against each other or one another.

If Dr. Aggrey were to come from his grave today, would he make the same statement he made almost two centuries ago? I guess there should be a national dialogue on parenting so we can have a national policy that makes for a shared bonding between parents and their children, thus compelling employers to make arrangements for mothers to have quality time with their families.

Whether we accept it or not, children bond better with their mothers. It is in very rare cases that this role is reversed in favour of fathers. Breastfeeding is the determinant in this regard. If care is not taken, one can only imagine what the next 30 years bode for our dear country. The time to take note is now.

Writer’s e-mail address:

akofa45@yahoo.com

BY DR. AKOFA K. SEGBEFIA