I was 30 and in therapy when it hit me how surface level the relationships in my family were (Windrush gen grandparents from JA, parents born here). Generational emotional neglect ties in here. My mum and her siblings never reached their full potential because there was no guidance from my grandparents. My mum in turn needed reminding what courses my sister and I were studying at university or where we were working because she had no real interest in knowing. My own experience has been going through life on my own, now mid-30's and still thinking I don't actually know what I'm doing on top of unpacking all of the trauma. It's painful.
6 months ago (edited)
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Can we add the struggle culture too? I think the most toxic part of black parenting has been this “I struggled, so you should to”. Even if our parents have been successful they don’t want to pass the torch or give a foundation as a spring board so each new generation has to start from -1.
6 months ago (edited)
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💯 agree. In many of these cultures, children are nothing more than an insurance policy regardless of the challenges their offspring are going through
6 months ago | 5
Absolutely brother! This is also why I personally believe that us British-African and also Millennial aged parents are the best and will hopefully break the spell! I couldn’t imaging raising my son how I was raised! In fact, I think I’ve subconsciously used parts of my upbringing as a guide to what NOT to do!
6 months ago | 3
In total agreement with this statement. The parents may supply the basic needs, however a great deal of dependence on schools left the life lessons to 'trial-& error.' 🙏
6 months ago
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Keep spreading this important information. We've neglected to recognise and correct these behaviours. You see the results among the current young generation. The dysfunction started earlier in their parents generation though. Abdicating parental responsibilities to the state hasn't played out well for us ❤️
6 months ago | 3
Great post. This is very true. If this is a live discussion, I would join in
6 months ago | 1
Yeah it's wild, as other cultures refer to food, housing and shelter as the bare minimum parents are supposed to provide.
6 months ago
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Absolutely agree. This is a very valuable insight I look forward to hearing more on.
6 months ago
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Exactly. The main purpose of parenthood is to instil morals and values in the next generation and prepare them for success. Too many parents do the bare minimum and society is now flooded with people who can’t conduct themselves respectfully and don’t care about anything or anyone.
6 months ago
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Excellent analysis 👍 At some point you may want to consider putting these videos into a lecture series and hiring a room in London where you can disseminate the information and have live group discussions
6 months ago
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I agree and the school being responsible for a child's formal education is wild BS
6 months ago
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Ely, I think you might want to consider writing a book on this topic. You are onto something that I've been contemplating for years! 💯🎯 And notice how many parents wilk use the "I put food on the table" as a form of emotional blackmail when their parenting skills are questione
6 months ago (edited) | 2
Well said the parent are the first force of good against the divide and conquer that we Africans have been subject to.
6 months ago
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Great post Ely! You have articulated what most of us have subconsciously known for a while now. Please write a book on this on how we can turn it around for future generations 🎯 🙏
6 months ago | 0
I agree, but a lot of parents were 1st generation immigrants trying to adapt to a new culture and work several jobs to survive. Usually in their native countries everyone chipped in when or came to raising children.
6 months ago
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It’s been a problem for years, Totally agree. Looking forward to your video on this topic
6 months ago (edited)
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Ely Wananda
Many Blacks folks in the UK and elsewhere have a dysfunctional philosophy of parenting. This philosophy is that parents are just meant to feed, clothe and shelter children. Actually guiding children through life is someone else's responsibility. So things like teaching children about personal finances, physical and mental health, relationships and sex, all that is the responsibility of "society." This helps to explain why many Black parents (not all, but a large proportion) never have deep conversations with their children. It's all superficial. They don't take the time to actually know their children, to learn their character, their strengths, weaknesses, their interests, their ambitions, etc. And thus they can't guide them through life's various twists and turns. As a result, children must learn about life from "society." And "society" is what, exactly? It's the streets, the school playgrounds, social media, p*rnography, etc.
As children progress through the education provided in these spaces, they develop different personas. At home, they come across one way - respectful, studious, etc. But outside of home, they have different personalities, different names, different ways of speaking, etc. For too many of them, this other world is an extremely nihilistic and violent one. The crazy thing is, these youths actually tell us about this other world through music. They're actually bragging about all the madness they are engaging in. Something like drill music is basically propaganda. It's PR for these youths, denigrating their rivals, bragging about successful hits against them, etc. And of course, this music gets widely promoted nationally (and internationally) because apparently Black youths killing each other always makes for great music to dance to.
Parents either don't know this other stuff, or they don't care about it. Either way, a large share of the responsibility for what these youths are doing falls on the parents and other elders/caregivers. And I think that the philosophy of parenting is at the root cause of this failure. So I hope to dig into this a bit more in future videos once I've chewed over it a bit more.
6 months ago | [YT] | 186