Date Posted: 11/8/2018 6:07:22 AM
Posted By: Refjak Membership Level: Silver Total Points: 122
In the recent years the number of girls getting pregnant at a tender age has been increasing at an alarming rate, especially in remote areas. In spite of all the existing awareness programs in learning institutions, churches, mosques, on radios and televisions, write ups on newspapers, social media and even the homes they come from, a good number of girls have failed the test of maintaining purity. They have instead, manoeuvred their way to marriage practices before leaving for their new homes to start life. Instead, young girls of fifteen or below are currently carrying babies as they roam the village looking for casual jobs from which they earn a few coins to feed their babies. And as if there was nothing wrong, a simple research should have introduced you to a great number of infant girls with protruding bellies which told volumes of stories about their sexual behavior. If it is not lust, then there must be another problem whose remedy, our girls think, horizontal business would be the best way to go. Corrupted reasoning!It is pathetic to witness the harsh lives our young daughters face as a result of becoming mothers at a teen age. Offering them with financial assistance, buying clothes for their young ones or taking their kids to school may not be a lasting solution. Cases of early pregnancies should be cut down to merely hearsay in the near future. Believe me you, parents are the problem. Parents need to see where they went wrong because they are the major source of all the fouls that end into their own daughters getting pregnant. Over thirteen thousand girls, for instance, were reported to sit for the 2018 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) while pregnant. A minute investigation will tell you it is only negligence of the parents towards their responsibilities that accounted to this number.As parents, are we responsible of the behavior of our children? Do we monitor their movement, dressing mode and friendship? Do we provide them with their basic requirements? Are we their role models? Or we are the parents whose main work is to give birth into a large number of children and dump them with no one to take care of! The following are a number of areas where parents have to review for the purpose of reducing teenage pregnancies.Discipline The way children keep themselves, where they go and what they do, matter a lot in their lives. Parents need to be careful with what they say and do in the presence of their children. Remember that the discipline of a child will depend so much on the discipline of the parent. Children learn a lot by imitating what they see. As parents therefore, we need to reinforce good behavioral practices which we see in our children and punish the bad ones to stop them immediately. However, a good number of parents have failed to do this. You will find a whole family housed in a single room, especially those in towns. Why shouldn’t children copy and replicate what the father and mother do in the house at night? Don’t they have eyes? Don’t they hear when you talk your partner? Even sharing a house may be tricky! In the rural areas for example, we should stop sharing the same mad house with our children because one day they may peep us through those small holes through the walls.Parents have failed to monitor the movement of their children. And even worse, that of a girl child. It is at those places the girls go after school, in the evenings or over the weekends, where they get the fake lovers who impregnate them. Youthful girls cheat their parents by seeking permission to either go to visit an Aunt or Grandma. They often do it because they are sure there will be no follow up after the permission is granted. The reality is that such visits are usually done to very different individuals. And if for any reason they must be done to the respective Aunt or Grandma, they choose the ones who normally do not administer any restrictions over them so that they are free to accomplish their ill mission. Parents have also failed to monitor the dressing mode of their young girls. Tight and transparent garments which expose private parts may attract men and end into having sex with these teens. This is very common with African teens! The risk in it is unwanted pregnancies and diseases.Basic needsThe responsibility of parents is to provide their children with what they require. Primarily, parents ought to always ensure that there is food on the table. The bitter truth is that the basic three meals a day; breakfast, lunch and supper, is still a dream to a good number of families. Children suffering of hunger go around begging in the villages and in towns. For the girls, opportunistic men promise them heaven in return for sexual intercourse. Have you ever imagined who buys clothes for these poor girls if food is a problem? Where do they get private needs like sanitary towels, perfume, powder and lotion? The iron our parents have is that they sit back and watch the beauty of their daughters without questioning as if it is an investment by angels. Men are always there ready to assist. But they do it with a price. The price is the burden they gift our beautiful young girls by converting them to mothers in their young age.Role modelIn any society there must be some people who possess desirable characteristics which the young can copy as an example. The first people to display such features are parents. Children emulate most of their parents’ traits. Where we fail as parents is that we behave badly ourselves. And as if that is not enough, we do it in presence of the children. Even their absence, the community is watching! Father has a fleet of lovers out there. Mother is in love with a number of men out there. Remember, the society talks about our bad qualities to our children in our absence as parents. So, when they see us they think there is no reason to behave differently from them.Molding children to behave well may prove futile. It would be something to admire if the girl child would be given a good environment to grow into a mature lady before getting married or conceiving an offspring. Let us provide our young girls with their basic needs. Let’s monitor them and show them good example. Parents, it is high time we trace back our responsibilities and save the suffering of the millions of young girls in Kenya and the larger world. For this shall not be in vain, it is a seed of happiness for all us in future!
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