Our children are our future

As we commemorate Youth Day and celebrate Father’s Day, it’s heartbreaking to learn that there are children in our community who can’t depend on their parents to protect them from the world. They are unable to lean on those who brought them into this world to nurture them into becoming contributing adults.

When a colleague of mine pointed out an advert in our newspaper two weeks back calling for a foster family to provide a “secure and loving” home for four siblings aged between seven and nine months old, it broke my heart. The advert, placed by the Chevrah Kadisha, said it “was optimal for such young children to be placed within a warm family environment”.

Over the years, I have got to know the Chev and those who work there well enough to know that its caring social workers would never want to draw attention to these children if they didn’t feel they had to. But they would do everything in their power to find a loving family to look after them in their time of need.

So, deciding to put such an advert in the paper was a mayday signal from the Chev, and one not to take lightly.

As a mainstream media journalist of many years, I have heard too many devastating stories about the impact foolish or sick adults have had on their children’s lives. So many of those children turn into beautiful adults, but they often do it against all odds. Some don’t manage so well.

Most of them didn’t have the Chev to come to their rescue. And this is the incredible gift of being a part of this particular community.

I have no idea what happened to the parents of those four children. I have no idea what led those four children to the Chev. But I’m so grateful that they are now in the safest and most caring hands.

My instinct was to see if we – as the SA Jewish Report – could help the Chev in its quest for loving, caring foster parents because just maybe we could.

And I have no doubt that the right people from within our community will step forward to help these and other children in need. I also have no doubt that they will shower them with love and compassion for as long as they need it. We are those kinds of people.

As we commemorate the bravery of the youth of 1976, let’s spare a thought for those children we may be able to help today. For some, that may be to foster four siblings. For others, it could be supporting the likes of Amanda Blankfield-Koseff (on this page) in her quest to empower youth through education. It may also be giving a certain amount of money a month to the Chev or another organisation that can help children in need.

We’re fortunate to be a community where we give our children everything we possibly can so they can grow into confident, educated, cultured, spiritually-sound adults. As Jewish parents, we would obviously be proud of them no matter what, but 99.9% of us – don’t hold me to that figure, it’s a guesstimate – will do anything for our children.

However, it happens that there are those adults – yes, even in our community – who stray from the straight and narrow because they are ill or have had a traumatic experience, and they cannot give their children what they need. Often parents or siblings step in or the Chev is brought in to help. The important thing is that those children need to know they are loved and cared for. With that, they can do anything.

In other cases, marriages break up, and so too does the family home. Most former spouses accept that though their relationship may be over, their children still need the love and support of both parents. In these cases, children can more easily weather the divorce storm.

In other cases, there is parental alienation, and one of the parents – most often the father – is no longer involved in the children’s lives. This can be extremely hard for children.

I was so grateful that David Abrahamsohn agreed to write about the importance of dads to sons (see page 7). This is a special kind of bond, one not to be taken lightly.

I believe our children are much smarter than we are and, while so many of us whinge and complain about the situation we’re in, our children absorb what we say and make up their own minds.

When we asked Jewish schools to invite their scholars to write about South Africa’s past and what they looked forward to, I was sure we would read about children wanting to leave South Africa and complaining about the country. However, to the contrary, they all seemed to see a bright future, one in which they participate fully and are responsible for making the country better. As I said, they are wiser than we are. Read a selection of these pieces on page 10.

As always, their contribution is inspiring and a lesson to all of us to make time to listen to them and be guided by them because they will be directing our future and that of our country and community.

And though we can do our best now to guide, nurture, and protect them, as well as give them the love and care they need to develop, we ignore what they say at our peril.

And yes, it’s true, sometimes they show us up to be sexist, too conservative, even potentially racist or any other unsavoury classification we may be horrified to be aligned with, but still, we need to listen to them. Their world is already different to ours, and they are ready for it. While we do our best for them, they are the ones who will guide us forward.

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor