Parenting – they don’t come with manuals

Welcome back and thank you for joining us on this journey.

If this is your first visit on our blog, for a bit of the background and the journey so far, we would suggest that you read first blog post, The Meeting, Ndine musikana wangu (I got myself a girl), Dating & Courtship , Meeting the Families , Cultural Hurdles, FAQ & Wedding Preparations, The Wedding Day Part 1 , The Wedding Day Part 2 , The Rest of the Wedding Day Honeymoon & Early Days 1, Honeymoon & Early Days 2 , Our Encounter with COVID-19 and I’m Pregnant. For introduction of our family and categories of topics to be covered please visit the About Us page.

Parenting is the most challenging and the most rewarding job in the world. It is hard work.

We are no experts in this field but we have decided to share our experiences on our ongoing parenting journey. We will break this topic into 4 different parts – Parenting Young Children; Parenting Teenagers; Parenting Young Adults and Parenting Adults.

Parenting Young Children

When Tim was born, as new happy parents, we didn’t have a plan or structure of parenting. I was on maternity leave for 6 months, which I spent with the baby and was bonding time. In our minds, our roles were to provide for the new baby – food, warmth, shelter – the Maslow’s basics. I was using my experiences from looking after my nieces, but we did not have a structure of our own. We had not read a lot on parenting – we were learning on the job.

Then something clicked. I attended a seminar where training of a child was extensively covered. We bought Bible Stories books. At church, I participated in the children’s department as I would take Tim there. When we moved to Chinhoyi, I became the leader of the children’s ministries department. I came across and ordered some children’s materials from the US, which were free to people living in the developing countries and were also freely shipped. This was a game changer. This was such a mine of resources.

By the time Nomsa was born, we had a well-developed parenting structure. As I went through the same material with Nomsa, it was reinforcement time for Tim.

We were very happy and grateful to God as we got our children – an inheritance from the Lord as highlighted by the Psalmist. During our courtship, we had resolved, most times not even verbally, that we will be committed to create a home that will provide a right environment for our children to grow holistically. We ensured that our children would never question our love for them.

Before our children were born, we had family devotions every morning and evening as a couple and this is something that continues to this day. I would sing to the children; teach them memory verses; tell them Bible stories with the visual aids; lessons that encouraged character traits such as honesty, dedication, love, caring, sharing etc.

Since Jabu’s job was now stable, we decided that I would spend as much time as possible with the children, especially in their formative years. I did have a couple of odd jobs here and there. It was great to see how the children were developing. I dedicated myself to be the best mother I could be to my children, by God’s grace.

Then it was time for us to emigrate to the UK. We didn’t come to this decision lightly. We had fears of how we would raise children in this new challenging environment without as much of a support network as we had back in Zimbabwe. How would this decision affect the value system we were trying to build for our children? (We will cover the emigrating issues in detail in a future blog). As with all decisions in our lives, after agonising prayer and fasting, we applied for visas, were successful and managed to relocate to the UK.

Parenting in the UK

Parenting in the UK needed a paradigm shift. We continued with the basics which were foundational. The rights of the child in the UK are more pronounced than in Zimbabwe. We soon realised that we needed to make some adjustments, especially in the area of discipline. Whilst in Zimbabwe, the use of the “stick” for disciplining is prevalent and sometimes abused, we still emphasised the need of disciplining.

Jabu shared with them a saying that his former High School had drilled into his head in the early 1980s at Nemakonde High School, in Chinhoyi –

“Discipline is doing what needs to be done, when it has to be done, even if you don’t like doing it”.

To help our children, especially the younger one Nomsa, we decided that I would work around her and offer her as much support as she settled down in a new school, new church, new everything. I would do the school runs; take her with me shopping; take her to swimming lessons; drive her to piano classes (I can see Nomsa smiling and giggling – yes, piano lessons).

Nomsa and I would listen to Christian music from my favourite cassettes; some sermons from my favourite preachers. This continued for 3 years until Nomsa finished primary school. During this time, I bonded very much with Nomsa. On reflection putting my life/career on hold whilst supporting my daughter was so much worth it.

I don’t know whether Nomsa still remembers these words, at one time whilst discussing about how some teenagers we knew were going through the rebellious and tempestuous phases of their lives, she reassured me “Mum, don’t worry about me – when I become a teenager I will be well behaved and obedient.” This was such a powerful resolution for a young child to say and she stuck to it.

Parenting Teenagers

Tim and Nomsa became teenagers whilst in the UK. This is the phase where the children start “answering back” to their parents. However, Wim and I respected and welcomes our children’s views, but at the end of the day there was no doubt who the parents were. We thank God that our children respected us so much during this important phase of their development.

This, for most parents, is the most challenging phase of their parenting journey. We thank God that both of our children were not rebellious during this phase. They were different, but none rebelled – they still fully respected us and our views as their parents – and sometimes reluctantly accepted them with a bit of sulking – but as we all know it didn’t kill them.

It was also heartening to find out that they made a decision to be Christians during their teenage years – which Wim and I consider to be the most important decision in one’s life – saying YES to Jesus.

From their early years we emphasised on the importance of education and more so during the teenage years as distractions increased. For me, education was my passport out of the deprived neighbourhood of Gadzema Section. Every opportunity we found especially soon after visit my family home, we would remind them on the importance of education. For Wim education is what took her out of the rural Chiduku.

One area we found so important during this time was the influence of friends. Of course, you do not choose friends for your children, but it was important that we freely discuss our feelings about their friends. I know that we were teenagers at one time ourselves, and we used to go “kumagirosa kunotamba” (hanging out with friends by the grocery’s shop). We thought it was important to know where and with whom our children were with at any one time, especially at this critical phase of their lives.

We are reminded about the counsel that come from the word of God

Do not be misled. “Bad company corrupts good character”.

1 Corinthians 13:33

In our experience, during this time the teenage child would think that their friends are the most important people in their lives. We encourage that as parents, if there is anything that you are uncomfortable with about their friends, mention and do not give up. Some months ago, Wim and I were discussing with our Tim and Nomsa about some of their friends during their teenage years, most of these “most important” friends have since fallen out of favour and are no longer close friends.

In the UK the attractions for teenagers are many and they also have a healthy disposable income from their weekly allowances and/or gifts/presents (birthday and Christmas etc). We quickly perceived that whilst the UK provided so many opportunities, it was also a challenging environment to raise up children.

To help create conducive environment for development of our children, I and a couple of other parents with same aged children decided to start a Friday night youth group meeting in our homes – we the fathers were the taxi drivers, picking and dropping other youths up. The young people would enjoy the fellowship and refreshments that were a permanent feature of these meetings.

We agreed the boundaries of what time children are expected to be home and we enforced that. The child would advise what time we would expect them home. In the few cases they missed those times, they would ring to advise of the delay.

We also even enforced the sanctity of the family circle and confidentiality of family discussions. Respect and love for each member of the family was shown through our demonstration as parents. We encourage expression of affection through hugs and cuddles.

Wim and I reminded our children that we are human and can make mistakes. In that case we would sincerely apologise at the next available opportunity. Yes, we did apologise (and still do) to our children. What was unmistaken at all times was our motive in making our decisions – we wanted the best for them.

One massive benefit for us emigrating to the UK was getting to know our children better. 2004 was the first time only the four of us would stay in our house. Back in Zim we used to live with members of our extended families – brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces and a maid to help with childcare. On average there would be seven of us in our house and at a couple of times we peaked to 10. We are thankful to all we lived with as they had a positive impact and influence on our children. They developed such great bonds with our children which are enduring even to this day.

Then when we were in the UK on our own for the first time, I personally felt that I didn’t know my son that well. Yes, he was growing up well in Zim, but we didn’t have a strong bond. The UK changed that. Once in a while, I would give him a lift to school and pick him up. Tim would come and wait outside my office to catch a lift back home rather get on public transport. We would talk and discuss a number of random topics. We would discuss sport, news, life etc. There was no structure to the discussions, but we were talking about a lot of things.

During this teenage phase, Wim and I noticed that we needed to lead by example at all times more than when they were younger – for example where this came out clearly was whether we should we have TVs in the bedrooms. When this question came up for discussion, after deliberating we (the four of us) concluded that this was not a good idea. TV watching should be a family “event” where we choose what to watch but people would be free to watch their own programmes in the living room. This therefore meant that we would not have a TV in our own bedroom. This has continued up to this day – in our empty nest, there is only one TV connected in our house and it is in the living room.

One habit/tradition we developed in our home back in Zim and up to now was that we have our meals together. Sometimes Wim may have those odd shifts, but we always tried to eat together. Normally we took it as a time to catch up with each other’s days. As parents we needed to ensure that our words are guarded as conversations turn to family and even church members at all times.

Lessons we learnt during these first two phases of parenting

(Numbering of lessons continue from previous blogs)

Lesson 10 – Put Your Family First

While this lesson applies to all our family relationships, we feel that it is mainly magnified in parenting. As parents, we needed to make time and be there for our children, especially in the formative years of their lives. The time you have with your children is limited and very soon your window of opportunity will close, and the power of your influence will fade. Our prayer is that as parents, we should all look back and say, “We have done our best for our children”. We should not look back and regret “If only I had spent more time with my son or daughter.” Someone said that children spell LOVE as “T.I.M.E”

Lesson 11: Discipline is key

Discipline is important and we understood that it was our responsibility as parents to instil discipline in our children – not the school’s or church’s. As parents we could not outsource this important part of child development. Remember the old adage from my high school headmaster, Mr Mukonoweshuro – “Discipline is doing what has to be done, when it has to be done, even if you don’t like doing it”. The children may not like it when it is administered but they will thank you for it in the future.

Lesson 12: Don’t show favouritism

As parents there is always temptation to do this. Wim and I have given each other license to raise any slight sign of favouritism and this has helped us a nuber of times.

Tim used to jokingly say “Nomsa seems to be getting away with so many things that I didn’t”. Our response would be “Son, we are also learning, and we are bound to change from how we treated you – however what drove us then and now is we wanted the best for you two.

Several months ago when we met with Nomsa and Tim, prompted by a cheeky card that Nomsa bought for me which said “Dad, You are one of my favourite parents”, we asked them which one is our favourite child.

Both took a long thoughtful pause and Tim was the first one to say, “Looking at it, I don’t think you have any favourite – you love us the same”. Nomsa concurred. Wim and I were thrilled to hear such a ringing endorsement of our parenting in this area so far.

Lesson 13: Help in supporting decision making

Teenage years are some of the key times when a young person makes decisions some of which will impact the direction their lives take. As parents we helped them make those decisions following simple steps like – gathering all the information on the subject, consider what are the pro and cons, what are the short term and long-term implications of the decisions. Is there any redress should the decision prove not to be the best?

We remember, we had a heated but respectful discussion on choosing GSCE’s – Tim wanted PE, as in his mind he was going to be the next Wayne Rooney. Wim and I didn’t think it was a good idea, especially what was driving him, and thought History was a better option. (As teenagers, sometimes they are not aware of how many thousands of other boys fall by the wayside for 1 “Rooney” who comes out). After seeing how strongly he felt for PE, we let Tim register for the subject on condition that he will apply himself fully and come up with an “A”, which he did.

We also having a custom, even so up to date, that before any important decision, we agree a date to fast and pray for God’s guidance. As a family we believe in the power of prayer – it is so sweet to hear either of them say “Family, can we please have a day of prayer and fasting, as I have this decision to make…”

Lesson 14: We are Teachers

In addition to the teaching that we have summarised above, as parents we have always taken interest in our children’s education. I remember Wim helping Nomsa with her German (not that Wim can speak German – but helping with the spellings etc). As Nomsa started Year 10 I offered to help her with Maths which she promptly accepted. We worked together about half an hour a number of evenings a week. She worked so hard and registered for the January exams, wrote and got an A and didn’t have to write the May/June paper. The following year Nomsa said “Dad, you helped me with my GCSE maths very much; I was wondering if you have thought of helping my friends and others”. That is how 2plus2 Maths Tutoring was born. For the next couple of years I helped some willing children with their maths. It was so fulfilling to see all the students pass their maths exams.

Lesson 15: Encouragers-in-Chief

Wim and I are Tim’s and Nomsa’s encouragers-in-chief. Once a decision has been agreed, we encourage them as they follow through. We see that as our children go through some challenging times in their lives, they need to know that their parents are always in their corner – rooting for them to succeed.

Next week we will continue with our experiences in Parenting Young Adults and Parenting Adults. Please share with others and to ensure that you don’t miss future blogs, subscribe.