Sudanese Parenting: It Takes A Village . . .

Disclaimer: The thoughts and observations I am about to share are mine and mine alone. They are based on my experiences with the parents and children of the Sudanese Youth camp. There is no assumption that these observations apply equally well to all Sudanese across the globe.

The African proverb, "it takes a village to raise a child," is fully embraced by the Sudanese. There is an unspoken rule that every adult and teenager is responsible for the care and safety of small children, regardless of blood ties. Some of you may remember me talking about 6 month old Gabriel from last summer. Well, he is now a very active 18 month old toddler; cute as he can be, but the moment he is released, he is off and running!! Gabriel had the run of the camp, literally!! His mother and her friend were sitting with Gabriel on a bench outside on the camp ground. He became fidgety and she put him down. He immediately started running and was soon out of her line of sight. I was about to go and collect him when I noticed that every teen that he passed along the way kept a watchful eye on his travels. When he approached danger, someone diverted him from his path or picked him up. The interesting part of this process to me is that his mother did not pause in her conversation with her friend. She was confident that even though he was out of her sight, someone would be watching after him, and she was right. Me?? I get anxious when my 7 year old is out of sight for too long; and when he was 18 months old, this would have been unheard of.

Later that day, some of the local Sudanese families joined us for dinner and evening worship. While at dinner, I watched as a 2-year old diva commanded her father to set her down. Her mother and other women were eating dinner on the patio and were visible through the glass windows of the dining room. Lil' Miss Thang decided to join her mother. She attempted to pull open the heavy glass door leading to the outside. Everyone in the vicinity was aware of her actions but no one offered assistance or intefered. As expected, she got her lil fingers caught in the door and began to scream bloody murder!! No one went to assist her, but it appeared that her mother and the other women were giving her directions on how to get herself out of her predicament. It was only after it was apparent that she would not be able to manage on her own that her mother went to assist. Even then, her mother only calmed and soothed her briefly and then set her back down to continue her explorations.

The following was the hardest lesson for THIS independent American single parent, to observe. Sudanese male children are not directed by females, PERIOD. Not by their mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunties or any person with a vagina!! Remember 18-month old Gabriel? I finally figured out that his mother did not go chasing after him because he is her son. The teens who diverted him were female; the ones who actually picked him up and redirected him, were the males. Women are allowed to guide, but cannot direct males, regardless of the child's age. This unspoken rule of relationships created some stressful times for some of the American female counselors at camp. The young American women expected to have their orders respected and honored by the teen males based on their position as camp counselors. While it is not the Sudanese way to be disrespectful or to overtly defy authority, the boys instead tended to either ignored the women or pretended all of a sudden not to understand English. The louder and harsher the directive, the more passive the resistance. A group of boys were horseplaying in the lake one afternoon. And while I observed them breaking the rules, they got to play an extra 15 minutes, which was the time it took me to locate an adult male. I finally figured out that if I wanted to influence a male's behavior, I needed to get him alone (don't even try it he is in a group of other males), and I had to present what I wanted as a 'request' or 'suggestion.'

Fortunately, or unfortunately for my strong-willed 7-year old American born son, he understood and embraced this attitude waaaayyy too quickly from his mother's perspective. He was increasingly resistant and defiant when I directed him to do something this week. He also wanted to spend more and more time with the males and pretty much ditched me except at meal times, and then, only because I insisted!! All right, all right. I know, I get it. I am a single parent and he does not get enough male influence and guidance on a daily basis; I know he needs it, and so I let him go. I also figured out that I was not doing him any favors by keeping him close to me, as he was losing "face" among the other boys. Case in point, he and his friend Emmanuel, they are 7 and 6 respectively, were playing pool in the game room. A group of older boys (about 10 or 11) came in and tried to muscle the young ones out. Emmanuel's response was to fight and my son started crying and ran to me to rescue the situation. At the time, I was sitting with a grandmother and an adult male. My son ran up to us crying as if he had sustained a mortal injury. As soon as we figured out what had happened, the grandmother turned away and dismissed the situation and the adult male waved him back to the game room. You KNOW, I wanted to go in that room to "handle" this problem for my child, right? Well, fortunately, I've been paying attention. I told my son that he had to go back in that room and take his table back!! I told him to look to how Emmanuel handled the problem and I told him in my African American way, "don't let ANYONE punk you out!! Go get your table!!" He sniffed for a second, girded himself up and returned to the game room. I got a brief glance of approval from the grandmother and adult male; but I gotta confess. I got up a few minutes later, just to see the outcome. I found a way to look into the room without being observed by the children. Whatever my son did apparently gained him respect because they were all playing together peacefully, and then spent the rest of the night with each other.

So, what am I going to keep and what am I going to let go? I believe the Sudanese parenting styles of letting children learn about their environment the hard way was likely influenced by the harsh environment that the parents grew up in. I don't think I'm quite willing to let my son accept ALL of the natural consequences of his environment quite yet, but I do think I can let out the apron springs a bit more than I have in the past. I also want my son to learn to be a man, that is, I want him to know that his role is to provide for his family and not to expect that women will take care of him. I want him to learn that his role is to be the head of a household and to really understand what that means. That is, not to boss women or try to control them, or to view them as mere sexual outlets, but to be able to love, honor and cherish women and to recognize their value in his household. Towards that end, I can see some value in the Sudanese way of not allowing women to direct men and allowing men to learn about manhood from other men. I am a very directive parent; this probably developed from having to assume both roles of mother and father. But I don't want to give my son a distored view of the male/female relationship. I'm going to do my best to back off on the directives (for those of you who know me, you know this will be a challenge, so please PRAY FOR ME, for strength!!). I also plan to seek out more opportunities for my son to spend time with healthy male role models.