South African families – and the African culture
Family structures define our personalities and our values
With modernisation – we think of families in the western world context. The mother and father who live in a house until the kids reach adulthood then they move out.
Our African forefathers had a very different idea – and we can learn a lot from them.
In English we say ‘cousin’ and ‘niece’ and ‘nephew’. In Afrikaans it’s ‘neef ‘and ‘niggie’ – but these words don’t exist in the African languages. In an African language a cousin is considered a sister or brother.
The African cultures embrace their relations and treat the extended family as their own. A family is the greater unit of relations. They live together, granny looks after the children when mommy is out working. The kids running around in the village fields playing together and after supper the grandfather sits around the fire telling stories to the children
The African people have a word called UBUNTU – Ubuntu is a word of ancient African origin meaning ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’
Ubuntu is the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. We are all interconnected. You can’t be human all by yourself, and your family plays a crucial significant role in Ubuntu.
In fact if we apply the Ubuntu philosophy to everyday life – it means we treat everybody as if they are our own family. We should trust each other and lean on each other as if they are our family. As well as love each other, protect each other as if they are family.
If we applied this philosophy of families and Ubuntu we could transform our societies.
Another interesting fact – I is said that there is no word for STRANGER in the African dictionaries
The old African proverb sums it up perfectly – ‘It takes a village to raise a child’
The meaning of the proverb ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ is simply that. It takes more than one person to teach a child the ways of life. A child comes upon many different experiences and circumstances during their life and often times, is taught by someone else the right and wrong thing to do.
This post was shared this the on SMILE 90.4 fm Thursday breakfast show with Bobby Brown and Tracey Lange. For more weekly Awesome discussion tune into SMILE 90.4 fm every Thursday morning at 7.10am. or listen live via live streaming.
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