I read a post on Facebook by Victor Daniel, where he spoke of how social media teaches us a lot about different cultures, how they work, and how we can simply decide to adopt them, but doesn’t tell us the unfortunate truth, which is that our society as Africans may not allow for these adopted cultures to thrive.

It reminded me of an exchange I had one time on a radio show. The topic was child abuse or child labour (I can’t remember now). They stretched child abuse all the way down to cases where children would return to school, and while some had enough time to do their homework and rest, others would be made to assist their mothers at work. And this was some kind of abuse; emotional, psychological, physical…

Everyone who called kept saying it needed to be abolished. Eventually, I decided to call. I suggested that we, as Nigerians, should be willing to condone or allow certain practices for the meantime, not because they’re ideal, but because we can’t have it any other way. This allows us to focus and curb the menace one step at a time, starting with the most extreme forms like hawking for children, those being starved and maltreated, and so on.

Everyone else that called after came for my head. They said I was privileged and, therefore, could not understand the plight of some children. I no drag am.

Now, here’s the puzzle. I know of many children who had to help out around their parents’ businesses every day after school. Most times, in such cases, you would see that the parents (mostly widowed mothers) were obviously stretched to their limits. If they could do all the work themselves, they’d do it and let the children be. But they can’t. And these shops pay the children’s school fees, feed them, house them. They need to stay open.

How do they absolve the kids of this responsibility? The parents can’t do it alone. Who would help them? They can not employ an adult and pay his/her wages either. Money no dey; na why them de suffer in the first place. What other option is there?

Bring another person’s child from the village and make him/her do all the work so you don’t abuse your children? Because that’s not child abuse?

If we truly can not find an answer to this puzzle, then this is what to take away from it. It’s good that we’re learning and getting exposure, but we must also understand that everything will not change overnight just because we have new information. It takes work, gradual work, and understanding. Every woman is not out there looking for ways to abuse her children. Learn to see through their eyes as well.