OUR CHILDREN ARE WILLING TO TALK IF WE ARE PREPARED TO LISTEN

Dr. Tesfa G. Gebremedhin

West Virginia University

I have conducted many seminars on “Youth and Parents Relationships and Building Communities” to the Eritrean Communities and Orthodox churches in Seattle (2), Berkeley, Oakland, St. Paul/Minneapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Flint, Raleigh, Washington, DC., Silver Spring (Maryland), San Diego, and Ottawa, Canada. In my seminars our children have asked me many outstanding questions and expressed their concerns about the kind of misunderstandings they have experienced in their relationship with their parents. I have learned from these series of seminars that although we have a lot of similarities as Eritreans, we are not a monolithic society. We are people of diverse social and cultural values, behavioral characteristics, and professional skills. Some of us are highly educated and raise our children in the American or European lifestyles, but the children are still devoid of their cultural heritage and social values. Others may have a preponderance of single-mother families though doing their best are more likely to encounter serious problems with their children mainly due to lack of a father image in the household. Still others may be in large numbers who came in mass as refugees and do not even speak English properly, making it hard for them to communicate with their children and understand their feelings and emotions. I have talked to many children and learned interesting lessons from them. I am going to give a short account below on some of the concerns I have collected from these children.

Our children have indicated to me so many times that parents are not around when the children have problems. In fact, they said that some of the parents start to become fathers when it is too late. They told me that parents do not usually make time for their children, but on the contrary they talk politics for hours with their friends and counterparts. The children also complain that parents usually talk; they do not listen. Our children complain that they can not speak freely because they are afraid of parents’ negative reaction and parents do not try to understand the side of their story or what they are going through in life. Parents do not realize that listening is the first rule and the initial step of effective communication and the foundation for mutual understanding. Parents do not have patience and get upset over petty things because (they said) many parents do not trust their children. Parents use some discouraging words and name calling without understanding the consequences on their children. Our children really wonder why parents want their children to be honest and truthful when parents themselves are not honest and truthful. That is why to many of our children home is a hell instead of being a refuge and a place of love and caring. This is an important area where a political obsessed Diaspora community misplaced its family priority. A Japanese proverb states, “When you are dying of thirst, it is too late to think about digging a well.” Likewise, we need to spend some time with our loved ones before it is too late, because they are not going to be around forever. If they are fortunate enough to jump the hurdles of life, they grow up and get married and have families of their own.

Our children volunteer to admit that sometimes they become irresponsible, trouble makers and rebellious with outlandish hairstyles, baggy clothes, ridiculous tattoos, and bad attitudes. They listen to loud and vulgar music, slam doors in our faces and talk back to us with anger and defiance. They also know that they are sometimes self-centered and moody due to hormonal changes during the transition from puberty to adolescence. They become engaged in frequent argument by challenging parent’s authority which is a sign of developing intellectually and testing their mental powers. They believe that their parents are old-fashioned, conservative, out-of-touch with reality and live in the old days. Since our children are caught in conflict between two cultures, we think that our children do the most outrageous things because we judge them against the standards of our social values and cultural practices. I think we fail to realize that all the things that they do are part of growing up and we need to develop thick-skin for patience and tolerance and to create an environment where we can listen to them and understand where they are coming from. It is evident that whatever makes us good parents makes them good citizens. Conversely, they can not be good citizens if we are unable to be good parents.

Our children told me in many occasions that they are often afraid to seek help from their parents when they are in trouble because of the stigma associated with whatever the cause of the problem and also due to lack of a good relationship for effective communication. They feel more comfortable talking to their friends (peers), or even choose to reach out to a perfect stranger, or out of desperation, they resort to drugs and harmful activities in order to alleviate their anxiety and depression. For example, one bright and intelligent teenager I met in Ottawa during my seminar expressed her frustration to me about the inability of teenagers to talk to parents about sex. She explained that whenever they ask their parents questions about sex, the parents always prompt to assume that the teenagers are in some kind of trouble and become hysterical and negatively react over nothing. She added that parents should also assume that teenagers can ask questions to understand and know things about sex not necessarily that they are in trouble, but to protect themselves from any danger detrimental to their lives. She said, “Talking and discussing about sex and related issues prevent us from getting confused and making bad choices. We can not live in this troubled silence of sex for ever, the parents have to change themselves because the only thing they can do to change our society is by changing themselves individually at home and collectively in their communities.” I have also learned from her that we (parents) must be the change we all (parents and children) want to be because one who races alone outruns nobody. Thus, we all (parents and children) need to run together to create a good Eritrean society in Diaspora.

Most Eritrean children in Diaspora wonder and get confused about their parents who are engaged in useless political campaign against each other. They have indicated to me that their parents have inflicted a serious crime on them. One young girl from Dallas eloquently explained in my seminar that many parents are divided into several groups. One group does not talk to the other group. Individually they never visit each other in any kind of occasion as they used to do. All these polarizations happened due to their political quarrels and squabbles. Consequently, they prevented their children not to interact with each other because they think that the children of one group may corrupt the children of the other group. She explained to me the reason why they go out with guys of other ethnic group. “If we get pregnant and marry somebody else outside our society,” she said, “Don’t blame us, you better blame our parents who do not want us to interact with our own brothers and sisters.” In year 2004, not less than four Eritrean young girls married openly with big wedding ceremonies to non-Eritreans in Dallas. I have also learned from our children in the United States that many unwed Eritrean teenagers become pregnant and have children from non-Eritreans. There are alarming statistics which indicate that a significant number of our children have made bad choices and have taken the wrong turn in their lives. If the current trend continues to the future, it will highly be difficult to expect that we will have children and grand children who claim to be Eritreans in Diaspora.

Our children at every age have a lot of questions to ask if we really have two ears to listen and open minds to discuss with them. I was challenged by a ten year-old boy in San Diego when I emphasized to them that they have to talk to their parents at any time and situation. The boy raised his hand and asked me an important question. He said, “How can we talk to our fathers if they leave home early in the morning and come back home late in the evening when we are still in bed?” He added, “If we get in trouble when we become teenagers, as you indicated to us in your seminar, do you blame us or our parents?” He was telling me in his own perspective that our children are growing up without parental care and love. I told him that I don’t dare to blame anybody because there is a logical explanation to the situation. I told to the child, by being sensitive to the plight of many parents, that the fathers leave early and come back home late because perhaps they have to work long hours in order to put food on the table. However, was my answer a good excuse for every Eritrean father? I believe there are some fathers who have to work long hours in order to take care of their families, but I dare to say that they can still manage their time and coordinate their work schedules in order to have a little time with their children. I am sure there are also other fathers who work long hours just to compete with others in buying a two-story house in America or a ground plus house in Asmara. While my fellow country men and women are busy building houses here and there, the children are left out in the woods with no guidance and direction and lost for ever.

We need to lead our children by examples. We should be the heroes and role models of our children. My father, a simple small scale farmer was my hero and role model from whom I have learned wisdom and wit. Our children also try to emulate us and would like to behave like us. What we always do is considered right because in their own thinking we are not supposed to make mistakes, but do the right thing. However, a sharp young girl from Seattle said to me with all frustration, “Why do our parents complain about our fashion fades and make-ups when our own mothers decorate themselves with all types of gold plates worn for personal adornment and look like walking and glittering Christmas trees.” She added, “How do they expect us to act and behave quite differently when we are growing up observing our fathers smoking cigarettes and smell like a chimney and drinking hard liquor till they are intoxicated? As children are we not supposed to learn the good and the bad at home from our parents?” The young girl told me that they have been growing up following the foot steps of their parents. It is difficult to expect the fruit to be good if the seed is not good at all. As the Italians say, “Tra el dire e il fare c’e dimezzo il mare,” meaning there is a big distance (as big as a sea) between what we say and what we do. We say a lot of things that may seem right, but our deeds are quite the opposite of what we say. The young girl is right when she explains the double standard of parents. I believe our children are supposed to be groomed and nurtured by their parents to develop self-confidence and decision-making and problem-solving skills that enable them to protect themselves in this strange world.

The core cause of our problem with our children is obviously lack of viable and formidable Eritrean Communities that can bring us all together and learn from each other in raising our children together. We need to understand that we have our own distinct cultural heritage with specific languages, traditions, and know-how, which naturally leads to diversity of vision, social values, beliefs, practice and expression. Our identity emanates from our traditions and cultural heritage. Our rich cultural diversity, which is our collective strength, should be used to ensure our own identity and enhance the progress of our communities. Our cultural treasure, indeed, is about our plurality of knowledge, wisdom and energy which all of us can contribute to improve the welfare of our children and move our communities forward. We are a small society made of many colors and cultures and our unique diversity should bring us together and enrich our lives as Eritreans in Diaspora. Thus, every one of us at any level can be great because every one of us can serve our own society; particularly our own scholars and professional elites should have the initiative and commitment to make a difference in our Eritrean communities by setting a good example and becoming role models to our children.

We should be aware that our children are always thinking of us because they love us; they want to talk to us and play ball with us; they want to hold our hands and walk with us; they always want to be with us because they miss us; they want to be thankful for the support we provide to them; they want us to be the shoulder to lean and cry on; they want us to find them when they are lost in the wilderness; and they want to give us a gift of pleasure from their heart because they are the gift of God. Let us never take away our children's hope because that may be all they have right now. Some of us may say that we don’t have children, or our children are all grown up and think that it does not concern us. But, we need to remember that what happens to the least of us happens to the rest of us because we are all one society of one nation.

As matured and civilized people, if you have sensible comments to make about my short article, my email is tgebrem@wvu.edu. It is also noble to share your perspective to your fellow Eritreans by sending your responses to the web sites. Thank you and God bless us all!