“My children won’t grow up in this environment”​ – Words that changed the course of a generation

“My children won’t grow up in this environment,” calmly said my mother to me in June of 1996, while holding my younger siblings’ school report cards. Their performance had dropped drastically! When my mother uttered those words, she couldn’t have known that her future actions would change the fortunes of generations. Over the years, as I learned more about gender equality, I find myself replaying this conversation in my mind over and over.

What environment didn’t my mother want her children to grow up in? Where would she take her children? What would become of them? And what does this have to do with gender equality?

Before I answer these questions, let me tell you about my mother. She was born in the rural town of Qumbu in the Transkei in the late 1940s. Her family was poor and because she grew up under the apartheid system, she was destined to remain impoverished. She beat the odds and studied to become a teacher. She later married in 1972 and gave birth to six children: three girls and three boys.

After staying in Mthatha, my folks moved to Butterworth, a small town that was the industrial hub of the then Transkei government. Here, we lived in the township and went to the local schools. As the years progressed, however, the environment deteriorated at an alarming rate. After 1994, the factories closed, and unemployment was on the up. Unemployment was followed by its evil twin, crime. The streets were no longer safe. Would my younger siblings, be swallowed up by the wave of crime that was starting to sweep through our neighbourhood? Enter my mother with the words quoted at the beginning of this article.

What environment didn’t my mother want her children to grow up in?

In 1993, with her teachers’ salary, my mother was brave enough to buy a house in East London. When she did so, little did she know the storm that was about to hit thereafter. Shortly, the interest rate went up and she took home less than R1000! But, when she saw the neighbourhood her kids were growing up in deteriorate, and the possible fate of my two brothers and sister, she was decisive. My father’s vision for his children was limited to moving them from the village where he grew up, to the township – nothing more. He recognized our abilities and wanted us to excel at school. He was unwilling to go all out and invest in our potential. When my mom analysed this indifference and the neighbourhood’s deterioration, she knew she had to grab the bull by the horn and act. She had little money or means to back this up, but she had the desire. And in December 1996 she relocated with her children. My father stayed behind. Where would she take us?

East London- a land of milk and honey?

Despite not earning much, my mother relocated to her house in East London. The house needed a lot of work. But for us it was the proverbial land of milk and honey. My father didn’t contribute to the basic maintenance and education of my three younger siblings. Many people, turned their back on my mother and her children. It seemed the world, as we knew it, had turned on her because she did an ‘un-African’ thing: she left her husband.

In East London, through her efforts, my youngest sister and brother managed to attend some of the city’s top high schools. My younger brother went to the local Technikon. Who paid for the fees? My mother took an extra job as an adult educator. She taught at night in an informal settlement! This was additional to her travelling over 60 kilometres daily to her full-time teaching job.

Unlike in Butterworth, we didn’t have a car. Sometimes we didn’t have enough food to last us a week! We were in some ways financially poorer and worse off than if we had stayed with our father in the township. We had to catch taxis. But we knew that it was a platform for a great future for us and our children. This was my mother’s promise to us. We did not worry about our future, and being in an unhappy household. We were just happy! We looked to the future with confidence.

Where are we now?

Had my mother not been decisive and removed us from an increasingly toxic and dangerous situation, I shudder to think where some of us would be. Today, we all have tertiary qualifications and make a decent living. My mother has grandchildren who are growing up in beautiful surroundings, some of whom are going to the most prestigious private schools in the country. In fact, she has just welcomed three granddaughters in succession: 2017, 2018 and 2019. They too will grow up in beautiful surroundings and receive good education.

Women’s work and gender equality

The impact of one woman’s decision drastically improved the lives of at least fifteen people. When I tell this story, the initial reaction is to think of her as this exceptional mythical ‘strong black woman’.

She isn’t. She is an influential and decisive leader. She had a vision for her children and was determined to change the status quo. She developed a strategy, provided clarity and direction and led by example through crisis and uncertainty. She was courageous, passionate and confident. She effectively nurtured the strengths and talents of her children and built an effective team. That’s her story.

The best news is that in Africa my mother isn’t the exception. She’s the norm. Across the continent, black women especially, have similar remarkable and sustainable achievements. They’ve demonstrated similar levels of excellence. I’ve heard of how, even from meagre salaries, they’ve raised and nurtured corporate executives. Imagine what they could’ve done with good salaries.

These incredible stories make me ask questions about gender equality. If many men and women are the products of how women’s work leads to sustainable impact, why are we still not achieving gender equality goals? Why must we go to boardrooms and use impersonal statistics to prove that women leadership leads to sustainability? Ironically, these boardrooms are full of executives raised mostly by single women. Why do they need convincing? Aren’t they products of women leadership? Also, why do we spend hours in August, with these beneficiaries of women’s work, convincing them that achieving gender equality can’t be viewed as a stand-alone imperative? Why must we prove that, the work women do normally has positive ripples that transcend generations, when these same executives are the products of that hard work? Why do we have to convince executives- who are products of women’s financial sacrifices – that when women earn better incomes, the health and education of their children improves? Aren’t they themselves proof of this fact? Why, when statistics are quoted, there is overall scepticism of what gender equality, and women empowerment can truly achieve?

In most cases, it’s accepted that first-hand experience provides the best information about what can be achieved in a certain area, except when that area is women empowerment. With women empowerment, the same male executives who are products of amazing women, expect us to provide them with statistical evidence, that proves that women empowerment can build communities. Maybe women –especially black women– need to own the narrative of women empowerment and its benefits. Being ‘humble’ and abdicating the narration of our story to other people is not the best strategy. After all, these people benefit from our labour and the sustainability of our efforts, not being acknowledged. Nobody can narrate our story better than us! Attributing these incredible leadership qualities to “we are just being mothers” is not serving us at all. Also, there is a pile of literature – written mainly by men – listing new ways of effective and virtuous leadership that, after reading you think, these come naturally to most women and we’ve been doing this for years. There’s nothing new nor ground-breaking here. 

Hopefully, sometime in the future, we won’t be required to hold these conversations. Hopefully, women won’t be subjected to sitting around boardroom tables explaining to people, who have first-hand experience of women’s hard work, about obvious outcomes of women empowerment. Hopefully, one day we will have statistics that can measure accurately, the entire spectrum of the impact of women’s hard work and, the sustainability building ways of their leadership.

Until that time though, is my mother’s story and that of countless other women not evidence of what can be achieved, when women are empowered? My mother, protected an entire generation and possible more future generations, by saying and acting on the simplest but most impactful of words: “My children won’t grow up in this environment.” This is a story worth telling. Women leadership leads to sustainability. Period.