Child licenses

Just recently I have had cause to question the ability of the human race to rear children decently and responsibly. I therefore propose that we implement legislation to enforce child licenses. Psychiatric evaluations, home inspections and competency tests should be compulsory on prospective parents to ensure that children brought into this world are brought into it by loving caring people who will give children stability and love.

It’s difficult to adopt a kid, right? There are all kinds of procedures involved to ensure that the orphaned child in question doesn’t end up being abused by the adoptive family, trafficked into a child sex ring or enslaved. So where are the checks on people who just go the easy route and just manufacture them themselves?

Unless you are Angelina Jolie or a person who is infertile but really desperate to have a child, you are not going to adopt. Why go through all the trouble and paperwork to prove that you would be a fit parent when you could just knock yourself or your partner up?

The sad reality is that all the sick paedophiles and child abusers out there are parents themselves and are quite happily using their own children as punching bags or pawns in their little sick games. So if we are really so concerned about preventing child abuse, why not implement child licenses?

The social services in any country can only step in AFTER some kind of terrible, noticeable abuse or neglect has taken place. The damage is already done by that time. There is no cure for a child who has been abused, so why are we not paying attention to prevention?

Children grow up to be the society of tomorrow. Today’s society is already filled to the brim with the damaged children from yesterday’s abuse.

Ashes of a woman

She bears the burden no man can know. Her hands, dry and cracked from her toil, move busily as she bends over her ceaseless work.

A nursemaid, caregiver and nurturer to her children, constantly on call day and night, worrying, fretting, preparing. Wiping tears from their eyes when the children fall, dispensing wisdom, nerves fraying at silly questions and chores not yet done. Mending clothes, stretching the food, making do when all she wants is a time to close her eyes and be at peace.

Her own tears fall when solitude eventually finds her in a woozy, exhausted state, but there is no-one to wipe them from her eyes. As she pours the warm water from the cracked jug over her ravaged body, her mind still races with the thoughts of the children she must feed and shelter.

There were times when she thought that surely death would be a welcome reprieve from the endless violence, the humiliation and the pain of bruises and shattered bones left to heal themselves. From the pain of the petrol he poured onto her body and set alight, laughing at the sound of her screams of agony and the sight of her begging him for help.

She sees it anew as though it were yesterday. Feels the excruciating coolness of the water her son throws on her burning, smouldering flesh. His anxious young voice cracking with pity and despair. Being rushed to hospital and waking up with only memories of pain where her legs once were.

The police want her to lay a charge against him but her children beg her to spare their father. As always, the mother’s heart, not blackened by the flames that licked her flesh, succumbs to their pleas.

A burnt shell, she arrives back home to find out he has left her and is living with another woman nearby. Oh Allah, why do you test me with such hardship? How can I bear so much pain? Where is Your mercy? I am Your servant. Deliver me from this torture!

The wheels of the low metal trolley squeak and turn with excruciating heaviness as she uses her rough hands on the hard tar to propel her along the road. Each day she pushes herself into central Johannesburg to buy the brooms and mops she sells from her home to support her children. She does not complain any longer. She is still a woman, looking after her children, like all other mothers do. So does the phoenix rise from the ashes of violence.