On my arrival in the UK a few years ago, one of my immediate observations and concerns as an African pertained to parenting as an African in a Western world. When my wife and I decided to start raising kids, we had to seek counsel from three elderly, African couples about the new phase of parenting we were about to begin. We were really disturbed about how to bring up our children in an environment that feels strange. We needed to learn from those who have had significant success on this journey, having raised cool-headed kids up to teenage and young-adult years. Our primary concern was on how to nurture godly offspring (Malachi 2:15) in the west, in spite of such concerns as secularism which seem to necessitate a different approach to parenting and moral education. Interestingly, these concerns were not unique to us. For instance, an African friend and minister, who also acknowledged the same struggle, shared a story with me about a young couple who had just relocated to the UK and visited his family. They were facing the same fears as they began to consider parenting. At the fore of their unsettled mind was the following query which they directed at my friend and his wife almost in these exact words: “Do you ever feel concerned about raising your children in this country with all the godlessness around?” In fact, it is an attempt to respond to these sorts of agitations that has led me to the following reflections on some key concerns of African Christian parents in the West and suggested some strategies for handling them.
1. The Concern of Spiritual Formation
With the rejection of religious explanations about the world, and its replacement with rational thinking as far back as the seventeenth century, secularism now has a firm grip on the west. Indeed, the influence of Christianity, the church, and other related institutions, is increasingly fading in the region. Church buildings are being converted to other purposes while those left are usually scantily attended by old people. One can also hardly emphasize certain biblical truths, as with marriage and other human relationships, in these societies without running the risk of breaking some law or offending some group of persons. Perhaps the apprehension of African Christian parents is understandable, then. I mean, how do they even begin to compete with the plethora of scientific theories that exist as alternatives to biblical revelations in both formal and informal learning in the west? Will western societies similarly serve as conducive environments for the spiritual formation of their children as spirit-conscious and overwhelmingly religious Africa was for them? I believe one of the ways to mitigate this anxiety is the faith-by-work approach (James 2:18). African Christian parents would need to be deliberate in teaching and showing their wards the importance of spiritual formation in addition to prayers. Indeed, if parents’ commitment to spiritual disciplines is weak or unclear, and if children cannot see the connection between these practices and their total development — as modelled by parents — they may never be interested in or appreciate the essence of spiritual formation. In fact, they may just conclude that the Christian faith is simply an African practice.
2. The Concern of Cultural Awareness
As African migrant children (2nd generation) grow up within a culture largely different from their parents’, another concern arises about how to open the kids up to the richness of their African cultural heritage. This struggle for African parents is real, and further complicated by the enduring ugly myths about Africans and Africa in the west — whether in literature or in oral tradition. These false theories and assumptions, of course, impact greatly upon the 2nd generation migrants who do not often find African culture attractive. In fact, they would prefer to dismiss that part of their heritage at the slightest chance. While I am not discrediting western culture as unhelpful for these kids, my argument is for no culture to position or front itself as being superior to others. I believe the 2nd generation African migrants could enjoy the beauty of African culture while also benefiting from the western thoughtforms with which they daily have direct interaction. So, for the 1st generation migrants who could be the primary source of accurate information about their people to their wards, they may need to intentionally create avenues to discuss (especially their local dialect) and display the qualitative beliefs and practices of their culture more frequently. They may likewise subscribe to educative TV channels about their cultures to corroborate this effort. Of course, there are lots of free YouTube channels today that teach different African languages and basic practices. Parents arranging joint holidays with their wards to their home countries may also be beneficial.
3. The Concern of Moral Values
Where the source of morality is unclear or appears missing, people could comfortably come up with their own versions of truth cum right and wrong, leading to anxiety over moral values. The west seems to fit this description where, again, scientific theories and rational thinking have replaced religious rationale for behaviour and life in general. There is hardly a consistent standard against which truth or morality is measured anymore, unlike in most African cultures where ethical ideas are drawn either from religion or some cultural system of moral education. African communities usually have established mechanisms, figures, images, or codes of excellent character against which behaviours, attitudes, and actions are weighed. For example, among the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, there is the moral dimension of personhood called ọmọlúàbí which represents an ideological being of perfect character. All moral education among these people is geared towards being an ọmọlúàbí. This sort of cultural system for handling and differentiating between good and bad appears missing in the secular west where there is no absolute truth and the concept of right and wrong is relative. With children questioning why they must act in certain ways and who sets those standards of behaviour, teaching or defining good morals, then, becomes a complex parenting task for African parents in the west. However, this challenge could be minimized if African parents are able to effectively attend to the first two concerns of spirituality and cultural awareness. If these frames of reference are introduced and established from infancy, I believe that African Christian parents have a better chance of seeing their children pick up many of the moral values of honesty, bravery, good character, hard work, knowledge of social relationships, benevolence, and others which their cultural (and of course, religious) system of morality emphasizes.
Parenting in the west need not be so much worry for African Christian parents. While I am not attempting to downplay the reality of this challenge, I am equally convinced that African Christian parents do not have to resign to fate, as though there were no ways of coping with the various peculiarities of the west which seem to add to the already complex task and concerns of parenting. By modelling and deliberately teaching the essence of spiritual grooming in addition to demonstrating genuine appreciation and regard for the beauty of their own culture, these 1st generation migrants may just be on the path to allaying their parenting fears.