Parenthood

Raising children back home is easier than in Canada. You can leave them at home by themselves and nobody controls your kids except you. There are no hazards to worry about when your kids are alone. Even when they are a young age, still they help you a lot and most people can afford housekeeping and a nanny because they aren't expensive. You get help a lot from your family or relatives.

If you compare kids from Canada to back home the way they act is very different. The kids from back home act mature but the kids from here act immature even when they are older than the kids back home. Raising kids in Canada is very hard and very expensive. You carry them like your handbag everywhere you go and if you are at home they hang on your neck like your necklaces. Even when you see them older they can act like a baby and they don't often have much respect for their parents. Here you raise your kids alone and it is very hard to educate them in our traditional ways. You try whatever you can to educate them for their future to have knowledge, to have a good life, to have a good job and to respect their parents and in fact, to respect all humans.

Children here never think how hard it is for their parents to raise them. They never say now it is our turn to take care of our parents, but they seem to always need help from parents. Even when you have a hard time raising them, they never respect you and they talk to you like you are a child and they are the parents. North American kids put the world first, their friends second and their parents third.

I think raising one child in Canada is harder than raising five kids in Chad. I think the life style is different. Kids in Chad put parents first, relatives second, then the world. They have more respect for parents and they never talk back to their parents. When they grow up, they always think about their parents and they ask how do we pay back our parents for the hard times in raising us? They never ask their mother to cook for them after they are ten years old. If there is no housekeeper or somebody can't afford a housekeeper, the children cook for the whole family. They don't expect the mother or father to do it for them.

It is very hard to raise kids anywhere you are. You try to do your best. It is my hope that my children raised in Canada will grow to be good, responsible and respectful people. I want them to appreciate the wonderful opportunities they have here, but also remember their traditional roots from back home.