The Crimson of African Parenting draws its rich historical heritage from the inception of mankind over 300,000 years ago.

African Parenting is a combine influence of the historical, cultural, social, and religious factors that has weaved itself into the fabric of Africanism and therefore becoming not just our way of Life, but used to train, teach, and nurture children in Africa. Although not necessarily practiced in all parts of Africa, this practice has gained popularity as an inevitable common experience and widely practiced pneumonia in most part of the continent.

As a decent of rich African background, the experiences of some values, morals, methods of discipline, nurturing, training, care, and support that flows from our fathers and their forefathers before them are very distinctive from other races and tribes of the

world. The characteristics of this way of life arguably has been attributed to the development of important life skills, emotional, mental, and psychological toughness, therefore building a stoic fortitude of values and characters amongst African offspring.

African parenting is as dire as Africanism itself, it’s an inclusive part of the culture and character development amongst Africans. The culture of communism with one’s family and tribe keeps the heritage and history of the entire family alive as it spreads across generations from fathers to sons and mothers to daughters. Parenting as a whole plays a very significant role in enhancing and developing the emotional, social, and psychological relationship between children and the entire world. In fact, the first teachers and role model a child acquires from birth are their parents. Therefore, any behavior or character exhibited by the parents towards themselves, or their children will define their children characters as they grow.

However there have been an opened ended debate as to the ills, trauma, pains, and problems African parenting has bestowed on Her offspring and decent. While some have argued that the practice builds the best character and attitude required for a child at a young age, others believe that the strict approach and unending expression of tough love has scarred and left blemish on African children. This has caused for uprising amongst the social populace, raising their voices in way of opening up and enlightening the public through threads and social media platforms about the negative effects of this way of life and method of bringing up young ones.

Parenting in Africa is sometimes an extremely difficult task as the parents are publicly held responsible and easily blamed for the actions of all their children no matter how hard the parents may have tried to raise their children in a right manner. This is because having children is a thing of pride in African societies, but the proper raising of "society approved" children is a thing of honor and brings respect to the family and its members. The Consequences of this is the endless need, pressure, and pursuit for strict adherence to societal and cultural approved behaviors and way of life amongst African offspring.

For Instance, there is a strict cultural demands for younger ones to respect elderly ones in all circumstances, and a common notion of "never wrong parents, as against always wrong children", also is the indoctrination of all members of the family and sometimes community in almost all affairs of the children and their upbringing, the constant bragging about these young ones whenever they make the family proud but very quick to disassociate when labelled a bad child.

African Parenting exhibits an unrealistic path to marriage or companionship, which is just like that of a child that never crawled but started running from birth. This is interesting because most African Parents and societies find it immoral and devaluing for a young person to be in a relationship of any sort with the opposite gender or even worse cohabit. However, they will at a certain age begin to pressure and make demands that you get married and leave their house as if all that should be done in a day. African Parenting demands that a child pays great attention to the body languages, signs, and even eye contact of their parents and elders, and if for any reason whatsoever the child misunderstands or does not pay attention to a particular body language or eye contact such a child might be punished depending on the gravity and frequency of such misunderstanding or lack of understanding as the case maybe.

African Parenting forbids the calling of elders by their first name, even those that are not family members, which is common in the Western Countries. Here such elders are addressed as Uncle, Aunty, Sir, or Ma as the case maybe.

The Culture of canning and punishment is sometimes regarded as the backbone of traditional African Parenting, even though this approach, towards the upbringing of children in the continent has over the years proven to be a commendable one, as it has

achieved a considerable degree of success in bringing forth self-reliant, morally strong, and courageous offspring. Even school teachers are allowed to cane or punish the pupils and students whenever they are reported to have gone against the rules or

guidelines of such school or institution. However, same has been condemned by a great deal of people and even other countries that have put laws and sanctions in place to stop the use of corporal punishment in any form against children.

The diary of a child suffering from the ills of African Parenting is most times largely unwritten, and if expunged can suitably pass for a horror movie . The unbearable level of disassociation, lack of emotional and psychological care and accountability from the parent towards their offspring sometimes sends a strong expression of lack of love and verisimilitude of hatred, so much that children begin to dread the presence and company of their parents. Most African kids cannot hold fluent social and emotion interactions with their parent dues to this fear. You always hear a child raised by African Parents making statements like "my parent will kill me", "If I go home, I am dead", sometimes these statement are not just comments but the exact expression of how the child feels his parent can react or act in that situation. A child will put him/her self in harms way or perform the most deluding tasks just cause of the fear and trauma the child has suffered due to the actions of his/her own parents towards them. In African societies, the rate of suicide and attempted suicide amongst toddles, minors and children in general is on a high rise and this can be traced back to some actions, inactions and decisions of African parent towards their children. In August 2023, Vanguard reported the news of a 14 years old Desola Adeoye, who committed suicide by drinking insecticide due to the threats of corporal punishment by her father, which was later discovered to be physical abuse. One would even wish it was a horror movie but unfortunately it was not, imagine what Desola must have gone through physically, psychological, mentally and worse the magnitude of fear she had against her father that caused her to take her own life. Vehemently, in attempt to instill discipline and respect in their children, African parents end up causing fear, hatred, spite, anger, arrogance and inhumanness without even knowing

As earlier stated, in African parenting there is usually very high-level hostile parenting popularly known as "Tough Love" this is more common amongst fathers and sometimes mothers. The practice of this tough loves involves the showing of love, care, and affection for a child through difficult or abnormal means which could sometimes cause such children to not feel loved. Sometimes tough love can be described in situations where a parent provides everything his/her child needs except emotional care. Such a parent would give money as a solution for any problem the child faces even though that problem may require some certain level of closeness from the parent and therefore neglecting the regulation of emotions and behaviors of the child which is a very important role in parenting. This approach has failed in the long run, as studies has shown that sensitive parenting with young children provides and promote emotionally and psychologically healthy climate and conditions for them, increases their confidence and establishes a high level of self-initiation in social and non-social activities. A typical example was expressed in the happenings of a video that went viral on X social media platform (formerly called Twitter) were a young girl was terribly abused and called all sorts of names by her father because she requested for an iPhone 8 as her birthday gift without yet entering the university. This caused for a spark amongst individuals and their reactions revealed that so many children have been abused and maltreated in different ways because of this so called tough love and African Parenting. Although there seemed to be a lot of happenings that resulted in the outburst of the parent that could be blamed on the past and present actions of the child, it was also evidential that the parent mismanaged the situation and became abusive, and this was perceived to be a regular happening amongst African Parents.

This sort of experiences are usually worse for children with step parents, they are maltreated in disguise of discipline and upbringing. A step-mother will send her stepchild for errands that she would rather not send her biological daughter to run.

In Africa, the calling of police on parents by their children is not in practice as against the Western Countries, where children are allowed to call the cops on their parents. In most African societies this practice is seen to be very disrespectful and insulting, and any child that tends to do such is regarded as highly indiscipline and wayward. But on second thought and a closer view at some of the gruesome acts and violence perpetuated against children by their own parents and relatives in the name of discipline and for upbringing sake such as in Desola's case , one would strongly believe that such a child should be able to call the police to arrest her parent or such relative without seen as being disrespectful or indiscipline by the society, maybe if this was the case in Africa, Desola would still be alive.

Moreover, It has also been a topic for debating that African Parenting values favoritism of children mostly that of the male as against the female gender and this is where most parent especially the mothers tend to treat their sons like kings, and they can do no wrong but hold their daughter to contempt for the littlest wrong they do. This is also established where there is a big celebration organized in the family when a male child is born as against that of a female child, mostly if such child is their first child. Some feminists even believe Gender Inequality is deeply rooted in the fabrics of African Parenting, and this practice has for many years fueled the culture of male superiority over females.

African Parents most times treats their kids without respect and dignity, they train them like they are some military personnel, parents would give orders that must be strictly obeyed without sufficient reasoning and explanations for their actions or the order they give their children. Some African parent even restrict their children from watching cartoons, Tv shows, movies etc., thereby leaving their children at a disadvantage, as these tv shows help educate children, increase their sense of humor, vocabularies and even diction. Whereas the control of screen time and monitoring of the type of Tv shows these children watch would be the best approach in preserving the moral high ground of these children until they are grown enough to easily understand what is good and bad and can make their own choices with an idea of the desirable consequences thereof. Unhealthy comparison of children is also a problematic, degrading, and demoralizing act practiced by a lot of African parents. The "if John can do it, why couldn't you do it?", another very popular statement in this sphere is "the person that took first position in the class, does he/she have two heads?", and this unhealthy comparison and competition sometimes result in mental break down, increases level of anxiety, chronic depression, stress and lack of confidence in one’s self amongst others.

Generally, the ideal results or consequence of African parenting is to raise good, well- behaved, respectable, and morally upright children that can be seen as role models and proud Africans in their day to day lives. But can one say this has been the case in

African societies? Specifically, it can be argued on both sides, while some children have grown up to be beacons and well appreciated figures in their behaviors and conducts, others have grown to cause major issues in the society resulting from the behavioral abnormality caused by the raising of children in such manner. It is a popular African Proverb "that you can lead a horse to the river, but you cannot force it to drink". This in most cases apply to some children that are adamant and choose not to learn or be respectful and governed by the hierarchy of African cultural or moral system. Also, some of these African parenting techniques tend to cause more harm than good. For instance, where a child is being frequently beaten, canned and given all kinds of corporal punishment, such a child may get used to the pains afflicted on him by his parent and turn out to be so harden and unrepentant of his bad and evil deeds, this can even breed a harden criminal into the society.

However, the general behavioral perspective of Africans mostly those who go through this type of upbringings as against others sometimes differs. Their behaviors while in public places, queues, traffic lights, road usage and signs, and general behaviors towards public and private properties, sometimes does not reflex the true intention of the African parenting as against the behaviors of western countries and their cultures and upbringing. This therefore questions the institution and culture of child upbringing and nurturing prescribed through the African Parenting practice in the development and characterization of children in our modern-day era.

Nevertheless, the culture, values, morals, historical antecedents, unionism, and communism expressed through Africanism has over the years been fostered by the unique approach of Africans towards the raising and nurturing of their offspring and

children. Although they are a lot of negative, uncultured, and sometimes inhumane acts and practices that African parenting bestows on its children, leading to terrible consequences and therefore amounting to other problems in the society, the practice

calls for adequate and salient reforms and re-evaluation but not a complete throwaway.