FamilyVineAsp

4d ago 2 min read

I Raised Children While I Was Still a Child

I started raising my siblings when I was in Grade 5. At an age when most children were worrying about homework and playing with friends, I was learning how to make baby bottles, change nappies and comfort crying children. If there was no milk, I would make tea for the baby. If there were no pampers, I would improvise with pieces of cloth. I was still a child myself, but somehow I always had to find a way. Every morning, I would take my younger siblings to crèche before going to primary school because my mother had already left for work. When school ended, I would return home to hungry children and responsibilities waiting for me. I had to cook, clean, feed them and make sure they were okay. Looking back now, I realise that I was forced to grow up long before I was ready. I carried responsibilities that should never have belonged to a Grade 5 child. Even now, as an adult, it still hasn’t ended. Once you start working, the expectations continue. You must send money home because your siblings need food, clothes, school supplies and help with everyday life. The role never really stops. It simply changes. What hurts the most is when people tell me, “You don’t know what it’s like to be a parent. You were only a guardian.” But I was a parent. I cooked meals, cleaned the house, changed nappies, prepared bottles, picked children up after school, made sure they ate and slept, and shared a bed with them when they were scared. I did things that children should never have been responsible for. I didn’t just watch over my siblings — I raised them. Sometimes I wonder whether I truly do not want children of my own, or whether a part of me feels that I have already spent a lifetime raising children. I love my siblings deeply and I would do it all again for them, but there is also a quiet sadness inside me. Sometimes I wish someone had remembered that I was a child too, and that I also needed care, protection and the chance to simply be young. That is the part of the story people rarely see — the child who became a parent before ever getting the chance to just be a child. 💔