Children in Ghana

How are children treated in Ghanaian culture? How is that different from the US? We learned that children in Ghanaian culture are kept close to their family. They are taught to obey without questioning. They all parent each other’s children, the idea of collective parenting where adults will tell any child what to do or what they should be doing. And tell other parents what to do with their kids. Our professor, Stacey, told us a story about when she was in Ghana with her son, he had run ahead of her to jump in a puddle, a man passing scolded him and told the boy that he should be back with his mother. I found this very interesting. In the US it is not accepted to tell people what to do with their children or tell children what to do if the parent is present or sometimes not present unless you are a teacher or coach or other person put in a position of authority over the child. Even within families in American culture you could be chastised for telling a niece or nephew what to do if their parent is there. This idea of collective parenting seems to me to be a difference of a fundamental cultural value. We believe in giving children opportunities to explore and to experience the world (within a safe distance from the parent) while in Ghanaian culture it seems that children are told what to do and not do. I’m tempted to compare it to the way my parents were raised in the 50’s. During that era children were given much stricter rules and sometimes harsher punishments for disobedience. Children at that time also had more freedom then a lot of kids in America today because it was safe for them to ride their bikes to the local store or walk to school. I will be curious to see if children’s treatment reminds me of how my parents described their childhood. It will also be interesting to see how this works into our mission of understanding disability culture in Ghana.