Old age in most African traditional and contemporary society is regarded as a blessing and elderly persons are highly respected. In the traditional set up, elders are often looked after by their daughters in law or grandchildren. The reason most elders are looked after by their daughters in law is that it is believed the home belongs to the son so elderly parents have all the right to live in their sons’ homes. Due to modern trends, where females are also bread winners, daughters are now looking after elderly parents as long as they have a loving and understanding well cultured son in law.

Elderly roles may include physically caring for grandchildren or simply offering moral guidance at communal gatherings such as weddings, funerals and during land disputes or after childbirth. In our modern society, we still pay attention to traditional medical care and we rely on the wisdom from our elders who know traditional plants and trees for different ailments. Older persons play important roles of preserving cultural values, transit knowledge and skills, dissolve conflicts and disagreements and educate the young.

Due to modernization, daughters in law who should have looked after the elderly are working class thereby leaving the task to their home helpers and most people now want their elders to simply stay at farms. Most homeowners do not know their villages except village names which are written on their national registration cards and only know the names of their chiefs without knowing how the roads that lead to their villages look like. Modern society is eroding the traditional support networks in caring for elderly persons.

Culturally, our African tradition encourages the elderly to spend their sunset days with their loved ones. The concept of old people’s home is a foreign one which most Africans have not fully embraced. Modern education, occupation and income has become the sole focus of most people that they are disregarding the elderly and their needs. Most elderly people are left to stay at farms in the outskirts of towns and usually just stay with farm workers. Our health care system has only recently improved to allow us to be able to pay for health insurance for the elderly. Most people in the highly densely populated compounds barely afford health care insurance and therefore cannot afford paying for their elderly.

In our Zambian Bemba society, we have a saying, “mayo impampa na ine nka ku papa” which translates as; mother carry me on your back and I will carry you on my back some day. This means, just as parents take care of us as children, it is our task to look after the elderly later on in life. Sadly, some people do not appreciate the elderly, this could be a daughter in-law refusing to look after her in-laws or a son in-law refusing to stay in the same house as his in-laws. And in the past, the more children one had, the more chances of being well looked after in their old age. The task of looking after elderly parents was the job of a first-born son and if one had no sons, the mantle was given to a daughter. In the traditional setting, roles and relationships were very clear, well understood and passed on from generation to generation. In this era of HIV/AIDS, we sometimes find roles being exchanged whereby elderly parents are looking after sick children especially those who are unable to access good medical care. Most people when they are unwell, expect their elderly parents to nurse them in hospitals or at home as these are in retirement and will have the time to do the nursing. Being terminally ill was once referred to as back to mama because it meant only a mother can tolerate one’s terminal illness.

It is saddening to note the excuses people give over failing to look after the elderly. One will simply say your parents are too moody, demanding or simply intolerable. Others will say, I want my space, forgetting that as a baby, you first took nine months space in your mother’s womb, thereafter, took years of being carried on the back of your mother and by being fed on the laps for more than two years.

If you have an in-law who cannot have a meal without vegetables, is that really a bad thing? If you have an in-law who constantly wants to scrub your bathtub and pots, is that a bad thing? If you have an in-law who constantly pressures you into having a garden or insists you keep some village chickens, is that a bad thing?

It is sad to note that we appreciate our spouses and address them as sugar, honey, babe, bestie, sweetheart or darling but cannot appreciate the person or persons who made it possible for you to have and appreciate that “sweetheart or bestie.” In the Lozi culture, a well-cultured child is called “Mwanazwezwi” and this is a child who follows tradition and has respect for parents. Mwanazwezwi will take care of his/her elderly parents and ensure they enjoy the last sunsets on this earth by ensuring the parents never lack. He/she will spend time talking and visiting the parents if they do not stay together. He/she will endeavor to bring their parents nearer so that loneliness or boredom does not affect the elderly parents. He/she will also ensure the elderly are taken to meet their peers who might be relatives for friends from church.

It is sad to note that some people tend to accuse the elderly of witchcraft and worse if that elderly person who never had any biological children or who has lost to death, all their children, such a one is likely to be doomed and shunned by nieces and nephews. To those who have a tendency of accusing the elderly of witchcraft and of bewitching their grandchildren, one can wonder why their elderly parent did not finish their own children when they were toddlers and most vulnerable or maybe there is an unwritten rule which says witches may only bewitch their grandkids.

People must realise that parents go through a lot to raise children to adulthood. It is our obligation to take care of the elderly by giving them a loving and safe environment and ensuring they are surrounded by their loved ones and not dumping our parents at the farm to spend their last sunsets with farm workers. To spouses who have a tendency of denying looking after elderly in-laws, never put your spouse in a situation where they must choose between marriage and their parents, it often does not end well. We must also realise that we are growing old and one day, we will be the elderly in our society and as the saying goes, what goes around comes around. Would we want someone to dump us at a farm to simply chat and look at workers instead of being around loved ones?

Seek help when in need, visit a counsellor near you!

About the author

Aka Monde, is a licensed Professional Counsellor who holds a Master of Science in Counselling from the University of Zambia. She believes in the adage “a problem shared, is a problem half solved.” Speak to your pastor, church elder, elderly family member or see a professional counsellor when in need.

Email: [email protected]