Africa, the only continent where children becomes ATM machines automatically.

We have talked so much on the issues of marriage and its purpose, Overpopulation, abortion, Street Children, infant mortality, religious roles in our societies, Homosexual rights and freedoms. Am sure every one of us has divergent opinions on the above mentioned issues. Am passionate about them all and I have at one point addressed them on this blog, my face book page or through main stream media houses. I have also participated in live debates about the mentioned issues. I must proudly say, that despite of all the great isolation am facing from my family, society and community where I live, I am not going to bow down on religious manipulation, blackmail and intimidation. My enemies also branded me as gay but that’s still fine provided anyone doesn’t intentionally try to end my life violently.

Am about to hit the middle of my lifespan and I have no children.  Am not married either. Several people, are asking me many questions about why am not married, why I have no kids. Some people even go ahead and advise me that, even if am not married, it should be advisable to have at least a kid. It’s true there are worries expressed in the voices of these people while talking to me. Old and young, women and men, girls and boys all try to tell me to have a kid even if am not married. But WHY?

What is it that they fear? Ask no more, these people are superstitious and their brains are infected by God viruses that incapacitated them to reason. Some people have told me that they are creating children because they were too created by somebody, so they must procreate. Others do create kids because it’s their religious call to create children. Religions need more people to manipulate and exploit. That’s nice to note but do our world need over-populated Nations today with slums overtaking our city neighborhoods?  Do we really need more people when what used to be protected wetlands and forests are rapidly disappearing?

Long ago and throughout several centuries to year 2000, Africa had deadly challenges from poverty, famine, slavery, wars and diseases like malaria, measles, and whooping cough, Tetanus, names it all. Until year 2000, Africa remained the only place where most diseases get their start in life. The continent acted as a kind of development academy for virulent infections. They used to practice wiping out entire community before venturing out to the rest of the World. Even old favorites like anthrax and smallpox eradicated everywhere else in the World but kept coming back and claim lives in African Nations.

Most of the above deadly disease targeted children. There were no vaccinations and healthy facilities to treat them. This laid a foundation for African families to create more children with hope that if one deadly disease strikes a family, it will claim some children and some will remain. Families used to send these children on battles, with hope that some will be killed in the war and some will remain. In others ways, Children were seen as the source of wealthy and strong families. This kind of nonsense fueled families to expand and grow bigger up to between 20 children to 100 or more.

Thankfully, we now have vaccinations and Children are no longer dying like they used too, but the fertility rate remains high across Africa, resulting in overpopulation.  Hence, we are seeing more street children on our cities than ever before and they surely need our support.  Instead of us creating our own kids, we should adopt them and give them a good and healthy home. We also have new emerging technologies that can be used to fight any war without sending human resource to battle frontlines of any conflict.

Uganda and African continent in general are already suffering from poverty, with malnourished children across its borders.  We need to achieve population stability as soon as possible. We must all stand up and request Governments of Africa to enact population stabilisation policies that will limit families to create not more than 4 children per family unit. We must encourage our scientists to develop men’s reproductive pills. So that when one does not need a kid, he takes a pill to take a day.

As recently as two decades there was land for families to cultivate; today we have homeless people with no hope of ever owning even a smallest particle of land. There are an estimated 100 million children living in the streets in the world today. Who will be responsible for them if we all procreate?

People in Africa are superstitious and they connected this to their children too. When a man of my age died without creating a kid, his body wasn’t allowed to pass through the main door of his or family house, instead they formed a hole behind the house walls and made the childless body go through that hole and on to the graveyard.  This action created fear in younger men and women, as a result, they felt like creating kids was a role they must accomplish  to be appreciated and respected by society.

Childless people were treated as curses to both family and clans and their last funeral rites where not allowed to be celebrated according to normal customs and beliefs. Even today, this is still very common in African communities from Cape Town to Cairo and from Mombasa to Accra Ghana. That’s why everybody is worried about my not having children. They fear that no one will inherit me and that my body will be inhumanly treated if I happen to die without a kid of my own. To make things worse, if I happen to run for any public office now, no one will vote me.

All these fears in people made me ask myself the purpose of creating kids.  In today's state of overpopulation, is it even moral to have a child?  I have asked these questions of a number of people and a good number of them fear mostly three factors. No one will inherit my property if I have no kids; my property will be taken by other family and clan members.  No one will care for me when am ageing and most importantly, they fear for their bodies to be mistreated after death.  But do these ideas justify a family creating more than two children? Do these fears give a green light for a man to create ten kids and marry more than one woman?

I think its being myopic to think that when you create several kids, you have insured your old age security and that these children will take care of you. I know many families that created a good number of kids 30+ Children and now they live in destitution. Creating many children and you fail to provide good education and health won’t turn them into ATM machines for their parents when they grow up.  Instead they will be a burden to a Nation which cannot even manage on its own budget. I agree that, children can be your security, but that happens only when you have invested in them as well.

I lose nothing if I die and a stranger take possession of whatever I have, and surely I gain nothing if my biological child inherits me and take possession of whatever I have. I lose nothing if people create a hole in my house wall and pass my dead body through. -- I will be dead. I will not know that. And even if I get to know it, it doesn’t create any impact on me be it positive or negative. Just stop demanding me to create children.  Am contented with life exclusive of children and this is not something that can create sleepless nights for me.