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When parents are raising children they would want them to be responsible adults who will be able to take care of themselves one day.
Is it not a joy visiting your child at his/her home and watch them turning into full adults who can pay their rent, bills, food, etc.
However, each and every home has conditions on how their children start life outside the family home. Some families prefer to stay with their children when they have finished school and working because they can help with the family upkeep; — bills, food and so forth.
An elderly widowed woman, whom I spoke to, agreed with her two children not to move out of the family home as it was going to be difficult for them to pay bills for their homes and then pay for hers.
In such situations it is advisable that parents and children compromise because being a family means being there for each other.
This arrangement worked well for everyone but when one of the children got promoted at work she decided to move out and got her own place and she is still looking after her mother.
The son is also doing well and recently got married and the mother is scared that he will leave the family home to start a new life with his wife.
I asked her whether she thinks her son will not look after her when he leaves home.
But this was now the least of her worries as her children had put provisions in place for her to get money every month from the cottages that they have built for her.
Her worry now is that of being lonely and she would want them to stay.
She understands that she does not have control on what the two will decide to do and she is only grateful for what her children have done for her.
Yes, loneliness has dire effects on old people and measures have to be put in place so that they do not suffer depression from this cause.
For the old lady having people living in her backyard in the cottages is not the same as having her son and daughter-in-law.
She said: “Zvirinani pamba hapazobva pati zii, asi vanhu vane hupenyu hwavo hazvizoda kuti uti mangwana mangwana ndauya kuzotandara.” (Although having people around in the cottages is better than not having anyone at all but it is not the same as having my son and daughter-in-law in the house).
There are parents who are not in the same situation as the old lady but are doing relatively well.
They have not be affected by their children moving out financially and emotionally. But they have certain conditions on who moves out and who does not.
Usually it is when they get married and they are moving in with their spouse, or they get married staying with parents then move out later. Some prefer leaving their parents’ homes as bachelors and find it fulfilling being alone.
However, a number of parents allow their sons to move out but not their daughters. Young professional women have written to me complaining that their parents have made it difficult for them to move out of their family homes to start their own lives as bachelors/spinsters.
Tambudzai Madzimure, a media consultant based in Johannesburg, explains that school of thought: “By pushing the boys out, parents are trying to force some sense of order and responsibility. He must be a man, get a job, learn to pay rent and all that is associated with one living on their own before he has a family. The idea is that when he gets married, he already would have a system in place and will manage well.
“On the other hand, parents want to continue to protect girls. On her own she becomes vulnerable and is unprotected. Traditionally, if you were still staying nevabereki (parents) there was a sense yehunhu (good manners) associated with it; whereas it’s assumed a person wants to move out so that they have their freedom to do whatever they like, more like they want to live without rules.”
A young woman did well at school and holds a master’s degree in communication. She got herself a good paying job but does not subscribe to this theory.
She is not happy about how her parents have not allowed her to move out of the family home to start her own life and yet her brother did so without any problems.
She narrates her story: “I did my first degree outside the country and got a job. I went on to do my master’s degree while I was working. Is that not being a responsible person? I then decided to come back home and I stayed with my parents but now that I want to move out they are finding it difficult to let me go and yet my brother is living on his own.”
She said her parents associated women who moved out of their parents’ homes to stay alone as women who would be difficult to marry because of too much independence. The parents are also afraid that if she were to live alone she would bring different men to her house.
Even when she tried to reason with them that she had spent years alone in South Africa they could not take it.
They would argue that then she was out of the country, away from home and now she is home and it is different. According to her, some of what her parents say is:  “Hapana mwana musikana anobuda mumba muno asina kuroorwa, nekuti anozoita nzenza” (No daughter of ours will leave home before they get married because she will be of loose morals).
But the young woman also argues that if she wanted to be of loose morals, she could have done so when she was  studying and working in South Africa.
On the other hand, parents of a young independent woman who has moved out of the family home to start life on her own would like to disagree with parents who think they can keep their daughters under lock and key.
When their daughter completed her degree and started working for a financial institution, she registered her wish to her parents to move out of the family home into a flat and start life on her own.
At first they did not support the idea and asked why their daughter wanted to leave the family home.
She told them that she wanted to buy her own property, learn to pay her own bills and eventually buy her own house. The parents discussed this issue and saw that what their daughter was saying made a lot of sense; she wanted to be an independent, responsible young woman.
They allowed her to fulfil her wish although they felt she was still too young.
They still saw her as their baby.
They wondered how this baby of theirs was going to make it alone.
But she surprised them.
They would visit her almost every day to check on how she was managing out of pure concern and to their surprise she was settling in very well. They are happy they helped her fulfil her wish.
Although they were a little bit sceptical when she left home, deep down they had confidence in her because they gave her a good grounding when she was growing up and taught her to be a responsible person.
They have words for those parents who think by keeping their daughters on a leash they will turn them into responsible people.
In fact, it might turn them into worst cheats because they might end up assuming a double persona — that of wanting to please their parents and at the same doing what they really want to do, behind their parents.
The father advised and warned those parents to instil discipline in their children.
He said: “Chavasingazive vabereki ivava ndechekuti pamwe vave nemakore vachigara na-Biggy Man, vachitomubikira nekumuwachira, pawanoenda kubasa achitosara zvake achiisa makumbo patafura. Kana aroorwa musikana iyeye ndizvo zvaanenge achingoita nekuti anenge angodyaira zvekubirira.” (What these parents do not know is that they might have been leaving with Biggy Man for years, feeding him, doing his laundry, and when they are at work he actually relax and put his feet on their table).
What will happen is that when this daughter of theirs gets married she might continue with her cheating ways because she would be used to that kind of life.
(Biggy Man is a song which talks about how a girl is appealing to his father and brothers not to beat up her boyfriend — Big Man — as she is the one who let her in maybe through the window).
A young woman Charity Rumbidzai Hodzi, who also studied law in South Africa for four years, does not understand why parents find it difficult to let their daughters stay alone and yet they would have spent years alone in a foreign country.
She argues that women who move out of their parents’ homes before getting married do not just become independent and responsible but buying their own property creates in them a sense of ownership.
“What most women are lacking is having the sense of ownership, they are only able to own something when they get married, that is if they will be able to?”
She also feels that daughters who can only leave their parents’ home only after getting married feel the pressure to get married and end up with a wrong guy simply because they want to exercise their “freedom”.
Charity is now customarily married but she did not feel any pressure to get married so that she could be allowed to move out of her parents’ home.
Sometimes at parents’ homes children can be brewed with all kinds of marital expectations.
“I do have respect for society but sometimes the pressure on young women to marry is just too much and you feel it more when you are at home.
“Living on my own gave me a sense of finding out who I truly was and what I really wanted out of life.
“I got married to Peter because I felt it was time for us to do so and I knew I was ready and it was not because of social pressures.”
Charity hence advises parents to trust their daughters and help them become independent and responsible women after all, that is what the proverbial wife does.
She also goes on to say: “My in-laws, whom I love and respect very much, have been very supportive in our relationship.”
“My mother-in-law is a strong woman and she always pushes for me to bring out my true colours and not pretend to be something I am not. My mother is equally strong and proud of me.
“She taught me a thing or two about the true epitome of independence.
“My father has also always tried his best to push for views that support women’s independence.
“Staying on my own taught me that I am a complete individual. I ran away from the old notion of society where a woman is made to feel incomplete when she is own her own and complete when she finds a husband.
“My husband is there to complement my efforts.”
I spoke to her fiancé, Peter Sibanda, and he said he is happy that he married an independent woman like Charity and he does not feel threatened by that because he knows who she is and she does not fake.
Peter says: “One thing I love about her is the fighting spirit that she has and the ability to stand on her own two feet. She is self-reliant and she is very confident about herself and self-assured, traits that I believe were built even more on the fact that she has been on her own for years now.”
According to Peter, it is love and mutual respect for each that counts the most.
Peter and Charity are now busy preparing for their wedding and they have the full support of their parents and relatives .
A number of young men that I have spoken to about marrying an independent woman who leaves alone were divided on the issue, some saying they would prefer a woman who lives with their parents as she will be well looked after, but some agreed with parents who warned other parents that they might be leaving with Biggy Man. These ones therefore prefer independent women because they say, “What you see is want you get”.
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