The children of war

An ode to Sierra Leonean parents.

They say when a Targaryen is born the god’s flip a coin. Will the child be mad or great?

When a Sierra Leonean child is born the god’s also flip a coin. Will the parents be bad or worse?

I am yet to come across genuinely mentally stable children from Sierra Leone. Free from trauma and parental folly that in the UK would be seen as egregious and abusive.

I should caveat. This blog post relates to children of “casual encounters only” children of divorced parents actually have a reasonably safe life.

Sierra Leonean parents aren’t just bad, they are fucking awful. I got parents on the relatively good end of the scale for Sierra Leoneans and yet still when compared to my European counterparts (who yes I know you will never fully know everyone’s business) my trials were…a lot.

 The crux of the parenting problems are as follows.

1.      The culture forbids and shames premarital sex.

2.      Everyone is having premarital sex like its 1999

3.      A child comes out of this union.

4.      The result is either forced marriage or children being abandoned by one or both living parents and made to live like orphans.

5.      The parents then go and marry someone else.

6.      They then get half siblings and mutual resentment grows. Neither side is happy with the attention levels they received.

7.      History then repeats itself.

It is well known in my family lore that my maternal great grandmother had 3 surviving kids by 3 men (my grandfather’s twin brother died in infancy) the only man she did not marry was my great grandfather. As a result, she shipped my grandfather off to be raised by his father so she could get married again, thus securing a new life for herself and her other son. The result was a little boy who was deprived of his mother because she chose status and financial security for herself and his older brother rather than him. To spell it out for you, this was a grown woman who made a series of stupid decisions for which she suffered only temporary consequences, meanwhile her son suffered permanent consequences. He grew up hard without a woman’s tenderness. So “King” Kyinde Grosvenor became a tyrant because no one showed him any gentleness. Had 2 kids out of wedlock before meeting my grandmother, marrying her, not his previous paramours then had 6 kids (2 sets of twins) with her. We also know that it messed up badly my eldest Aunt Claudia (his first child) who intensely disliked sharing her father with not 1 but 7 new siblings via 2 other mothers. When brought to live with her precious father, she terrorised him, punishing him for having children with 2 other women and went on to bring wrath and destruction on herself, having 2 children out of wedlock, doing exactly the same as her grandmother Camelia before her and shipping them off to their various fathers before hitting rock bottom, joining the miliary and eventually getting her life together. She got married, had 2 other children and only then did she try and repair her relationship with her first 2 kids.

What we forget is that the damage one selfish act can bring is like a boulder down the hill. It takes generations to resolve. Children from broken homes go onto break homes, not due to wickedness, but due to pain and unresolved trauma and because they don’t know any better. Which is why I get particularly pissed when people who come from stable homes join in the fray

It is 2022, we’ve all seen children from broken homes suffer needlessly so we can’t say we didn’t know. We do know and now anyone who willingly puts their child through that hell of an unstable unsafe life is just plain wicked.  

They have seen the value of a stable home and wish to rob their own children of it. To quote the Yanks. “Y’all are evil” I do not use that word lightly. To rob a child of stability because you don’t value it is like not valuing your neighbours house because you don’t live there and burning it down. You can’t say you didn’t know burning someone else’s house down was bad. Nor can you say that there are no consequences for you. The ash will find its way to your home and the smoke will damage your possessions…And the police will come for you. Actions have consequences. Don’t rob others just because you have low standards. Raise your standards.

Another bit of Smith Family lore. This time from my dad’s side. My grandmother was Annette Smith and she married Julius Coffee, she had 8 children, only 3 survived to maturity. My grandfather, Julius Coffee died when my dad was 3 as a result my father and his sisters didn’t grow up with their father. The result was utter chaos. All 3 had kids before marriage. All 3 regretted it deeply only 2 of them went on to marry other people, even though the Coffee family are famed in Gloucester village for their dark skin and fine features and the 3rd my aunt Pricilla died incredibly bitter. My dad lived and died with his regrets for 45 years after the original act was done. It literally killed him, the stress and the shame of the sons he had before he was ready to marry and as a result raised in an utterly dysfunctional way.

 If I told you the downright weird way that children born of unmarried parents get raised in Sierra Leone, you would wonder how any of them manage to function in society. Some lucky ones end up with grandmothers, some others grow up in the same village as their fathers and only see their fathers at church and aren’t allowed to interact with them because the man married someone else. Some split siblings between parents so that the children grow up without their siblings and one parent. But this is utterly fluid, so all 3 scenarios may happen to one child. No forethought is given as to how the child will be raised, they are just passed from hand to hand to hand. A bargaining chip, a card to play, but hell no not a person.

All this is known. What I have never understood for the life of me is why the children of war always want peace, whereas the children of peace always want war. This war is the struggle and strife of a hard family life.

A new revelation within the family was finally passed down to me… I have a secret cousin… who is now no longer secret aged 30+. Enough said.

The fucking wickedness that is so commonplace within West African families has long been recorded. But in my earlier paragraph I said the children of peace always want war. Why is it those who were born to 2 parent families are always so keen on robbing their children of their birth right? If you don’t want to get married don’t have sex. Why is a woman good enough to put a child into but not to marry? Why do people think that way round? The more permanent thing first? It boggles me. I have long said I have had major issues stemming from a lack of safety in childhood. As a result, I get really triggered when people casually fuck up other people’s lives like its nothing. Why the hell would you have a kid and then ship them off to another country? (Sin of the mother) Why would you, when you married another man then have the kid shipped off to their grandmother to live as an orphan when they had both parents living? (Sins of the mother) why would you wait 30+ years to introduce the child to the family? (Sin of the father?) why would you not take ownership of your child, instead content to have them live as an orphan when you were raised by 2 parents? (Sins of the father)

There is so much wrong with how things are done because the principal concern is the parents not the child. The child is the inconvenience that the parents had, often used as a bargaining tool when procuring pity.

If your marriage isn’t strong enough to survive having a 5 year old who is completely innocent and didn’t ask to be born then your marriage deserves divorce. No (wo)man should ask you to split out an important part of you to save the marriage. And beware of those who do. If he/she can discard their own blood born child for a spouse, how easily will they discard you?

If you don’t want to have kids, don’t have sex. I know people call me asexual for this. I know I have been called cold and unfeeling due to my own limited and horrendous sexual history, but this is the universal truth. I don’t have kids at the moment and the reason is the fact that I am not married. I know what a good father means, and I will not rob my own children of their birth right. I know I wasn’t meant to carry this burden alone. My children deserve their father. Their mother and their father will be lovingly married not because society says so but because children are meant to come from a loving married union where the entire family is protected. Because stable married families give the child the best chance of success and life is hard enough.

If you have a child and you don’t get married, then you need to devote yourself to the upbringing of that child, your blood.

If you have a child and you do get married you must balance being a good spouse with devoting yourself to the upbringing of the child, your blood.

Any questions?

Land that I loved my Sierra Leone is home to the most welcoming and laid back people you will ever meet. But people are laid back to the point of disfunction.

The reason why governments around the world give incentives to married women is because study after study have proved time and time again what everyone has known for generations.

Marriage (when done well) is a universal good. Children born out of stable married households outperform other household types by far. Stability matters.

If you dislike marriage, it is because you have seen examples of bad marriages, and human wickedness. I know, I have seen bad marriages too. I still believe it does good when done well.

Women have much to gain from the stability that marriage brings, however much to lose also. We on average, lose 2 years of life when married vs our non married counterparts. Meanwhile married men gain 2 years of life. Again, stability matters.

I personally find people who are so casual about robbing an unborn child of their birth right to stability and a 2 parent family downright evil. You are selfish beyond comprehension because you had that and you are choosing for someone else less than what you were given.

You are dicing with trauma and “trusting” in your “exceptional” abilities as a parent. Honey, you aren’t special.

My solution? We need to start taxing motherfuckers. You want to have a kid outside marriage? Cool! We add 5% to your tax rate for each child. Your only way out is marriage until the youngest child is 25.  So if you had 3 kids outside marriage and you earn £30,000 your basic rate of tax in the UK is 35% not 20%. Oh and you still need to pay child support. This is to recompense the government for the black hole your choice has made.

Also, ladies, we need to start paternity testing kids. No more cheating, no more falsely hitting up the richest of your lovers and telling him he is the father of your child knowing he isn’t. To quote Kayne West

“18 years, 18 years and on her 18th birthday he found out it wasn’t his”

 No more of that nonsense. No paternity test, no child benefit. The state wants to correctly identify the father and lay at his feet his responsibilities. (Unless it’s a rape and she doesn’t want to name him e.g. gang rape)

Also. Can we please sit down and talk about the fact that Mamma Mia the ABBA Musical is about a woman who has a sexually deviant mother? 3 men in 2 weeks? Honey, you have a problem.

In almost every other choice we make with negative externalities there is a tax involved so I’m not being unreasonable.

You want to smoke? Cool, there’s a tax on that.

Alcohol? Also a tax.

Sugar? Also a tax.

Flights? A tax.

So why should indiscriminate sex be an exception?

Why are we allowing people to use their genitals to hold society to ransom? You are not Ramesses the Great so you don’t need 100 children. Nor are you great so you can’t afford 100 children.

If you are eligible for free school meals in England, as children of disadvantaged homes often are, the government pays an extra £1,345 per pupil per year. All I’m asking for is a tax on the parents to recoup the costs.

·        Children of broken homes are more likely to experience mental health issues. The Government has to pay for their care and treatment.

·        They are more likely to encounter the criminal justice system.

·        They are more likely to be abused.

·        Some abuse substances to cope.

·        Children from married parents have better educational attainment i.e. better college and high school graduation rates than other types of families (American study)

·        Children raised by their biological parents are 20%-35% healthier than other family structure. We need to pay for the additional cost to the NHS

·        They find it harder (not impossible) to realise their full potential. A child who, if given stability of a loving 2 parent family could have been a University professor instead drops out as an undergrad. Their lifetime’s income is lower as a result.

They are scarred and scared by what could have been and what was.

 That’s not their fault. Someone has to pay for that. That person should be the parents. Both of them. I’m sick of society paying for other people’s choices when we know its hugely damaging. In exchange kids of broken families get free school meals and free education for life (I want that for everyone) the state provides 3 square meals per day for the entire household (it will traumatise a child if they eat but their parents don’t) We need to give these kids a leg up because their parents are kneecapping them.

If I have to pay, I get a say. So I say we start taxing motherfuckers. I’m done paying for your mistakes. Free love ain’t free when society has to pay for the medications to heal your children from the scars that your little tryst gave them or has to borrow money from the markets because your kid is the manager and not the CEO. Worst case scenario, we have to pay for the prisons we have to put your child in because you weren’t capable of raising them. That alone is £44,600 a year.

We need to stop accepting that people are going to be sexually irresponsible. What you allow you pay for.

If your prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that deals with risk perception) is not fully developed and you are having sex, you are mentally a child and therefore your partner is a sexual predator. I have said this in my post about “Should the legal age for sex be raised to 30”  as well as “mental paedophilia” If your partner is a sexual predator preying on someone not old enough to perceive risk and therefore give informed consent, that is statutory rape, which carries a life sentence. The statutory definition of consent in the UK is.

• Whether a complainant had the capacity (i.e. the age and understanding) to make a choice about whether or not to take part in the sexual activity at the time in question.

• Whether he or she was in a position to make that choice freely, and was not constrained in any way.

I therefore argue that a person whose prefrontal cortex is not fully developed has not got the capacity to correctly perceive risk to themselves of sexual harm and therefore is not capable of making the choice of whether or not to take part in sexual activity.

I also contend that they are not able to make the choice freely because society’s expectations of them are too high versus their brains development. I say that as someone who married and started having sex at 22. What we as a society are asking is for a toddler to do algebra and are angry when they fail.

 The consent of a 20 year old is not the same as the consent of a 40 year old.

In England, condoms are free. I can go to any major town or city, walk into a sexual health clinic and get free condoms. If you are too poor to buy condoms you are too poor to have a child. Let me repeat that for all those at the back.

“If you are too poor to buy condoms, you are too poor to have a child.”

Sex is not a right. Or at least vaginal sex isn’t. Do what you want with your other holes. I don’t have to pay for it (unless you do something stupid and end up in A&E) If condoms aren’t your thing, there are a whole host of contraceptives that are available that are also free in the UK. How can you get better than free? A child costs £200,000 from birth to 21. Meanwhile the pill is free? That’s saving £200,000.

Gents, if she lied about being on the pill you are still responsible for your own stupidity. Wrap up. Wrap up my man. Wrap up regardless. Only have unprotected sex when you intend to conceive.

As I have previously stated, the act of unprotected sex is not 1 choice but several. For all those who are new to my views I will break it down for you.

·        The decision to have sex is a choice. (unless it is a rape.)

·        The act of removing your clothes is a choice.

·        The act of sex without contraception is a choice.

 If one party intends to “dupe” the other and “trick” them into pregnancy it is immaterial. Both parties create a child so each party who doesn’t want a child should be using their own contraception. People lie, including your spouse.  Men who don’t want a baby/STI should use a condom. Women should always insist on condoms unless they are ready to conceive and should have a Long Acting Contraceptive/ natural cycle contraceptive to prevent pregnancy otherwise. Unprotected sex only conceives a child if both parties are unprotected. If one party is protected then the chances of a child are very low. Accidents happen.

How many rap stars, musicians and athletes form broken families the first thing they say when they accept an award “I’d like to dedicate this to my mum, I didn’t have a father growing up” Those are the ones that made it. The mother has made it. However, for every 1 Chris Brown (a known woman beater) you have 2 dozen who could have made it if they had the financial security or mental security that comes with a 2 parent family. Why are you so selfish?

If you came from a broken home I am not attacking you. I am however saying your parents behaved irresponsibly and we are all being made to pay for it. I’m asking to end that. I’m asking for them to pay for their actions including the negative externalities that they are more likely to wreak onto society (read my post on negative externalities) If you had exceptionally good parents even if you came from a broken home, lucky you. Others aren’t so lucky. Most people are average.

These kids are innocents, and its high time we started treating them as such. I’ve seen my goddaughters from a single parent household being expected to “grow up” way faster than a child with 2 parents would at that age. Sinfully fast. Abusively fast. They are children, robbing them of their childhood is theft and they don’t get that time back.

To all those having sex before marriage. Remember every person you have sex with is potentially your child’s other parent.

·        If you don’t know their middle name but you are inside them=dumb choice.

·        If you don’t know their temperament but you are having sex=dumb choice.

·        If you can’t vouch for the strength of their character yet you are naked in a room with them=dumb choice.

Any questions?

Grace and courage.

Annetta Mother Smith