Experts Advocate Safe Motherhood, Responsive Fatherhood to Improve Child Well-being

Funmi Ogundare 

Stakeholders at the Strengthening Capacity for Research and Policy Engagement in Shifting Notions of Motherhood and Fatherhood for Improved Children’s Well-being in Africa (SCRPE-A), have called for safe motherhood and responsive fatherhood as key ingredients for the proper upbringing of children.

They also called for the eradication of child labour in our society.

They made this known at a conference themed,’ Parenting and Children Well-being in Nigeria: Dynamics, interventions and Agenda Action’, which had academics, non-governmental organisations, educators, researchers and students, organised in collaboration with the Department of History, University of Ibadan  and Women’s Research and Documentation Centre (WORDOC).

Some of the issues highlighted at the conference included the importance of education and tackling child labour, the impact of poverty and societal pressures on parenting, among others.

In his remarks, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Prof. Solomon Oyetade, described the conference on parenting and children’s wellbeing in Nigeria as an important area of consideration in the world today owing to the changing notions in parenting and child upbringing.

The upbringing of a child, he stated , is the collective responsibility of society, but has suffered a  setback due to high level of decadence in society and modernity.

Head of the Department of History, Prof. Rasheed Olaniyi called for the eradication of child labour in society, while attributing  some challenges facing children in society to bad parenting.

He however, enjoined the political elites to address socioeconomic problems confronting the nation as this will reduce the economic burden on parents who engage their children in hawking and other forms of street trading when they were supposed to be in school.

The programme witnessed the presentation of a report titled: ‘Parenting and Children Well-being in Nigeria: Dynamics, interventions and Agenda Action’ by the two conveners of the conference, Dr. Mutiat Oladejo, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History, University of Ibadan and Dr. Sharon Omotoso who is a Senior Research Fellow (Gender/Media Studies) at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan.

Speaking with journalists on the Policy report, Dr. Oladejo highlighted some of the challenges facing motherhood in society which she said have placed the burden of child parenting strictly on mothers while neglecting the important role of fatherhood as an integral component in child upbringing.

“We have been on this project since 2021 and our advocacy is to improve children’s well-being and ensure proper child upbringing irrespective of whether you are father or mother.

“Notion of motherhood is usually entangled in the problem of women discrimination, biases against women in the society as there is too much burden on being a mother while fatherhood is relegated to only financial support to mother, thereby neglecting the aspect of social, psychological and moral support to the mother.”