Thursday 26 April 2012

IZIKHOTHANE : WHAT VALUES ARE PARENTS TEACHING THEIR CHILDREN?


Izikhothane: The 18 boys

“Izikhothane” are a group of young men who wear expensive clothing, consume a lot of alcohol and go partying. However, most of these boys do not even come from rich families but the amount of money that goes into a day’s outfit can feed their families for 3 months. Ukukhothana is now a popular culture in most of the townships in South Africa particularly in SOWETO the most popular in terms of history and it being one of the largest.

Sikhothane mom: cutting edge SABC 1
The woman you see in the picture is mother to two ‘sikhothane’ boys, she is unemployed and lives in a 4 room house that is not in good condition and there she is on national television bragging about how expensive their clothes are. My argument here is what values are parents teaching their children? This woman is also the one who gives her boys money to go buy alcohol worth R 5000.00. when I first saw this on television last year I was shocked and thought maybe after people have seen the documentary this madness would stop. But to my surprise, it didn’t stop infact it got worse. Now there are Izikhothane everywhere and I don’t think that it is a positive culture to adopt. Part of being a Sikhothane is to tear money, pour drinks at each other and with all the hungry people all those things can be put to good use.
I believe that we can change the world by changing the way people look at the world. If someone can actually teach these young men piositive values, they might just stop the madness and put that money they spend to good use. And I think our country should have parenting school to teach people how to raise positive people who can bring about positive change to the world one day.

23 comments:

  1. Well we can't blame parents, reason being that we as the youth we tend to forget where we come from, we end up teaming up with bad influencers who will force us to become threats towards our parents because i can tell you with no doubt that some of this so called izikhona are causing chaos when they want money from their parents.

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    1. children behave a certain way because parents have accepted that behaviour from them. I say it begins at home because these parents are the ones who buy these clothes for them.

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  2. You do have a point by saying that parents should be smart enough to say no to such irresponsibility, but then again Lucky is right by also saying that we can't put all the blame on the parents, as the youth we should know better, naturally. We're smarter than this, so let's stop fooling around and start using our brains.

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    1. Miss Alter, I get your point but not everyone can use their brains the right way, so parents must reinforce good values on their childrean. And not just parents but society as a whole like back in the good old days.

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  3. we can not blame the parents about such things because as the youth we sholud know better. parents are only trying to make their kids happy but sometimes you might find out that these boys force their parents to give them money

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    1. I believe in choice, you can never force someone to do something unless you have a gun on their head. These parents didn't teach their kids responsibility when they were still young, and now that they are young adults it is going to be hard hence they are used to having things their way.

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  4. I honestly say peer pressure plays a huge part... Parents are not the ones to be blamed for such behaviour. As the youth, I'm sure we all know that we have choices and they are the ones who chose to be izikhotane not the parents.

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    1. I agree with you on the peer pressure part, but from where I come from, if my mom says no it means no because I was taught to obey my parents at an early age and I grew up knowing that my parents know better and whatever they say, goes. If those kids were taught about the value of money, they wouldn't be wasting it the way they do.

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  5. Who is really to be blamed? Parents should be respected and must say "no" to their children if they have to. Teenagers are just taking advantage but I think if they were well-disciplined they would not demand such staff irregarless of being infuenced or peer pressure.

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    1. Thank you, that is precisely my point. If they were raised well, they would know better than to adopt such cultures.

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  6. These kids are really out of order,n yes parents should take the blame because they are the ones that should inforce values. But than again these kids also know where they come from and they should also consider where they want to be and if this lifestyke is going to take them there.

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    1. I like the last part "they should know where they want to go in life". most of them don't even care about school because they are so focused on their social status. what happens 5-10 years from now? or what if they lose their parents?

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  7. from where i come from which is soweto this kind of actions of burning clothes is a trend that parents are happy if they children are there because it shows that the community accepts

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    1. I get what you're saying, but that doesn't make it okay especially bacause in Soweto, there are a lot of people who suffer from poverty. We should be standing together to build our ciommunity, not accepting such things that actually destroy it.

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  8. well written blog i like and alot

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. I just wish we had more gentlemen like Steve Harvey in South Africa who will teach these boys positive values. What happened to dreaming?everyday I witness dreams fading in Soweto and I hope for change. My message is the same, if we change the way we look at things, we can change our lives for the better. We are no longer being oppressed by Apartheid but by our own ignorance

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  10. It's a disgrace, poor as we are, we still focus on materialistic things when we should use education as a tool to shape our lives! It's disturbing!

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    1. Well said Nic, I agree with you on that one.

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  11. if you've got it, flaunt it. If your folks can afford to get you whatever your heart desires, then let them. I see nothing wrong with bragging as long as you can keep it up and your peers don't try to reach up to your standards by getting into crime. Brag on, YOLO!

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    1. @Bird, you are not getting the point here, it is not the flaunting that we have a problem with but other thigs that come with the sikhothane culture like tearing of money and burning of clothes. And also keep in mind that most of these sikhothane boys are not from rich families.

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  12. What's actually wrong with the way these zikhothane kids decide to waste money? Is it perhaps because it is not appealing to most of you? And is it these kids' parents who are complaining or the media?

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  13. This is actually craziness and lake of education in those areas. yes there is nothing wrong about having an expensive taste when it comes to clothing, but burning new shoes and money..that crazy. if they were in sandton , i would have taken the shambrock and gave them a lesson. silly kids.

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