'Monster mothers' have their own crosses to bear

Middle-class South Africans love to talk about the poor. We have very clear ideas about poverty and how the poor should behave. They must not steal. They must not harass us by begging at street corners. They must not disturb the peace and tranquility of our lives by ringing our doorbells to ask for food or work. Those who do not wish to beg but choose to ply their "trade" as "parking assistants" or windscreen washers are a nuisance because they extort money from us. And the advice given to the poor is that "they must stop breeding"!

Residents of Macassar, where 36-year-old Petronella Mosterd had dumped her baby in the drain, were not subtle in their condemnation. They charged: "But she keeps having children, why does she open her legs if she cannot afford having kids?"

Mosterd and another mother, Babalwa Mkhosana, who is accused of chaining her young child to a bed while she went to work, were labelled "Monster Mothers" in a newspaper headline this week. The opening lines of the article were "Two of the Cape's worst mothers". Really, worst mothers? It would be interesting to know how the journalist arrived at that conclusion.

A look at Mkhosana's life using the scant details available in the media, could very well put her in line for Mother of the Year. She is 28 years old and recently lost her mother and a sibling to a violent crime in the Eastern Cape. She chose to take care of her orphaned niece while taking care of her other children, including the five-year-old who was tied to a bed.

Reports say it was late at night and she had to work night shift and so left the children alone but asked a neighbour to look in on them.

She lives in a shack and so I imagine that she is poor and does not have the luxury to negotiate, let alone choose the terms of her employment. Her critics say she put her work above her children and should have stayed at home and watched over them.

A child tied to a bed is unpalatable but it is a prettier picture than a child dying of starvation. Just recently, four North West siblings died of hunger while looking for their grandmother, who had gone to search for food. She does not have an ID book and therefore cannot apply for a state pension. She must have just gone out to try her luck and with each door closing in her face, the hunger gnawed at the children's hungry stomachs. And they died.

Is it at all possible that Mkhosana was aching as she tied her child to the bed and left the little one? Is it hard to imagine her weeping as she made this difficult choice?

When faced with the prospect of leaving the children to wander by themselves, get kidnapped, possibly raped and murdered - as often happens in this country - is it that difficult to imagine that tying the elder of the two to the bed was, in her mind, the only option available?

During our radio debate on this, the female callers who were themselves mothers, sympathised with her. But the male listeners mainly thought she deserved to be locked up.

This solidarity among women says a lot about the inherent maternal instinct. There are some who cannot understand why she did not ask for help. I wonder about that myself but I know that for many South Africans, thereis no help. There was a male caller who suggested that she should have hired a nanny or taken the children to the daycare centre while she went to work. Yes, seriously!

Those who ask why poor people have children should look no further than themselves for answers. I doubt that every middle-class parent checks their bank balance first. Sometimes love, a desire to procreate, a fervent hope that the future will be better, are reasons to have children. The poor feel those emotions too.