Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

          I remember when I was a little girl living in Virginia.  I lived in a middle class neighborhood that was filled with many different families of different backgrounds.  My best friend was Regina.  She lived down the hill.  She was a white family.  It never crossed my mind that we were different.  We were inseparable.  We spent countless nights in each other's homes and we loved each other.  One evening while playing outside of her house her older brother who isn't but a few years older than us spit in my face and called me a nigger.  I had no clue that what he did was racist. I knew that it was mean and wrong.  When I went home and told my parents they were furious.  They did not allow me to play with my best friend any more.  I was no longer allowed to go to her home and she was banned from my house.  My parents explained to me that what nigger was and why people use it.  They explained to me that some people hate black people because of the color of our skin.  That my friend's brother had been taught that kind of hate.  My mother explained to a tear filled 7 year old that I could not play with Regina any longer.  I could not imagine that the family I spent so much time with could hate me.  My feelings were shattered.  That halloween, my other friends and I set out to go trick or treating and several of the white families did not open their doors to us.  However, we watched them open for the white children.  Their hatred taught me a lesson.  It created a memory.  It birthed a bias.  It was a lesson that I hate that I learned so early.  It was an experience I wish I never had.  I always kept that experience in the back of my mind.  My mother always kept us in neighborhoods that were diverse and I had friends from many different backgrounds.  However, I always believed that the families of my white friends hated me.  I had a distrust of white people.  " Racial bias can be internalized as early as age 2. By age 12, many children become set in their beliefs"(Knopf, 2017).  As I matured, I chose to investigate this distrust and traced it back to these incidents from my childhood.  It makes me think about the impact that racism can have on children in our society.  I think about the impact that racism had on me as a child.  I have worked diligently to silence the distrust that the 7 year old Hope had created.  

         I find it compelling when I read about life in Africa.  Especially for the life of little girls in parts of Africa.  The African girl can find themselves at a crossroads between cultural norms that work against them and the demand to survive in the patriarchal war torn communities, which forces girls to enter a "formal work place" which also can include prostitution at a very early age.  This happens as a result of poverty amongst other things.  Girls tend to face severe challenges and difficulties at a very young age.  In addition, poverty in Africa represents a generational discrimination passed on from mother o daughter; and this long term impact of economic devastation is felt by a generation of children who have had little, or no education.  "While the situation varies from country to country and between rural and urban areas, overall 56% of the out-of-school children are girls" (Kuwonu, 2015).  This has greatly create an implication on the life of the female children and as females these girls are culturally socialized to be submissive from childhood.  
   
        The Universal Declaration of Human Rights came into place 67 years ago emphasizing a right to education.  Many African countries apply this movement to their male children and not the female.  Female children, long before they are adults have lived through numerous sufferings and burdened with many responsibilities.  While the African Charter on the Rights of Welfare of the child act discusses non-discrimination, societal practice continues to discriminate, harass and undermine the female children of this continent.  

    The breakdown of traditional customs that protected children and adolescents has given rise to these gender inequalities among the children and raising the number of child abuse events.  The increase in alcohol consumption among men and boys have furthered increased sexual violence and abuse where the female child mostly become victims, creating a scar in their lives and affecting their social lives and development.   53 countries in Africa have chosen to ratify the Charter on the Rights of Welfare of the Child Act in order to protect female children from being discriminated against and receive an education as well as punish those who inflict harm upon them.  "A Global Campaign for Education sponsored by the UK charity, Oxfam, previewed these remarks: “Schools should be free and safe for girls. This will ensure that girls have the opportunity to stay and learn in school up to primary completion and progress to secondary and tertiary levels"(Kuwonu, 2015).

References

Knopf, A. (2017). Talking to children about racial bias. Brown University Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter, 1-2.

Kuwonu, F. (2015, April). Millions of girls remain out of school. Retrieved from African Renewal: http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2015/millions-girls-remain-out-school