How African-Americans and African Immigrants Differ

How African-Americans and African Immigrants Differ

Stop abandoning your children!

By Jacob Sax Conteh

As many Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora, especially in the United States, return home to settle down, many are doing so at the expense of their children and spouses whom they have abandoned to start new lives in Sierra Leone.  Many have gone to Sierra Leone, married new wives and start new lives without regard for their children who still live here in the states. This is not only immoral, but criminal and it needs to be addressed by both the government and private sector in Sierra Leone which hires Diaspora returnees.

Mention the word “children support” and a chill runs in the spines of many Sierra Leonean men who now reside in Sierra Leone.  Some of these men are government officials who simply walked out of their families to start new lives in Sierra Leone, leaving their spouses and children to suffer.  Some of the men owe thousands of dollars in back child support here in the United States which bans them from ever returning to this countrywithout risking arrest. If such men hold high government offices, they cannot travel to the United States to attend any meetings.  This can pose serious problems for the forward progress of the country.

Child support in America among Sierra Leoneans is a very thorny and raucous issue.   Some women use child support, an order that forces a child’s father to pay a certain percentage of their income every month to support their children, to ostracize their ex-husbands and punish them for their failed marriages.  Such women, who are few in number, often refuse to deal fairly with their ex-husbands and run to the court system which imposes the amount the spouse should pay every month.  Some men get so overwhelmed with these orders that they simply pack their bags and leave the country.  The reverse is also true.  There are some men who are so bent on revenge for losing their spouses that they take that revenge on their children and refuse to pay.  Both groups are wrong.

As Sierra Leone gets more acceptances in the international community, the problem of delinquent child support and other criminal acts have to be addressed.  No matter how bitter a man may be, he does not have the right to abandon his children, living those children to suffer here in the United States as they deal with the emotions of losing their parent while that man lives in Freetown with a new spouse.

This article is not meant to pass judgment on all the men now living in Sierra Leone who have outstanding child support in the United States.  It is a call to people in the Diaspora who have returned to Sierra Leone to never cut the links with their children, but to continue to support those children.  These children might be the ones to recue us in the future when things go wrong in our lives.

While cautioning the men, one also has to address the women.  For all the angry jealous women out there who threaten their husbands with child support if the men ever leave them, please realize that child support payment is not enough to raise a child.  Children need more than money to survive this intricate society.  Today, many Sierra Leonean teens languish in American jails and prisons because they never had a father figure to lead them to the right path.  With their dads gone back to Sierra Leone without direct communication, these children are left behind with emotional problems that lead to multiple behavioral problems.

For all you men out there who loathe child support, the solution is simple:  Either you never have kids, or take care of your kids before the matter ends in US courts.  I know several decent men who have walked out of their marriage homes, but still fully provide for their kids.  These are men of character, and they should be commended.

What baffles me is that if certain men cannot take financial responsibilities for their kids here in the United States whom they should love and cherish when they had the opportunity to do so, how can we trust them to run the affairs of our country in a transparent responsible way?

It is time for men in the Diaspora who are ready to pack up and return to Sierra Leone to take care of their children first.  They should never just pack up and leave without making proper arrangements for their children. 

Why I feel powerful as a parent

In a country where parents sometimes feel vulnerable and helpless as they deal with their teenage children, today I feel very powerful because I have in my hands a commodity which every American teenager will fight to get. It is my daughter’s driver’s license which a judge in Manassas, Virginia handed me and instructed me to give and take away from my daughter as I wish.


It was packed courtroom. Scores of us parents and our children – mostly teenagers - sat in rows of benches as a Virginia judge spoke for almost an hour. He first started by pointing out that the reason all of us parents were invited to the courtroom to receive our children’s licenses was because the Commonwealth of Virginia wanted us to exercise our discretion on when our children could drive. If they did not follow our instruction, we could take the license from them.

After an hour, the judge began to call the names. He would shake the teenager’s hand, congratulate them, and then hand the license over to mom or dad. After waiting for what seemed like eternity, I heard the judge call “Rosaline Musu Conteh.” My seventeen-year twelfth grader stood up and we both went to the judge. The judge shook her hands, congratulated her, but handed the license to me. I felt a surge of power come all over my body. Now I have a powerful tool in my hands.

It has been a long journey before we got to today’s hearing to get the license. As soon as she turned fifteen years and six month in June, 2008, Rosaline dragged me to Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to get her Learner’s Permit after passing the written test. After that, I spent the next year teaching her to drive and attend two very emotionally charged parent’s classes. In those classes, especially the final one, they showed us series of video clips about teen drivers who died in tragic car accidents. The goal was to see if parents still wanted their children to drive. At the end of the session, many of us teary-eyed parents hugged each other as we affirmed our commitment to allow our teenagers to drive.

After logging more than fifty hours of driving with Rosaline, and after she had taken a defensive driving class in her high school, Rosaline finally got a provisional driver’s license six months ago which allowed her to drive with only one teenager as passenger. Today’s license allows her to drive by herself provided she follows both the house rules and driving rules.

In his speech, the judge pointed out that the top most reasons teens get into accidents are emotional issues, talking on cell phones, and speed. He advised teens not to drive if they had emotional issues, and to turn their cell phones off once they got into their cars. He also informed them that a car was as dangerous as a loaded pistol, and could kill in an instant.

My next stop is the insurance company. With a new driver in the house, we need to add her to our policy, and that will cost a bunch of money. When my first child, Dona got her driver’s license four years ago, our insurance premium almost doubled. But with so many crazy schedules between my wife and I, I still believe it is worth the effort to have one more driver. And if she messes up, I will be glad to take the license and lock it in a safe place. Knowing how much my daughter likes to drive, I know she will follow the rules. Now I feel more powerful.

Not to Worry

The other day a friend called me from Alexandria, Virginia to report the sudden death of one of our friends who has worked very hard over the years to establish his own grocery store. One remarkable thing about our late friend was that he always had a smile in his face. He was very calm and never expressed any anger. Yet he died of a massive heart attack. He left behind his wife, his kids, his hummer and all the other things he had. As I think about his passing, my mind goes back to years ago when I lived in Africa. We did not have much, but we were always happy. The moon light brought us together to play. The radio connected us to the world. We had no bills. We got all our food fresh. If we needed to eat an orange, we did not go to the fridge, but simply plucked the fresh fruit from one of the trees at the back of our house and ate it. The same thing goes for other fruits. With all the woes that are plagueing Africa, the one thing that great continent has is a promise. A promise for a life of ease and abundance. That is why I am not worried. Because I always have the option to go to Africa and serve.