Parenting and Education:

Parenting is one of the most rewarding, exciting and fulfilling experiences in one’s life time. Parenting is also a hard job.  Ben Horowitz in his book, ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’, stated that the hard thing about hard things is that there is no easy answer. There is no easy answer for questions related to raising children. For my parents, who raised nine children, I can now imagine how life was difficult for them.

Yesterday, I was a keynote speaker at Restore Whitehall. My talk was on parenting and education.  I shared my childhood experience and parenting experience to graduates of parenting classes.

It was a great honor to be a keynote speaker at Restore Whitehall and share my experience. I thank Dr. Edwards and the Restore Whitehall Crew for giving me this opportunity to say a few words about parenting and education. Here is a brief excerpt of my speech.

Parenting is a very rewarding and the most important job in the entire world for anyone irrespective of race, gender, region and religion. It is also the most challenging part of our family life. Parenting without education is an uphill battle.

I grew up in a family of nine. I believe that was a daunting task particularly for my mother. My older siblings had the responsibility to take care of younger ones.

It was hard for my parents to raise 9 children. All the children were working part time and going to school, at the same time. I was raised by my brother who adopted me and took me from Jigjiga to the capital city, Addis Ababa.

I was far behind in my education compared to other children of my age. My brother played the role of a tutor and gave me tutorials in reading, math and writing. He helped me to catch up with the rest of the students. To acknowledge the great job he did for me, I wrote a bilingual (English/Amharic) book entitled “Little Brother” to dedicate it to him. The book has been translated into other Ethiopian languages.

Restore Whitehall has been a pioneer in helping parents and students in Whitehall. I truly believe in the role of education in changing the lives of children.

Since my wife gave birth to our child, I have been heavily involved in the life of our daughter, Abigail. One of the things I did was to keep record of what my daughter did since her infancy.

I wrote eight pictorial booklets to journalize her life experience in her first 10 years of her life. Every time I see these booklets, they remind me how raising a child is not an easy task. I am very grateful for my parents who raised me and my siblings with meagre resources.

The morale of the story is as a responsible parent your children come first.  Focus on your children and their education.