As kids, you’d just appear at someone’s door around lunchtime and somehow there was always food. No one asked what was being served. Someone’s mother would call us in, we’d eat whatever was on the table and then head straight back outside.
It didn’t occur to any of us to wonder whose house it was or whether they could afford to feed five extra children. That question simply didn’t exist yet.
While I was in varsity, I had an interesting chat with a friend who grew up in the city. He was from a different background and wanted to understand what it was like growing up in a village.
He wanted to know how tough… how terrible, life must’ve been in a place with little to no modern convenience:
- No real technology.
- No malls nearby.
- And where “everyone was poor.”
All the things he claimed he “just couldn’t stand” about village life.
I suppose his idea of kids in the village was based on those UN campaigns about Africa –Tummies big as bathtubs, massive heads, sad eyes, nibbling on flies. Yikes!
He never confirmed this, of course, but it wasn’t hard to tell. And honestly, I didn’t blame him.
I’d like to think he asked because he didn’t know. And that made it my job to explain – not take offence.
And I didn’t.
In fact, I found his (unintentionally) patronising questions quite funny. This was my mate, after all. No need to get worked up.
Why did I find it funny?
Because none of his so-called justifiable concerns ever crossed our minds growing up.
As kids, we just played. We didn’t care who had what.
I’d even say most kids, no matter where they grow up, don’t care who’s rich or poor. They just want to play.
I think one mistake people make – especially those who didn’t grow up in places where most people are ‘poor’ – is assuming that poverty means unhappiness. They imagine that all people think about is what they don’t have. But I’d even argue that, in many ways, people in these areas are happier because of how united they are.
We kicked the same ball, climbed the same trees, swam in the same rivers.
Maybe we were too young to notice, but we never thought of ourselves as “poor” – not the way my friend did.
We didn’t know or care about technology. And malls? That was a dream. Our nearest town was about 35 minutes away – on a gravel road – and it didn’t even have a mall.
If you see cows and donkeys in town, trust me, that town doesn’t have a mall.
The truth is: it’s very hard to convince a kid that they’re suffering – unless you compare them to someone from a “better” background. And even then, I’d argue that kids aren’t wired that way. Not yet, anyway.
Most people I know who come from so-called negative backgrounds actually had happy childhoods.
Sure, they didn’t have everything that the kid from Camps Bay had (of course not), but they didn’t feel like they were missing out on anything either.
Not even a little.
That changes in your teens – when you switch schools or meet kids from different social classes. But that awareness usually comes later.
My point is: sometimes “suffering” is taught.
It’s introduced through comparison. Through someone else’s lens.
And once that happens, people start believing they had it bad – when in fact, they had perfectly good lives.
Yes, your childhood wasn’t the same as the kid whose family owns a wine farm and holidays in Switzerland. But that doesn’t mean your childhood was any less happy. Come on!
This mindset is dangerous – especially for people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds – because happiness is all relative.
And it’s dangerous not for anyone else, but for you.
For believing a version of your story that disempowers you, when the truth is, you had a good childhood.
So, when did you decide your childhood was sad?
That mindset – rewriting a joyful past as something tragic – doesn’t only show up in conversations. It’s all over the media we consume.
This is partly why I can’t stand most of our black movies.
Just to be clear: I’m not saying all black movies are bad. But the dominant story is usually the same – always suffering, always struggle.
Think about the stories we often see in black media:
If it’s not drugs and gangs, it’s broken families.
If it’s not broken families, it’s another struggle hero biopic.
And honestly, I’m not a fan of that term either – “struggle heroes.”
Martin Luther King… Nelson Mandela… yeah, we know the drill.
And yes, I know things have changed. Black Panther, etc. But that’s all fiction.
Are we saying there are no real-life black or marginalised heroes outside of “the struggle”?
No tech innovators? No kasi entrepreneurs? No creative geniuses?
Of course there are! So why don’t we tell those stories too?
And I don’t even mean in movies necessarily. I mean in everyday conversations.
Stories young people can look up to. Stories that make them believe they’re allowed to dream big.
Look, I believe in honouring our struggle heroes. Their sacrifice gave us dignity. That’s powerful. And those stories absolutely deserve to be told, especially to young people from marginalised communities.
But I still struggle with how suffering has become a badge of honour.
Even people who had fairly normal, happy lives now feel the need to lean into pain they never experienced.
Why?
What’s the prize for winning the Oppression Olympics?
And this isn’t just a “black thing,” by the way – although I do see it the most in my own community.
Founders do it all the time:
“I was homeless for four months and slept in my car.”
Okay… but you had a car.
Where I come from, people would laugh at you for calling yourself poor while owning a car. It’s not to mock anyone’s story, but it’s strange how suffering has become a kind of credibility.
Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe it’s a marketing tactic. A way to connect.
And I’m not knocking it – it clearly works. People raise serious money off those stories.
But still… it’s a little weird.
I’m not saying all this from a place of knowing better. For all I know, I may have done this too. Maybe even without realising it.
Still, joy isn’t a weakness.
It’s not something we need to bury just to seem more “authentic.”
So instead of rewriting our joy just to fit a narrative of struggle, maybe we should protect it.
Maybe we should proudly say, “I had a good childhood and that’s enough.”
Joy is enough.
© Phumzile