Somali Mothers
First of all somali mothers go through many hardships in raising their children. The overwhelming majority of them are first generation immigrants/refugees and they have probably seen brutal wars in their lifetime. However, they also for the most part neglect their children, whether intentionally or unitentionally e.g. not taking any interest in their son's/daughter's schoolwork. The main issue here is the language barrier; where the mother cannot speak a word of her country of residence's language or barely speaks it.
Another issue is, they have far too many kids to look after so they cannot divide their time equally for each child. This could be due to, a lack of support from her 'husband'. Nevertheless, they also do so much for their children.
Somali Fathers
Where to start, somali fathers could be blamed for the majority of relationship breakdowns with their children, although it isn't always the case. The main problem with them is that most of them seem to have a 'balwad' (bad habit) which is the cause of these breakdowns. Examples of these balwads are: khat, cigarettes - which are the obvious ones; friends; and women. The first few are the obvious choices and I guess you can all quite make out why they could cause family problems. Next is friends, you might think how is this a balwad, well, there are some men who value their friendships greater than their role as a father and a husband e.g. instead of interacting with their children, when they are off work, they spend their time 'chilling' with their friends, probably playing cards or just hanging outside coffee shops/somali restaurants*. As for last one, women, again you might think how is this a balwad, well my reasoning is that these are men who neglect their responsibilities as a husband and more importantly as a father by chasing after younger women e.g. there is this family I know that their parents recently divorced and since then their father has cut off ties with them and suprisingly before then he was a good father who worked full-time and actually took interest in his childrens school activities. But that is all no use now since he moved back to somalia and they only hear from him every now and again.
* For those of you whole live in London, you kind understand this point if you live in an area with a high concentration of Somalis i.e. Harlesden, Wembley, Southall etc.
BTW guys don't mind my ramblings, I just thought I should vent my frustations on the already problamtic people known as 'Somalis'
Also I wouldn't mind reading your thoughts on this topic.
