Online Reporter
Fadzayi Maposah
Correspondent
My maternal grandmother, Mbuya VaMaSibanda, had three daughters — Maiguru Phoebe, my mother Mavis and Mainini Mercy.
These are also known as Maiguru Mai Shelly, sadly she is late, Mai Fadzi (remember that I am the first child!) and Mainini Mai Sithembile.
I never met my grandfather, but my mother speaks very fondly of him. Their home is in Rockford, Shurugwi.
My paternal grandmother, Mbuya VaMaMoyo, had five children — Bamukuru Kefasi, Aunt Rebecca, my father Grayson, my Aunt Joyce and Uncle Sly Benson.
Bamukuru Kefasi was also known as Bamukuru vekuMufakose (he had a house in Mufakose, Maiguru and the family still stay there).
Sadly, he is late. Then Rebeccca was Mai Molly, she is late. My father, Baba Fadzi ( first child vibes again!) was the third child, and he too is late, then Tete Joyce (also known as Tete Mai Mercy) while SB is Babamunini Teacher (he was a teacher for many years).
As a child, I thought he was Bamunini Ticha, short for Tichaona! It took me some time to join the dots and that it was his profession that we referred to. I have some ideas about my parents’, uncles’ and aunts’ names.
At times, I think they renamed themselves and got rid of their original names. Forgive me for thinking that way. I sometimes wonder how they got such names. This is because I look at the years that they were born.
I am amazed that between my two grandmothers, eight children were born. I hear of some women who were in their childbearing age at the same time as my grandmothers who had many children. One once shared that her grandmother had 12 children, and someone shared that her grandmother had 13 children, who all lived to ripe ages, and she was able to interact with her aunts and uncles and had the opportunity to arrange them according to their birth numbers. These were extraordinary women.
My paternal grandmother was an adolescent mother, something she told us all the time and that she had been taken to the Maposah family in exchange for her family’s upkeep. She always told me that my grandfather was old and had the means, and because her family saw that she could be well taken care off, they had married her off.
Mbuya VaMaMoyo with a distant look in her eyes, told me that she never had to choose a spouse, and if her family had not been poor, she could have had the luxury of doing so.
The things that we take for granted, are luxuries and pleasures others wish for. She was married off to a man way older than her, who had other wives. She was widowed young after bearing five children. She could have had more children if my grandfather had not died.
I try and think about how my maternal grandmother had to deal with issues that she had only girls at a time when some people thought a male child was important to carry on the family lineage.
I salute my grandfather, the man that I never knew, because I have come to realise as I get older that in some instances when things seem to be abnormal, it is the males that can normalise the situation by standing up for the affected females. Sadly, in some instances, it is females against females.
My mother’s uncle was blessed with many sons, and they are wonderful uncles to us. The two brothers were there for each other, understanding that while one did not have sons biologically, they could share the ones the other had. It is a challenge at times explaining to some people now that like Mbuya VaMaSibanda, I have three daughters.
Some people ask why I did not try to have more children so that maybe, emphasis on maybe, I would have had a son. These people think that it is like playing a game of snakes and ladders, and one gets to throw a dice. This is life and it is lived and experienced in real time.
The total fertility rate (TFR) is on the decline in Zimbabwe. Total fertility rate is defined as the average number of children a woman would have had by the end of her child-bearing years if she bore children at the current age-specific fertility rates.
Currently in Zimbabwe, the TFR is at 3,9 children per woman, according to the Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS) 2023-2024. There has been a decline from 1994 when it was 4,3. The ZDHS reports that rural women have 1,5 more children on average than urban women, 4,6 versus 3,1 children.
Mashonaland Central Province has the highest TFR at 4,7 while Bulawayo Province has the lowest at 2,7.
Now figures may not be your best friend. What these figures are telling us and I am sure you have seen or heard it for yourself; people tend to have less children now as opposed to what used to prevail years ago. There are many reasons for this. While there is still unmet need for contraception in Zimbabwe, generally there has been an increase in the number of women and couples who opt for contraception.
Women are empowered to take care of their health and have the choice to decide when to have children and what method to use as contraception.
Couples have realised that it is not about having many children (quantity), rather it is about improving the quality of life that their children have. Couples should be able to balance child bearing and actually having time to live their lives.
It should never be society that determines when and how many children one should have. Neither should there be a push to have more children because one gender is absent. Think about what you take for granted!
